Magix / Asterisk integration 1

[ITDale]

Hope someone here can point me in the right direction.
As several others have mentioned I'm also a PBX newbie, more of a networking / data guy that ended up "owning" the phone system too.
I have 3 older Avaya systems; 2 are Magix R2 and 1 is a Legend (not sure of the revision off hand) These are in 3 separate buildings, have a 3 digit dialing plan and are all in hybrid / PBX mode. I know almost enough about managing them to be dangerous (much rather write VB or SQL any day than launch winSPM...)
Because these systems are aging and our needs are growing I need to do some upgrading but do not have a budget for an IP chassis. I want to at least try Asterisk to see if it is a fit for our needs but vendors I've approached have taken an "our way or highway" attitude and refuse to help. My current need for assistance is simply to configure an unused 100D card in one of the Magix chassis to communicate with a Digium TE110P in an Asterisk based PC. Initially I want to put my IT dept's 3 extensions on Asterisk for evaluation.
Any thoughts / Ideas appreciated
Dale

 

[kmefford]

FYI: There IS an Asterisk forum here...

http://tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=1536

 

[ITDale]

Hi Telecomboy
Tried your suggestion for NI1-custom today and Asterisk wouldn't start. I haven't been able to find that option documented anywhere, can you point me to a source? But; with the channels manually defined, direct cross-over cabling and switchtype at ni1 we at least went from a pulsing red on the Digium card (wiring fault I think) to solid red (channel config) to yellow. Asterisk still isn't seeing the channels but it is seeing something ....

From what I've been told, because there are 2 T1 cards in the Magix box the timing source is set at the chassis level and as I posted before, that source is external. Right now on Asterisk the timing is set pri_cpe.

Probably been lots of others that have gotten this far but it feels like progress to me. Any further thoughts on how to "go green"?
Dale

 

[Telecomboy]

I don't know if you have tried this yet, but I did have to change the "clocking" setting on the Merlin Legend I was working with. The options are either "local" or "loop". I think I had to set it to "loop" for the Pt. to Pt. DS1 Slot in order for the T1 to synch. I'm not positive on that though, it could have been "local" that brought it up, but I would try that.

Sys Program> Exit> Lines Trunks> More> Clocksych

The above was actually a test lab situation I programmed 2-weeks ago. I am going to be installing the real deal Legend/Asterisk solution next Tuesday morning so I will definitely post the results then if you can wait until then. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the test PBX until then.

 

[ITDale]

Thanks, I'll check that.
Can easily wait till Tuesday, been working on this on and off for almost 3 months now so a few more days won't hurt.
Good Luck!
Dale

 

[Telecomboy]

OK. Here is how we set-up the asterisk: After inserting the T1 module, under the set-up we selected PRI-CPE, then NI2 (tried both "old national NI1" and 5ESS and neither worked), Clock set to "Normal". Then, on the Legend-side, I had to change the clocksynch to "Local". The Asterisk is set-up to dial-out over the Legend and everything is working fine. Hopefully that helps.

 

[bobsalt]

awesome thread!
we want to switch over to a asterisk based system for our main office pbx. We use a Merlin Legend v10 right now.

Here's what we want to do.

Connect the legend to the asterisk box via t1 cards/modules.
setup the t1 as 24 extensions on the merlin side and pipe those over to the asterisk box. Then on the asterisk side, forward those ext to sip phones.

Will this work?

thanks!
bob

 

[Telecomboy]

Are you going to be using a 100DS1 module on the Merlin Legend for the integration?

 

[bobsalt]

I don't know, we haven't bought any t1 hardware yet.


looks like you can get those cards pretty cheap. Do they pair up with the digium card ok? And talking about digium, would a sagnoma card work better than digium t1's?

 

[Telecomboy]

We used the digium card for our installation. If you are connecting using a point to point T1 connection, you will need the appropriate T1 card for your Legend. Program the Legend as a PRI (as well as the Asterisk) because it will give you greater flexibilty for programming the dialplan table on the Legend.

 

[bobsalt]

did you use the 100DS1 on the legend side?

 

[bobsalt]

nevermind, im an idiot, i went back and read the posts again -lol

then I went and looked at our existing and we already have 2 100DS1 doing long distance and PRI. plus some ring generating cards for analog phones. We are using those paried up with a tdm400 and thats working great. Works great for 4 extensions. Now we want to take to the next step and play around with switching our long distance on the legend side through the asterisk box to some sip/iax proveder. Then use the other t1 to tie 24 more extensions into the asterisk box from the legacy system. I want to give our sales and IT department new sip phones with all the cool stuff you can do with asterisk and still maintain connectivity to the rest of the people on the legacy side.

whew, hope that made some sense -lol

so next step would be for us to get a couple of those digium TE110P's and play with it on the weekend.

next question, our legend doesn't have anymore expansion slots. where can I get another chassis for it so we can add a couple more cards?

thanks for all of your input!

 

[ITDale]

Finally got a chance to get back in the closet with my Magix chassis and Asterisk box. I maybe should repeat the Magix, maybe there are significant differences between Magix and Legend. It seems that there are 3 layers to the system setup; DS1, PRI and then B-channel group.

My DS1 settings are:
Type: PRI
FrameFormat: D4 (ESF is only other option)
Suppression: B8ZS
Signaling: CommonChannel (Robbed Bit is other option)
ClockSynch: Local
ChannelUnit: ForeignExchange (or Special)

Then PRI:
SwitchType: 4ESS (5ESS, DMS-250, DMS-100, DES-600E options)
** no national **
B channel group:
NetworkServ: set to callbycall now - lots of options that don't mean much to me.

Protocol timers ??? (help)

Is the Legend PRI setup that involved?
Still stuck on a solid red light that is reporting a yellow alarm on the Digium card.

AARRGGGGHHHHH
At least I'm getting more comfortable poking around the Magix with WinSPM.... Not so sure that's a good thing

 

[Telecomboy]

You want Frame Format of ESF not D4 on the Magix. Also, for switch type you want Legend-Network not 4ESS.

 

[Telecomboy]

Look under FAQS on this forum and it has a step-by-step guide to setting up a PRI on the Merlin Legend/Magix if you are questioning some of your programming. The difference is, you will be choosing switch type Legend Network which will also allow you to program the UDP table on the Legend for the Asterisk extensions.

 

[SYQUEST]

Just do some searching on this forum on the subject of PRI ISDN, and you will find lots of reading and help, including the FAQs.

The Legend or Magix Planning Guide may be helpful in providing some organization to the PRI info you need to program the switch.

PRI ISDN always requires ESF (Extended Superframe) for the framing format and B8ZS for the line code. The line code using B8ZS, is what allows the 64k channel capability.

....JIM....

 

[bobsalt]

not sure if you found this yet or not, but as soon as we get teh parts we are goign to use it as a starting off guide (along with a legend programmer)

http://www.voipinfo.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+and+Avaya+Merlin+Legend+Integration

 

[ITDale]

I read the last post, followed the link, and wanted to scream!
As many times as I've been on the voip-info site and various forums and articles I'd never stumbled on that one that made the process seem cut and dried. So I tried it... and still have an ailing D channel...

One thing I am a little confused by in their write up is the clocksync setting. They give instructions on going to the clocksync > tertiary screen but don't indicate whether to set it to loop or local.

I printed out the complete configuration report for the chassis I'm fighting with here's what I have for clock sync:

A T1/PRI/BRI Clock Synchronization:
A Primary Secondary Tertiary
A 5/0 Local

Does that mean that the card in slot 5 (/0 means?) is set for Secondary - local with no primary or tertiary signaling?
That is the only reference to clocksync in the entire report and so far changing it hasn't caused the other Merlin-PBX PRI to go down. I don't have a telco clocksync signal on this chassis to work with like the voip-info document "assumes"; unless it is being carried through the merlin-pbx PRI coming in from another office.

Thanks for all the comments so far; I'm tired... :>)

 

[Telecomboy]

Did you change the primary clock synch to "local" for the pt. to pt. T1 slot? That is what I had to do prior to the T1 coming up.

 

[ITDale]

The final straw.....
I had followed some guidance in an article and wired up a double female jack as a T1 cross-over. I had also tried a couple of different combinations based on seeing confusing recommendations about some systems reversing T/R polarity for certain cross-overs. Had my usual vendor out again yesterday and just asked him to take another look. He though the connection looked good but I asked him to try one of his cables "just to see" (he didn't leave with it ....)

Moral of my story for anyone else trying something like this ? Check the cables; and if it doesn't work -- check 'em again -- and again.

Thanks for all the help, WE'RE UP !!

 

[stroyer74]

WOW - what a difference 6 months makes. I haven't done any searching on Merlin / Asterisk integration for a while, but it looks like people are making it happen. That's very exciting.

I, like many others, have been looking to do this too. Are any of you service techs local to the Chicago area? I'm about 2.5 hrs east of Chicago and would like to find someone that I can contract that is semi-local that has had experience marrying Merlin & Asterisk. Anyone like that in this forum?

Thanks,
Sheldon