From SIPfoundry sipXecs IP PBX, The Open Source SIP PBX for Linux - Calivia

Using the Fedora Live CD for sipX

Introduction

Important note: For instructions on how to use the sipX 3.6 LiveCD go here.

NEW LiveCD with the following improvements:

Now based on sipX 3.7.6 (development release)
Now offers a graphical user interface based on the XFCE4 Linux desktop
Now automaticaly allows the installation of a sipX high-availability system

Note: The sipX LiveCD can be used on any PC or laptop system. Configure your system BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM and re-start your system. The sipX LiveCD will not write anything to your harddisk. You can therefore easily try the sipX system using this CD on an existing system. Once you are done remove the CD and boot your PC or laptop normally.

The sipX Live CD is most suitable for quick demos or experiments with sipX and not for production systems. As you would expect with a Live CD, the entire read / write file system is in RAM, including the sipX configuration database as well as all the voicemail messages the sytem might receive. As you turn off the machine all data will be lost, unless you take a backup using the backup mechanism provided by the sipX Config Server.

As an optional configuration option the Live CD based sipX system offers to run additional system services on the same host. Such services include DHCP, DNS, as well as NTP servers. The configuration of these system services is automated using a configuration wizard that starts automatically as you login as root after boot. These services are otimized to run a sipX system. In particular the DHCP server is meant to configure phones and the DNS server is setup to offer SIP DNS SRV resource records.

Note: If there already is another DHCP server running on the subnet, operation of your network can go down if a second DHCP server comes online. Before you enable this option make sure no other DHCP server is on the subnet.

Fedora Core Live CDs are not yet part of the Fedora distributions and therefore the technology used to create them is not quite mature. The page Creating a Fedora Core 5 Live CD for sipX using Kadischi describes how we created the sipX Live CD using FC5.

Hardware Requirements

The Live CD is made for standard Intel / AMD based systems (P4, Core Duo or equivalent) with a minimum of 1GB of RAM. The Live CD is not made for VIA CPUs (C3 or C7). Other limitations might show up as we have not yet been able to test with a large number of systems. The Fedora Live CD technology (Kadischi) is still under rapid development and might not take into account all the different aspects of the wide array of possible HW.

The Live CD has been successfully run on laptop computers. It enables and uses the Ethernet network interface and no attempt has been made to use the wireless network interface instead.

As you would expect from a Live CD, it runs exclusively from CD-ROM and in RAM and it does not touch your hard disk.

The LiveCD uses the Linux kernel 2.6.15. If you have very new hardware not all the necessary drivers might be included with that kernel. We are planning to update to the 2.6.19 kernel once it becomes part of the Fedora distribution.

Obtaining and Burning the Live CD Image

Release 3.6 and development build 3.7.3: Download the CD from the old sipXpbx repository here.

Release 3.8: Download the CD from the new sipXecs repository

Stable and beta releases: http://sipxecs.sipfoundry.org/pub/sipXecs/ISO
Development builds: http://sipxecs.sipfoundry.org/temp/sipXecs/ISO

Note: Make sure you download the LiveCD and not the installation CD. The installation CD will format your disk.

Starting the Live CD

Prerequisites

Any computer that fulfills the hardware requirements will do. Before you start decide whether you want to run sipX in a self-sufficient setup including DHCP/DNS/NTP network services on the sipX host or whether you want to use another (possibly already existing) host to provide such services.

If using DHCP and DNS services on another host, make sure you know the required network parameters to run on this subnet. sipX requires a fixed IP address and its hostname needs to resolve in DNS before you can start sipX.

It is possible to just boot the Live CD on a host that is not connected to a network. This updated version of the LiveCD will automatically start a Linux desktop environment that offers a Firefox Web browser. This browser can be used to configure sipX through its Configuration Server.

Alternatively, the Live CD can be used to setup a simple autonomous demo system that consists of a network hub or switch, a host to run the sipX Live CD, a few phones, and optionally some gateways. No Internet connection is required. This demo system is fully functional and allows you to demonstrate all aspects of a sipX system.

Booting the Live CD

The downloaded ISO image needs to be burnt to a CD. Alternatively, you can use VMware, Xen or some other virtualization technology that allows you to directly mount and boot from an ISO image on harddisk.

At the splash screen hit Enter to start the installation.

Running the sipX Configuration Wizard

At the login prompt login as user root. The password is pingtel.

The installation Wizard offers to configure either a single server (non-HA) system or a redundant system that consists of a master and slave. The following describes these two installation options:

1. Configuring a non-redundant single server sipX system

The configuration wizard starts automatically after login. On the second screen it asks whether you want an HA system or non-HA system. Choose the non-HA option.

On the third screen it asks whether to install DHCP / DNS / NTP servers on the host. Make sure you pick the right option.

The following screenshots were taken running the LiveCD in a VMware virtual machine. Create a new VM without HD and bind the ISO image of the LiveCD to the CD drive, then start it. Starting the configuration wizard and selection of whether a DNS / DHCP / NTP server should be configured and started on the system:

Entering network and administrative settings (If you did not select DNS / DHCP services to be installed on this host, this screen will also ask you to provide an IP address for one or two DNS servers to be used):

Selecting a time zone (Note: Once you selected a continent you cannot get back to that screen unless you restart the CD):

Configuring the DNS Domain for sipX. The settings shown here corresponds to using SIP DNS SRV resource records configured for this machine. This is the case if using the on-board DNS server. If an external DNS server is used make sure SIP DNS SRV records are configured. If you do not want to use SRV records configure the fully qualified host name of your system here. The next screen shows entries required to generate a self-signed certificate required by sipXconfig:

Set the correct time. This is required so that the self-signed certificate can be generated with a valid time stamp. If this system is connected to the Internet, NTP will adjust to the accurate time once started. If not connected to the Internet this will be the system time:

The Wizard has now collected all the necessary data and will perform system configuration. You can monitor progress on the screen. If the system is not connected to a network it might take a while until the attempted synchronization with an external time server times out. Once completed the wizard automatically launches the XFCE4 Linux desktop and starts sipX. You should wait about 1 minute to let all the processes start.

Starting Firefox

The Firefox browser can be started from the XFCE4 desktop by clicking on the "world" icon in the task bar at the bottom (third icon from the left). It defaults to the start page for the sipX configuration server.

Both FTP and TFTP services are available on the system for phones to pickup profiles. In addition, profiles can be loaded using HTTP from the docroot directory (e.g. for Snom phones).

2. Configuring a redundant dual server sipX system (Master and Slave)

sipX offers full redundancy of the call control system. The installation Wizard is able to automatically install and configure a redundant system that consists of 2 servers. However, the sipX system is capable of running with more than 2 redundant systems although that still requires manual setup. A redundant system is centrally managed by one instance of the sipX configuration server running on the Master.

Configuring the Master Server

Installing and configuring a redundant systems starts with setting up the Master. This is very similar to the steps taken to install and configura a non-redundant system (see above). The following steps are added: Select the HA-System option and choose to install a Master server.

The installaiton Wizard requires you to enter networking parameters for both the Master and Slave servers. This information is required to properly configure the HA setup.

Configuring the Slave Server

The Slave server offers redundant call control while it is centrally managed by the sipX configuration server that runs on the Master. Choose setting up an HA-System, then select Slave Server setup.

The Wizard requires that you also enter the networking information for the Master server. The installation Wizard then pauses to give you a chance to install the necessary certificate. Certificates are required to secure the communication between the Master and the Slave. During the setup process of the Master server, certificates for the Slave host were already created. All you have to do is send these certificates from the Master to the Slave.

While the Slave installation Wizard pauses with an option to test that the certificate has been properly installed, go to the Master server and start a terminal session. This is done by clicking on the first icon on the left in the task bar at the bottom. In the terminal window type the following:

cd sipx-certdb
/usr/bin/ssl-cert/install-cert.sh --remote slave.example.com

Enter "yes" to accept the master certificate, then enter the root password for the Slave host. Once the automated remote installation completes successfully, go back to the Slave. Clicking on "Test Certificate" should now succeed and the Wizard will finish by starting a graphical XFCE4 Linux desktop. All the sipX services are also started automatically on the Slave.

Execute this command on the Master Server to remotely install the certificate on the Slave host:

Note: Configuration Server is only running on the Master server. You can get to it using a Web browser running on the Slave by entering the correct URL: http://master.example.com.

Logging into configuration server for the first time will display an error. This is caused by the fact that when the Master started, the Slave was still unreachable. Go to the "Job Status" page and clear all the events. You can now go to the "Services" page and check whether all the services on both the Master and Slave hosts are running properly.

Limitations using sipX on the Live CD

Most obvious limitations arise from the fact that the entire read/write file system runs in RAM. No data is persitently stored and capacity of storage is significantly limited as compared to a hard disk based system. Don't expect to leave and store a lot of voicemail messages or buy lots of RAM.

Performance: We have not made any stress or performance tests. The media server subsystem profits from lots of RAM and we therefore would expect some performance limitations if running with only 1 GB of RAM.

Running the sipX LiveCD as a VMWare Virtual Machine using VMWare Player

Here is a simple way how the LiveCD can be run as VMWare virtual machine on both Windows and Linux. Download the free VMware Player. Download this Virtual Machine file (it is only 4 kB), and unzip its content into a directory. Replace the placeholder file livecd.iso with the sipX LiveCD ISO. Now start VMWare player. When started for the first time it will ask you to create a new unique identifier (UUID).

More info is here.

Of course, instead of using the pre-canned virtual machine setup presented here, you might as well create your own. However, that requires the VMWare server application and not just the VMWare player.

Troubleshooting

Refer to: SipX ConfigServer Troubleshooting

Log Files

The configuration wizard creates a detailed log of all the configuration option chosen during that step. It also logs all the settings of all the different files it writes to configure the sytem. The log file is at:

/var/log/sipxpbx/setup.log

In addition, during the creation of the Live CD Anaconda created an installation log that can be found in root's home directory. It shows all the packages installed on the sytem.

/root/install.log

Syslog protocols all the system messages during startup:

/var/log/messages

Fedora Live CD for sipX