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

Using the Fedora Live CD for sipX

Introduction

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 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.

Obtaining and Burning the Live CD Image

A beta version of the sipX Live CD can be downloaded here.

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. You can use a cross-over cable to connect it to a second computer that offers a browser so that you can login to Config Server. Make sure you let the wizard configure the on-board DNS server or else sipX will not start in this simple setup.

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 laptop with a browser, 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 configuration wizard starts automatically after login. On the second screen it asks whether to install DHCP / DNS 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 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:

Starting sipX

After the wizard finishes, sipX still needs to be started. Type:

service sipxpbx start

The error message from the postgres service that prints right after starting is expected and benign. All it means is that the postgres service has not yet been initialized. The text that follows results from postgres initialization. Once that is done sipX and all its services are started. Another benign error is printed towards the very end and relates to ownerhsip and permission of the /usr/bin/sipXvxml file.

Start sipX by issuing this command: service sipxpbx start

You are all done. Your sipX system is up and running.

After starting sipX wait for approximately 30 seconds for Java and sipXconfig to start. Then, using a browser, login to Config Server by going to:

http://sipx.example.com

(or whatever hostname you chose during configuration)

During startup sipX performs a series of tests to verify that the server as well as the network environment are configured correctly. Errors printed most likely relate to misconfiguration of the DNS service, especially when using an external DNS 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).

Running sipX with SIP DNS SRV Resource Records Enabled

If using the internal DNS Server, then SIP DNS SRV records are already setup. If using an external DNS server such resource records need to be configured. Once SIP DNS SRV records exist and point at the sipX host, DNS SRV needs to be enabled in sipX Config Server.

Go to System / Domain . Replace the fully qualified host name of the sipX host entered by default into the Domain Name field with just the domain portion of the sipX host. E.g. if the host name is sipx.example.com, enter example.com. Save and allow Config Server to restart services.

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.

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 3.6