I don't have docbook, but I can look into it.
One of my concerns about attempting to write this is that I'm still learning the
process. Another is that I only have the one server running RedHat, so the steps
will be oriented that way, at least to start.
I will integrate you're suggestions and provide another update shortly.
My last question/issue is about dependancies. When I started working with SER
I already had MySQL install, version 3.23.36 I believe. I could not get the MySQL
portion integration to work, and found that permissions were not correctly granted.
After manually correcting the permissions, I had errors about the communications
between SER and MySQL. I updated MySQL to the latest stable release and
client programs, and the integration worked with no manual intervention.
This prompts me to want to include a section about software that SER depends on,
or can leverage, and identify the minimum revision known to work. For this section
I would need feedback about what has worked for others, as it failed for me with
MySQL 3.23.36 and worked with 3.23.56, but I am sure there is a version inbetween.
It may have also been a problem with the client programs and libraries. I unfortunately
do not have the resources to test all combinations, so if people care to send me a note
with what versions they have installed, I can digest it into a recommendation section.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Janak [mailto:J.Janak@sh.cvut.cz]
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 3:41 AM
To: Dan Austin
Cc: serusers(a)lists.iptel.org
Subject: Re: [Serusers] SER/SERWeb Howto...
Hello,
I like the document. Documentation is one of our biggest issues right now and I think that a description (or howto) written by
someone who is not involved in development of SER can better
describe problems that real users have.
Are you familiar with docbook ? We write all the documentation in
docbook because it is easy then to convert it to other formats like html, ps, pdf, rtf and so on.
If not, then just plaintext will be fine.
Some comments are inline.
Thank you very much for your effort ! Keep up the good work.
regards, Jan.
On 03-12 15:18, Dan Austin wrote:
> 1st draft and just a bit rough. I'm also stuck with MS-Word for my
> editer at the moment, so there's some extra garbage in the file.
>
> Let me know if I'm on the right track, if there are sections that need
> more detail, less detail or elimination.
As long as your text describes what you had to do to make
ser and serweb work and describes your problems with the software,
you are certainly on the right track.
> I'm considering an addition section on client configuration, but I'm
> not sure how valuable that will be. (Cisco 79XX, MSN, any other
> clients I can get my hands on...)
Yes, it will be imho valuable, you can consider also kphone
which is a free softphone for linux - http://www.wirlab.net/kphone
Content-Description: Ser.htm
> 1.2 Why SER
>
> SER is an open-source project that aims to make available a fully
> functional and scalable Session Initiated Protocol suite. Call
> processing is described with a concise scripting language that offers
> the flexibility of regular expressions and the ability to interface
> with 3^rd party applications for the purposes of call accounting and
> authorization.
Better than suite I would use word server. By suite I understand also
SIP user agent which we do not have.
> 1.4 Installation
>
> Installing SER on a RedHat Linux distribution is a simple matter of
> unzipping the downloaded file and using your favorite package
> manager.
>
>
> Example /root>rpm -i ser-08.10-2.i386.rpm
>
I think that here you can describe only that there are packages for
several popular distributions (redhat, suse, gentoo, debian, slackware)
and how to install them can be found in documentation (man pages) of a
particular package manager.
>
> You can start the service with /etc/rc.d/init.d/ser start
This is redhat specific. /etc/init.d/ser start will be imho better.
> The package you downloaded has scripts to create the required database
> and establish permissions for the accounts need. A recent release of
> MySQL is recommended. Earlier versions may have problems with the
> syntax required to set permissions on the database.
ser-mysql package contains the script.
> Once you have MySQL installed and started, execute
> /usr/sbin/ser_mysql.sh.
If you don't have the script, you have no ser-mysql package installed.
Here I would describe what the uncommented lines mean.
> Uncomment this line: loadmodule "//usr/lib/ser/modules/mysql.so
Load mysql module, which extends ser with mysql support.
> Comment this line: modparam("usrloc", "db_mode", 0)
>
> Uncomment this line: modparam("usrloc", "db_mode", 2)
Turn on using of mysql in user location module.
> Uncomment this line: modparam("auth", "calculate_ha1", yes)
There are two ways how to store passwords in the database. You can store
them as plaintext passwords, which is easier to maintain for ser beginners.
Or you can store HA1 strings. HA1 string is a hash that contains username,
password and realm hashed using MD5. Advantage of this approach is that
passwords are not stored in plaintext and can be seen easily. This is
similar to to /etc/passwd in unix, the server doesn't know passwords,
it can only use HA1 to verify responses.
If you decide to to use plaintext passwords, uncomment the "calculate_ha1"
parameter. If you decide to use HA1, make sure that HA1 strings contain
correct realm (the default HA1 string for admin user which comes with
ser contains iptel.org as the realm).
If you change your realm, you must also change all HA1 strings.
> Uncomment this line: modparam("auth", "password_column",
> "password")
Uncomment this line if you use "calculate_ha1" parameter. By default,
ser looks into ha1 column for HA1 strings. If you use plaintext passwords,
you must tell ser to look into password column for plaintext passwords,
this is what this parameter is for.
> Basic account manipulation can be performed with the serctl script,
> located in /usr/local/sbin.
>
Once you get familiar with serctl command, it would be handy if you could
write a description what this command can do and what it can be used for.
[cc: changed to serusers, which is publicly archived]
There is no B2BUA support in SER. You can try to use some
existing B2BUA implementation. You can use SER along with
B2BUA too -- they interact using SIP. You just need to set
SIP routing accordingly to your scenario.
You should be perhaps warned of some side-effect of use
of the B2BUA technology. The root reason is B2BUAs break
the end-to-end model, in which intelligence lives in
end-devices. With B2BUA, you put a fair amount of work
on a network entity. That breaks e2e security, degrades
scalability and robustness -- B2BUA's failure affect
all existing calls.
-Jiri
At 01:18 PM 12/4/2002, Igor Vasiliev wrote:
>Hello,
>
> I've tryed to read B2BUA's doc that I could find.
>But I did't properly understand how it should works with SER.
>Should SER redirect any INVITE(e.t.c) request to B2BUA,
>and after B2BUA'll try to establish connection with a calee
>on behalf of B2BUA?
> Or B2BUA should be stand alone programm working without
>any SIP proxy server?
> Then how could it find out callee location.
>
>Could anybody describe me shortly a interaction model
>between caller B2BUA SER and callee.
>Just general example.
>
>Thanks
>Igor Vasiliev
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Serhelp mailing list
>serhelp(a)lists.iptel.org
>http://lists.iptel.org/mailman/listinfo/serhelp
--
Jiri Kuthan http://iptel.org/~jiri/
1st draft and just a bit rough. I'm also stuck with MS-Word
for my editer at the moment, so there's some extra garbage in
the file.
Let me know if I'm on the right track, if there are sections
that need more detail, less detail or elimination.
I'm considering an addition section on client configuration,
but I'm not sure how valuable that will be. (Cisco 79XX, MSN,
any other clients I can get my hands on...)
Dan
At 08:07 AM 12/3/2002, Dan Austin wrote:
[...]
>I've got a question I thought to send to the SERUsers list, but I'm not
>sure if enough people have signed up yet.
Don't worry -- all our developers are on the serusers list too.
We just plan to shift the help from our developers to the SER
community to have more cycles for development.
>I have a Cisco 7940 that I've converted to SIP and can place calls from,
>both to PSTN numbers and to uri's registered with my server. The odd
>part is that the phone does not seem to request the presence feature, so
>I can not route calls to it.
Hmmm -- we only have 7960s in our labs but they should be similar and they
work. You need to set up registrar, user name and credentials to be able
to register.
>If I call test(a)199.254.167.202 the phone rings and the call can be completed.
>If I call test(a)fitawi.com, I get an immediate call rejected. Since the
>phone does not show up as online in MSN messanger, I suspect that the lack
>of presence is the problem. Any thoughts?
These are two different things: ability to register and ability to
share current presence status. With 7960, you are able to register
so that people can reach you at your current address. 7960 has no
"presence disclosure" support -- if you want to see that the phone
is on-line in your messenger, you will have to use a presence agent
inbetween. We're working on it, but it is not currently part of SER.
The UsrLoc dump bellow shows a valid Test entry -- so the registration
must have proceeded well. If you are not able to call the user
test@yourdomain, the error will be probably somewhere else. Please
send me your configuration file and network dumps (gained using
e.g. ngrep utility) -- I'll be glad to review it.
-Jiri
> I will try the users list, and
>Cisco as a last resort.
>
>Thanks,
>Dan
>
>Here is my serctl ul show results:
>~~~Contact(0x402f0788)~~~
>domain : 'location'
>aor : 'Test'
>Contact: 'sip:Test@199.254.167.202:5060'
>Expires: 1983
>q : 0.00
>Call-ID: '000a8a93-d466000b-389ca1b7-74778f1a(a)199.254.167.202'
>CSeq : 101
>State : CS_SYNC
>next : (nil)
>prev : (nil)
