[Serusers] SER/SERWeb Howto...

[Dan Austin]

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 at sh.cvut.cz] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 3:41 AM
To: Dan Austin
Cc: serusers at 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.