SARK UCS/MVP 2.2.x Quick Start notes.

SARK UCS/MVP 2.2.x is delivered as a series of Redhat RPMs ready to be installed onto an existing SME server 7.4 that is, - RHEL4 kernel releases beginning kernel-2.6.9-78.0.22 or higher. Alternatively, the commercial version of the SARK UCS/MVP can be downloaded as a complete, ready-to-run demo .iso. The commercial version of the software is marketed under the SARK and ManX brandnames. The free-to-download version is called SAIL (SME Asterisk Integration Layer). The main difference between SAIL and the commercial versions is that SARK UCS/MVP and ManX are supported by Aelintra Telecom Limited while SAIL is supported by the contribs.org community.

Installation Sequence

SARK UCS/MVP runs on a fork of Centos known as SME Server. You can download the SME Server distro from HERE

SME installation is straightforward and the SME wiki contains a full graphical walkthrough of a typical install HERE.

There is also a pre-built SARK demo installation .iso available from Pro Vu Communications in the UK and other Aelintra distibutors throughout the World; for a complete list visit http://aelintra.com. Pro Vu are the UK distributors of SARK and its sister product ManX and you can contact them HERE.

Once you have successfully installed SME Server on your donor machine, it is time to install SAIL and Asterisk. In general, you can separate the Asterisk install from the SARK/SAIL install. Provided you pre-install the perl-File-ReadBackwards and sox pre-reqs (see below), SAIL will install without drama. The problem, as always, is Asterisk and Asterisk kernel dependencies. The hunt for rpms which match the kernel you are running can be tedious and the propensity for ATrpms only to keep rpms on-line for the current and -1 kernel releases doesn't help. For that reason, you might want to install asterisk from source and we've published a guide here.

There is also a useful archive of back ATrpms releases here

http://wolfcastle.wu-wien.ac.at/dist/rhel4-i386/RPMS.at-stable

Once you've installed Asterisk, download SAIL from here

http://sarkpbx.com/sail/

install it with

yum localinstall sail-2.4.1-xx.noarch.rpm --enablerepo=base

Note on Sound Recording with sox Errata

There is a problem with the sox version which installs with Centos 4 (RHEL4). Unfortunately, it breaks the sound recording routines within Asterisk. In order to fix this you need to install sox-12.17.7 or better.

Try Pbone...

http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/11416247/com/sox-12.17.7-3.i386.rpm.html

Language Packs

SARK UCS/MVP requires the US English language pack as a minimum and this will have been installed in the above process, however, you may also require additional rpms depending upon your country/language requirement. For US english users (using the "Alison" sounds); you will need the additional sounds

http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/sounds/asterisk-extra-sounds-en-gsm-current.tar.gz

Simply download this pack and unzip it into the Asterisk sounds directory (/var/lib/asterisk/sounds)

SARK UCS/MVP 2.2 Install

You can retrieve the latest version of SARK UCS/MVP from HERE.

N.B. SAIL 2.2.1 will NOT install with any release of Asterisk later than 1.4.22.

create a local directory, download the image and install it

mkdir /home/software
cd /home/software
wget http://sarkpbx.com/sail/sail-2.2.1/sail-2.2.1-759.noarch.rpm 
yum localinstall sail-2.2.1-759.noarch.rpm --enablerepo=base

Cleanup

Once all of your rpms are installed, you MUST run

/sbin/e-smith/signal-event console-save
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot 

N.B. Starting and stopping SARK UCS/MVP from the console.

The SARK UCS/MVP start-up routines are quite complex. Instead of modifying the existing asterisk start-up routines (delivered as part of the asterisk install), SARK UCS/MVP runs its own routines. DO NOT attempt to start or stop SARK UCS/MVP with any of the following console commands...

• /etc/init.d/asterisk start
• /etc/init.d/safe_asterisk start
• /etc/init.d/asterisk stop
• /etc/init.d/safe_asterisk stop

Instead you should use...

• /etc/init.d/sark start
• /etc/init.d/sark stop

To stop sark do

• /etc/init.d/sark stop

PCI Setup

You MUST perform this step the first time you bring up SAIL-2.2.1 - even if you have no Telephony boards installed.

Open server-manager and choose "PCI Cards" from the SARK UCS/MVP sub-menus. You can learn more about how the PCI detection scheme works in DocChapter222. You will see a screen like this...

press the "Probe" button

press the "Commit" button.

press the "STOP" button.

This will stop asterisk and unload any unused drivers. The screen will be refreshed and the STOP button will be replaced by a START button.

press the "START" button

Asterisk should now be ready to use.

If there are any PCI cards present on your system, the trunk lines and extensions will have been defined automatically for you. In "PCI Cards Update panel", you can add a description. Here is the update screen for an ISDN card...

DiD numbers can be added later by adding a trunk with a carrier name of "PTT_DiD_GROUP".

Here is the update screen for a TDM Card...