SARK UCS/MVP 2.4/2.5 (DAHDI) Quick Start notes.

SARK UCS/MVP 2.4/2.5 is delivered as a series of Redhat RPMs ready to be installed onto an existing SME server 7.4 that is, - Centos 4 kernel releases beginning kernel-2.6.9-78.0.22 or higher or SME 8.0. 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.

SAIL2.4 should be installed with SME server release 7.x and SAIL2.5 should be installed with SME Server release 8.x.

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

If you have decided to use SME Server Release 8 (which is based on Centos 5) you can find Asterisk rpm installation instructions at Digium's own site here

http://www.asterisk.org/downloads/yum

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 DAHDI 2.1- Errata

There is a problem with the board recognition routines in DAHDI 2.1. They will not recognise TE12x class PRI boards set to E1 (T1 is fine). This is due to a bug in the dahdi_genconf routine "Span.pm". The issue is fixed in the Asterisk svn trunk so if you intend to run one of these boards you will need to download and install dahdi-tools from svn. You can then copy the genconf modules into the correct libraries (they are all Perl modules so there isn't any compilation to do). As an assist we have placed a correct copy of Span.pm up on our download site here..

http://sarkpbx.com/sail/sail-2.4.1

Copy it down and install it at

/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5/Dahdi/Span.pm

You should then be good to go.

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

Required perl module

Newer releases of SARK require perl-File-ReadBackwards which isn't on the CentOS repos. There is a copy on the SAIL download page... To install it do

rpm -Uvh http://sarkpbx.com/sail/sail-2.3.2/perl-File-ReadBackwards-1.04-1.2.el4.rf.noarch.rpm

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)

Language Pack Errata (UK language prompt users)

Digium changed the basic structure of the sounds directory (/var/lib/asterisk/sounds) in 1.4. However, up until 1.4.23, asterisk.conf was set to default to the old 1.2 structure ensuring easy migration for existing users, but in 1.4.23 and later, this changed to default to the new structure. SARK UCS/MVP 's UK-GB language pack uses the old structure so you must set the default in asterisk.conf. Find the parameter languageprefix = yes in asterisk.conf and either delete it or comment it out. Restart Asterisk.

SARK UCS/MVP 2.4.x Install

You can retrieve the latest version of sail-2.3.x from HERE.

N.B. SAIL 2.4.x should NOT be installed with any release of Asterisk prior to 1.4.23.

create a local directory, download the image and install it

mkdir /home/software
cd /home/software
wget http://sarkpbx.com/sail/sail-2.4.1/sail-2.4.1-x.noarch.rpm 
yum localinstall sail-2.4.1-x.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

PCI Setup

You MUST perform this step the first time you bring up SAIL-2.3.x - even if you have no Telephony boards installed.

Follow the instructions here DocChapter222a

Your system is now ready to use.

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 load the DAHDI kmods and start sark do

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

To stop sark and unload the DAHDI kmods do

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