FoneBRIDGE2 750-4000

NOTE: Do not purchase this product. I have not been able to successfully implement this product. I am able to receive phone calls but I cannot place a call. When trying to make a call I get hangup, cause 100.

I have been sending emails back and forth to redfone and they have not been able to resolve the problem. I have been trying now for 3 weeks with no success. The biggest problem is the time zone difference which is slowing communications right down.

Here is a list of items as to why I won’t recommend this product.

1. there is no current documentation on how to install/configure. The documentation that does exist is four plus years old and does not make any sense whatsoever.
2. the device does not support the latest DAHDI drivers. You have to use version 2.3.0.1
3. it is not a straight forward install. There is prerequisite software required which has their own dependencies.
4. as there is no support in my time zone (Oceanic) communications are very slow.
5. talking to support they have no sound knowledge of Asterisk.
6. I was unable to get this product to function.

DAHDI Linux and Tools

DAHDI Linux version 2.3.0.1 needs to be installed. I installed dahdi-tools 2.3.0. If you install the latest version more than likely your server will panic when the dahdi service is started.

Make sure you install LibPRI first as you still need this library.

The main difference when configuring your span is instead of using span you will use dynamic.

dynamic=ethmf,em3/00:50:C2:65:DC:82/0,31,0

• ethmf is the interface used. Redfone specific
• em3 is the interface on my Linux system that will be communicating with Redfone device. The device has a default IP of 192.168.1.254. If the device is dual span capable then it will have a second IP of 192.168.1.253. Configure the NIC with a 192.168.1.x/24 IP address so it can communicate with the device
• 00:50:C2:65:DC:82 is the MAC address of the network card in your Linux system that will be communicating with the Redfone device.
• 0 I’m not sure what this is. I think if you have more than 1 span it will be the span that you want to use.
• 31 is the number of channels that the span is capable of. T1 is 24 and E1 is 31. If you are only use 10 channels still enter the number that the T1/E1 is capable of.
• 0 is the timing.

An example of my /etc/dahdi/system.conf file is:

dynamic=ethmf,em3/00:50:C2:65:DC:82/0,31,1
bchan=1-10
dchan=16
mulaw=1-10

fonulator prerequisites

For simplicity I use rpmforge otherwise you will have to source the following packages as they are not include in the distribution.

install rpmforge

rpm -Uhv http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm

prerequisites

yum -y install libpcap libpcap-devel libnet 

argtable

Argtable is part of rpmforge but for some reason I could not get fonulator to accept this version of argtable so I used the version from redfone.

wget http://support.red-fone.com/downloads/tools/argtable2/argtable2-8.tar.gz
tar -xvf argtable2-8.tar.gz
cd argtable2-8
./configure
make
make install

If you are using a 64 bit distribution then I had to copy the libargtable2* files to /usr/lib/ as when I went to build fonulator it could not find the files even though they were installed.

scp /usr/local/lib/libargtable2* /usr/lib/

install libfb

wget http://support.red-fone.com/downloads/fonulator/libfb-2.0.2.tar.gz
tar -xvf libfb-2.0.2.tar.gz
cd libfb-2.0.2
./configure
make
make install

install fonulator

wget http://support.red-fone.com/downloads/fonulator/fonulator-2.0.3.tar.gz
tar -xvf fonulator-2.0.3.tar.gz
cd fonulator-2.0.3
./configure
make
make install

download redfone.conf

cd /etc
wget http://support.red-fone.com/downloads/fonulator/redfone.conf

Edit /etc/redfone.conf

Enter the servers MAC address into server= remark span 2, 3 and 4.

Here is an example of my file.

[globals]
fb=192.168.1.254
port=1
# Which Asterisk server destination MAC address for TDMoE Traffic?
server=D4:BE:D9:EF:F8:FD

# Determines which span is to derive timing from telco
priorities=0,1,2,3
#
# E1 PRI SPAN WITH CRC4
[span1]
framing=ccs
encoding=hdb3
crc4

test fonulator

Firstly execute fonulator

fonulator

Secondaly view the config as seen by fonulator

fonulator -vq

dahdi fix

If you try to stop the dahdi services and it fails to stop stating that there are some modules in use or if you try to reboot and the server and the server goes into a panic then you need to modify the dahdi init script to allow for shutdown_dynamic. Edit the file /etc/init.d/dahdi and search for shutdown_dynamic. It will currently be prefixed with a #. Remove the #.

Before

        # Unload drivers
        #shutdown_dynamic # FIXME: needs test from someone with dynamic spans
        echo -n "Unloading DAHDI hardware modules: "
        if unload_modules; then

After

        # Unload drivers
        shutdown_dynamic # FIXME: needs test from someone with dynamic spans
        echo -n "Unloading DAHDI hardware modules: "
        if unload_modules; then