21 Jul 2005 lkcl   » (Master)

have been doing a loottt of messing about with asterisk.

it is a total fucking pig to begin to get anything working, let alone know if it's correct.

i am giving serious consideration to writing a GUI (despite there being several already), a new config file format or adding in a python library loader so i can write CODE instead of config files.

asterisk configuration is THAT fucking bad.

it's fine if you have examples that Do What You Want - just add another dial-out SIP extension, whoopee, cut/paste a single line.

if you want a friend to be able to dial-in from IAX? be prepared to spend anything up to 16 hours researching it and getting it right.

i've _just_ recently successfully got a dial-in _and_ a dial-out over IAX, with passwords, to extensions between sirius and my own asterisk server. sirius's asterisk server was first attempted to be installed over two months ago, and mine about the same time.

the other thing that's a complete pig: RTP and SIP. christ: who the _fuck_ let some royal dick write _that_ protocol. it's worse than ftp (when not in passive mode), and due to the complexity of SIP, you can't write a proper sip_conntrack iptables module that opens up a relevant connection-tracking RTP hole when a SIP session is connected.

so i've had to a) buy an ADSL PCI card (i recommend both the "unicorn" cards _and_ the dymo ones with a "conexant falcon 2p" chipset) b) do away with any kind of NAT.

i did want to try running "siproxd" but it's a bit of a pain to set up on the same box as an asterisk server, because asterisk expects to bind to 0.0.0.0 (all interfaces) or to an address... which of course you can't fucking DO on a DHCP-allocated ADSL dialup link without rewriting the config file on every fucking startup of asterisk....

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