A800E on DAHDI User Manual

Owned by Shu Dong
Mar 03, 2021
9 min read


 
          OpenVox Communication Co.Ltd 

 
Contents 
General Safety Instructions 
Test Environments 
Chapter 1 Overview 
1.1 What is Asterisk 
1.2 What is A800E 
Chapter 2 Hardware Setup 
2.1 Power supply 
2.2 Slot compatibility 
2.3 Timing cable 
2.4 FXO and FXS modules 
2.5 Hardware setup procedure 
Chapter 3 Software Installation and Configuration 
3.1 Download 
3.2 Installation 
3.3 Configuration 
Chapter 4 Reference 
Appendix A Specifications 
Appendix B PIN Assignments

 

General Safety Instructions

 
CAUTION

  1. The computers that have A800E card installed must comply with the country's specific safety regulations.
  2. Only service personnel should go to install A800E card.
  3. Before installing A800E card, please unplug the power cord and remove the cover from your PC.
  4.  For avoiding personal injuries and damages to your machine and A800E card, make sure bracket of the card is secured to the PC's chassis ground by fastening the card with a screw.
  5. Electrical Surges, ESD are very destructive to the equipment. To avoid it, make sure there is a low impedance discharge path from your computer to chassis ground.
  6. To reduce the risk of damage or injury, please follow all steps or procedures as instructed.


Test Environments

CentOS-5.6
Kernel version: 2.6.18-238.12.1.el5
DAHDI: dahdi-linux-complete-current
Asterisk: 1.8.0
Hardware: OpenVox A800E



Chapter 1 A800E Overview

1.1 What is Asterisk

The Definition of Asterisk is described as follows:
Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux, BSD, Windows (emulated) and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. Asterisk does voice over IP in four protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standard-based telephony equipment using relatively cost-effective hardware. Asterisk provides Voicemail services with Directory, Call Conferencing, Interactive Voice Response, Call Queuing. It supports for three-way calling, caller ID services, ADSI, IAX, SIP, H323 (as both client and gateway), MGCP (call manager only) and SCCP/Skinny (voip-info.org). 


                                                         Figure 1 Topology
 

1.2 What is A800E

 OpenVox A800E delivers great voice quality in the telephony systems. With interchangeable FXS/FXO modules, it can eliminate the requirement for separate channel banks or access gateways.
The A800E contains 8 module banks. Each bank supports one analog interface. The module banks may be filled with up to 8 FXO or FXS modules enabling the creation of any combination of ports. Scaling of an analog card solution is accomplished by simply adding additional cards.
A800E works with Asterisk®, Elastix®, FreeSWITCH™, PBX in a Flash, trixbox®, Yate™ and IPPBX/IVR projects as well as other Open Source and proprietary PBX, Switch, IVR, and VoIP gateway applications.

Target applications

  • Channel Bank Replacement / Alternative
  • Small Office Home Office (SOHO) applications
  • Small and Medium Business (SMB) applications
  • Gateway Termination to analog telephones/lines


Sample application
When you need 4 PSTN lines and 4 extension sets, for example, 4 FXO-100 modules and 4 FXS-100 modules should be installed. PSTN lines correspond to FXO modules which are red while extension lines correspond to FXS modules which are green. 
 

                                                     Figure 2 Sample application


Key benefits

  • High performance with low price
  • Firmware accelerate I/O access achieve high stability and highly decreased CPU payload
  • Modular Design: Up to 8 FXS, FXO or mixed FXS/FXO ports per card. Each port can be set as FXO or FXS via plugging different modules in it
  • Scalable: Just adding more cards to extend the system.
  • World Wide usable: Configurable line interface to meet global telephone line interface requirements
  • RoHS compliant
  • Certificates: CE, FCC, A-Tick
  • trixbox TM Officially Certified
  • Elastix® Officially Certified


Features:

  • Supports PCI-E ×1, ×2, ×4, ×8, ×16
  • Open source driver working with Zaptel, DADHI and so on.
  • Caller ID and Call Waiting Caller ID
  • ADSI Telephones
  • Loopstart Signaling Support



Chapter 2 A800E Hardware Setup

There are some points that should be paid attention to when setting up A800E.

2.1 Power supply

The board is powered by PCI Express slot, which provides power the
A800E need, so there is no need for external power source no matter what modules you have setup.

2.2 Slot compatibility

A800E is compatible with any kind of standard PCI-E ×1, ×2, ×4, ×8, ×16 slot while PCI slot is not fit for it; you should confirm your slot type and insert A800E into any type of PCI-E slot as previously described.


                                               Figure 3 PCI-E and PCI slots


2.3 Timing cable

If you have just one card in the system, all channels on that card have already run under the same clock source, so timing cable is unnecessary. But if there are more than one card, using timing cable has some advantages. Before using the clock line, each card works on its own clock, therefore precision of the clock is limited; each card will send /receive voice data at different speeds. In voice usage, this small issue can be omitted, but in data communication such as Fax/Modem, it will cause big problem. Data loss will cause communication broken or fax broken. Timing cable will force all cards to work at the same clock source, send data at the same speed, as a result no data will lost.

If you found J914 (input) and J915 (output) interfaces on the card, it means the card supports clock line, for the details, please refer to HERE.

2.4 FXO and FXS modules

FXO (Foreign eXchange Office) is the office end of the line, and FXS (Foreign eXchange Station) is the station end, there is so much difference between them, they can be identified by color, the former ones are red and the latter ones are green. FXO modules use FXS signaling while FXS modules use FXO signaling. FXO modules correspond to FXO interfaces which receive power (battery) and ring signals, and FXS modules correspond to FXS ports which provides power (battery) and generates ring signals.

2.5 Hardware setup procedure

  • Power off your PC, remember unplug the AC power cable
  • Insert A800E into a PCI-E slot
  • Put timing cable correctly if necessary, for more details, please refer to HERE
  • Fix the board by a screw
  • Please plug PSTN lines into FXO ports and extension telephone lines into FXS interfaces before you have detected your PSTN line works well
  • Make your PC power on


                                        Figure 4 Hardware setup


 Caution: If any FXS module is setup, you should make power on. During the above processes, an ESD wrist strap is needed. Once power is on, you must not attempt to install or take down the board. Do not forget to connect PSTN lines into analog phones directly to make sure the lines are available before insert the PSTN lines into FXO ports. After hard ware setup, it is time to install software. 



Chapter 3 A800E Software Installation and Configuration

A800E supports DAHDI software driver on Linux. To make full use of A800E, you should download, compile, install and configure DAHDI and Asterisk.

3.1 Download

DAHDI software packages are available on openvox official website or Digium. Some patches should be added while the driver source is from Digium, therefore, it is recommended that downloading the DAHDI driver package from openvox official website. 
Gain DAHDI source package from OpenVox:
http://downloads.openvox.cn/pub/drivers/dahdi-linux-complete/openvox_dahdi-linux-complete-current.tar.gz
Get Asterisk software package from digium official website: 
http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/asterisk-1.8.0.tar.gz 
Execute the following commands under the directory of /usr/src/ in general, the former two below are used for downloading these two packages and the later two are for unzipping them. 
#_wget_http://downloads.openvox.cn/pub/drivers/dahdi-linux-complete/openvox_dahdi-linux-complete-current.tar.gz
#_wget_http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/asterisk-1.8.0.tar.gz
#_tar_-xvzf_openvox_dahdi-linux-complete-current.tar.gz

#_tar_-xvzf asterisk-1.8.0.tar.gz


3.2 Installation

1. Hardware detection

  #lspci –vvvv

 Check the outcome and confirm your system has recognized A800E. If it has been recognized, "Network controller" will be displayed in the output information like that:

                                                      Figure 5 Hardware detection

If A800E is not recognized by the system, you have to power off and take out the card, then try to insert it into other PCI-E slot.

 

2. Software installation
Some dependencies are crucial. If any of them is absent, the software installation process would not go through successfully. Let's run"yum install XX" (XX stands for the dependency's name) to check the availability of dependencies.

Some dependencies are crucial. If any of them is absent, the software installation process would not go through successfully. Let's run"yum install XX" (XX stands for the dependency's name) to check the availability of dependencies. 

#yum install bison

#yum install bison-devel

#yum install ncurses

#yum install ncurses-devel

#yum install zlib

#yum install zlib-devel

#yum install openssl

#yum install openssl-devel

#yum install gnutls-devel

#yum install gcc

#yum install gcc-c++

#yum install libxml2

#yum install libxml2-devel

 

 If there is no kernel-devel source in the system, users should run the following command to install the kernel-devel to peer current kernel:

#yum install kernel-devel-`uname –r`

While if there is no matched kernel-devel found, you should download matched RPM package to install it, or execute the following command to update to the latest and stable kernel version:

#yum install kernel kernel-devel
After installed, please reboot your machine to apply the new kernel and install the dependencies. If the dependency has been installed, system indicates that nothing to do which means you could go to next one directly. Otherwise, the system will keep on installing it.


After install the dependencies, please change to the directory dahdi-linux-complete-XX (XX represents DAHDI version), then perform the following commands one by one to install DAHDI.

#cd /usr/src/dahdi-linux-complete-XX

#make

#make install

#make config 
Caution: If there is something wrong after "make", please refer to HERE. In the url link, the moderator introduces you a method how to patch. After patching, save your changes and exit. Then run "make" again, if successfully, you are going to install Asterisk.


Please operate those commands to install Asterisk.

#cd asterisk-1.8.0

#./configure

#make

#make install

#make samples

 

Notice： " make samples" will install the standard sample configuration file in the directory /etc/asterisk. As a freshman, you should perform make samples, that is to say, it is unnecessary to perform make samples every time. Because once performed, it will cover the old sample configuration files you have installed.

3.3 Configuration

1.Driver loading
After compiling and installing DAHDI and Asterisk, please load the driver by running:

#modprobe dahdi

#modprobe opvxa1200 opermode=CHINA

#dahdi_genconf

 Notice：After running "modprobe dahdi" or "modprobe opvxa1200 opermode=CHINA", there is not any indication information displayed if loaded normally and successfully. opvxa1200 is the driver module name of A800E. "opermode" applies to FXO port and is invalid for FXS port, and you are allowed to take place of "CHINA" to other mode name which is available in the file: 
../dahdi-linux-XX/linux/drivers/dahdi/fxo_modules.h

If there is any error, please trace the cause. Until all errors are clear up, you could execute "dahdi_genconf" again, and then go to the next step. By running "dahdi_genconf", it will generate /etc/dahdi/system.conf and etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf automatically. Checking whether the generated files information agrees with your hardware setup, if not, you should modify to your specific requirements. Do not forget to confirm dahdi-channels.conf is included in chan_dahdi.conf, if not, run command: 
# echo "#include dahdi-channels.conf" >> /etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf

FXO ports use FXS signaling, while FXS ports adopt FXO signaling. A part of system.conf which is one of the basic channel configuration files is displayed. 

                                   Figure 6 A part of system.conf


2. Country mode modification
In order to match your country pattern, you need to change parameters loadzone and defaultzone to your country. For example, your system is in CHINA, you would like them change to: 
loadzone = cn
defaultzone = cn

Notice: Some zonedata is available in the file ".. /dahdi-XX/tools/zonedata.c ", you can refer to it to match your country mode. Meanwhile, you also need to modify another parameter which is in file /etc/asterisk/indications.conf.
country=cn

A part of file /etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf is showed as below. (Modification, if it is not agree with the hardware setup)

                     Figure 7 A part of dahdi-channels.conf


After modifying the country mode, please execute the following command:

#dahdi_cfg –vvvvvv

The command is used for reading and loading parameters in the configuration file system.conf and writing to the hardware. A part of outputs are showed in the following figure

 
                                                       Figure 8 Channel map


3. Asterisk initiation

#asterisk –vvvvvvvgc

If Asterisk is already activate, run "asterisk –r" instead. In the CLI, please run the following command: 
localhost*CLI> dahdi show channels

                                           Figure 9 channels show

If dahdi channels are found, it means they have been loaded into Asterisk. You are going to edit dialplan by your requirements.

 

4. Dialplan edit
Users must make sure that the context "from-pstn" and "from-internal" are in extensions.conf, here a simple example is given: 

#vim /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf


                     Figure 10 dialplan show

 

Notice: You should write the destination number instead of the outgoing_number in the above dial plan. The above dial plan achieves that when an extension telephone dials 200, Asterisk will transfer through channel 7 to the destination. While a call comes from PSTN line, Asterisk answers firstly, and then gets through to the extension set which connects to channel 1. 
After saving your dialplan, please run "asterisk –r", then execute "reload" in the CLI. Next you are able to make calls. 



Chapter 4 A800E Reference

www.openvox.cn
www.digium.com
www.asterisk.org
www.voip-info.org
www.asteriskguru.com 
Tips
Any questions during installation please consult in our forum or look up for answers from the following websites:
Forum
wiki 

Appendix A Specifications

• Weight and size
Weight: 133g (4.69oz)
Size: 246.7×107×18mm (9.7×4.21×0.71 inch)

• Interfaces
PCI-E Bus: Be compatible with PCI-E ×1, ×2, ×4, ×8, ×16
Power Supply Connect: 12V 4-pin connector (When any FXS modules are installed)
Local Loop Access: Eight industry standard RJ-11 ports

• Environment
Temperature: 0 ~50°C (Operation)

40 ~125°C (Storage)
Humidity: 10 ~90% NON-CONDENSING

• Power consumption
Voltage: 3.3V/5V/12V,3REN
Power consuming: (12V) 26.66W (with full eight FXS modules); 3.46W (with full eight FXO modules). 

• Hardware and software requirements
RAM 128 + MB
Linux kernel 2.4.X or 2.6.X
CPU 800+ MHZ

Suggestion
Suggest that using at least 300 Watt power supply for your PC, and increased by 30W/eight FXO ports.

 

Appendix B PIN Assignments

Either 4-pin or 6-pin RJ11 port is compatible with A800E, let's illustrate pin assignments of RJ11 port by the following tables.

                          4-pin RJ11 port

4-pin RJ11 port

PIN

Description

1

Not used

 

2

Tip

 

3

Ring

 

4

Not used

                         6-pin RJ11 port

6-pin RJ11 port

PIN

Description

1

Not used

 

2

Not used

 

3

Tip

 

4

Ring

 

5

Not used

 

6

Not used