Geoff's Blog » VoIP

New battery for ClearOne Max Conference Phone

Geoff Jacobs — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:28:23 +0000

We have a ClearOne Max conference phone at work that has been in need of a new battery for a while. When we do get new batteries for it, they never seem to last as long as they should and always need to be ordered in.
Solution: Use an RC battery pack.
The battery in the conference unit is a 7.2V 1800mAh NiMH battery pack. The RC battery pack is 3000mAH so we get much longer out of it on a single charge.
We’re still able to use the normal charger that came with the phone too.

Sure it might be big and ugly (I’ve hot glued it to the phone) but it works amazingly well.

mysql schema…. finally

Geoff Jacobs — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:20:00 +0000

I know this has taken waaay to long to post. But here it is if anyone still wants it.

# CREATE DATABASE voip;
# USE voip;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'allocation'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS allocation;
CREATE TABLE `allocation` (
`allocation_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`asset_id` INT(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`site_id` INT(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`extension` INT(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`allocation_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=58 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'asset'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS asset;
CREATE TABLE `asset` (
`asset_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`manufacturer` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`model` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`serial` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`mac` VARCHAR(12) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '000000000000',
`phone_ip` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`purchase_price` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`purchase_date` DATE NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00',
`purchase_from` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`invoice_number` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`asset_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=46 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'phoneline'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS phoneline;
CREATE TABLE `phoneline` (
`line_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`phone_number` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`line_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=3 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'server'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS server;
CREATE TABLE `server` (
`server_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`site_id` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`server_ip` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`server_hostname` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`server_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=4 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'site'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS site;
CREATE TABLE `site` (
`site_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`site_name` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`street_number` INT(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`street_name` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`city` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`state` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
`country` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`site_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=4 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

#
# TABLE STRUCTURE FOR TABLE 'user'
#

# DROP TABLE IF EXISTS USER;
CREATE TABLE `user` (
`user_id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`samaccountname` VARCHAR(100) COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=2 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COLLATE=latin1_general_ci;

Follow up to SPA942 Personal Directory with LDAP

Geoff Jacobs — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:06:00 +0000

I just wanted to follow up on my previous post about using LDAP and PHP to push the directories on the SPA942.
I’ve included a whole lot of code below, and please note that a lot of this is me just getting the job done. The code is probably messy and poorly written, and some of it is taken from other sites/samples.
Unfortunately, blogger seems to take away all my nice formatting (indents etc…), so you’ll have to bear with me. Also, long comments appear across multiple lines in here, so that could make it even harder. Copy the code into a program like notepad++ and set language to php to make it easier to read.

Firstly, just need to include a few files etc…

error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE);
set_time_limit(240);
include_once("common/dbConnection.php");
include_once("common/header.php");
include_once("common/ldapInfo.php");
include_once("voip_ext.php");

dbConnection.php connects to a Mysql DB that I use basically as an asset register. It contains IPs, allocations, extensions, invoice numbers yada yada yada. Originally, I drove this script entirely from LDAP, however once users started to have multiple extensions (depending on which site they were working from), LDAP (well Active Directory actually) just couldn’t cut it. Note that this still uses LDAP for getting user details (display name) and extensions. It cross references these with Mysql.
header.php is just some menu’s etc
ldapInfo.php is the connection to LDAP. It returns the info as $info
voip_ext.php is a list of extensions returned as $extensions. Note that the extensions have changed with firmware updates, so check your phone to see what yours are.
The rest of the code follows.
I’ve tried my best to include comments, and please remember this is not a complete solution (due to DB dependencies etc…) but will hopefully get you started.
If anyone is interested in the DB schema, leave a comment and I can post it here.

$pDir = "";

//MAIN

//get users extensions
$UserExtensions = getExtensions();

//100 slots to use. fill from bottom, so 99 -> 0
$extID = 99;

//for each extension, find the appropriate info
foreach ($UserExtensions as $ext) {
if ($ext <> "" && $ext <> 0){
$pDir .= ("&".dirEntry($info,$ext));
}
}

//tidy up and sort the pdir string
$pDir = substr($pDir,1);
$pDir = explode("&",$pDir);
sort($pDir);

//assign an extid to each entry
foreach ($pDir as &$entry) {
$entry = ($extensions[$extID]."=n%3D".$entry);
$extID--;
}

//more tidying of pdir
$pDir = implode("&",$pDir);
$pDir .= getGroups($info);
$pDir = str_replace(" ","%20",$pDir);

//need to fill in from extID to 0 to clean vacant entries from pdir
//note that this will wipe out any duplicate names (was occuring when users were leaving)
//this will also wipe out any personal entries (i.e. this script is the only way that entries will appear in the directory)
while ($extID > 0) {
$pDir .= "&".$extensions[$extID]."=;";
$extID--;
echo $extID." ";
echo $pDir." ";
}

//run the wget (comment this out to test sending to a single phone - use next bit instead)
$phoneIPs = GetPhoneIPs();
foreach ($phoneIPs as $phoneIP) {
updatePhonePDir($phoneIP,$pDir);
}

//uncomment for testing
//updatePhonePDir("192.168.10.170",$pDir);

//FUNCTIONS

function getExtensions(){
//this gets all the phone extensions that i've allocated in mysql. Note that other extensions probably exist in ldap, but they're not assigned to a phone and hence we don't want them here.
$sql = "select allocation.extension from allocation order by allocation.extension asc";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$extensions .=$row["extension"].";";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
$extensions = explode(";", $extensions);
return $extensions;
}

function GetPhoneIPs(){
//this gets the ips of the phones. need this when performing the wget command
$sql = "select distinct phone_ip from asset where phone_ip not like ''";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$phoneIPs .=$row["phone_ip"].";";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
$phoneIPs = explode(";", $phoneIPs);
return $phoneIPs;
}

function dirEntry($info,$ext){
//this is creating the sting that we eventually want to POST to the phone's pdir
$allocationDetails = getAllocationDetails($ext);
$phoneMAC = $allocationDetails[0];
$phoneIP = $allocationDetails[1];
$siteName = $allocationDetails[2];
$serverIP = $allocationDetails[3];

$userDetails = ldapUserDetails($info,$ext);
$userSamAccountName = $userDetails[0];
$userDisplayName = $userDetails[1];
$userComany = $userDetails[2];

$ringtone = getRingTone($phoneIP);

return "$userDisplayName;p%3D$ext;r%3D$ringtone";
//return "n%3D$userDisplayName;p%3D$ext;r%3D$ringtone";
}

function ldapUserDetails($info,$ext){
//this matches the extensions with the names from ldap (we don't keep names in mysql)
for ($i=0; $i<$info["count"]; $i++) {
if ($info[$i]["ipphone"][0] == $ext) {
$samaccountname = strtolower($info[$i]["samaccountname"][0]);
$displayName = $info[$i]["displayname"][0];
$company = $info[$i]["company"][0];
if ($company == "") $company = "GLiNTECH"; //catch accounts with no company name specified
}
}
$results = array($samaccountname,$displayName,$company);
return $results;
}

function getAllocationDetails($extension){
// this gets more info about the phone (we use multiple sites and servers)
$sql = "select asset.mac, allocation.extension, server.server_ip, asset.phone_ip, site.site_name
from allocation
join asset as asset on allocation.asset_id = asset.asset_id
join site as site on allocation.site_id = site.site_id
join server as server on site.site_id = server.site_id
where allocation.extension = '".$extension."' limit 1";
$result = mysql_query($sql);

if (!$result) {
$thisPhoneMac = $row["0000000000"];
$thisPhoneIP = $row["0.0.0.0"];
$thisSiteName = $row["NULL"];
$thisServerIP = $row["0.0.0.0"];
} elseif (mysql_num_rows($result) == 0) {
$thisPhoneMac = $row["0000000000"];
$thisPhoneIP = $row["0.0.0.0"];
$thisSiteName = $row["NULL"];
$thisServerIP = $row["0.0.0.0"];
} else {

// While a row of data exists, put that row in $row as an associative array
// Note: If you're expecting just one row, no need to use a loop
// Note: If you put extract($row); inside the following loop, you'll
// then create $userid, $fullname, and $userstatus
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$thisPhoneMac = $row["mac"];
$thisPhoneIP = $row["phone_ip"];
$thisSiteName = $row["site_name"];
$thisServerIP = $row["server_ip"];
}
mysql_free_result($result);

}

$results = array($thisPhoneMac,$thisPhoneIP,$thisSiteName,$thisServerIP);
return $results;

}

function getRingTone($phoneIP){
//this checks to see if a user as set a custom ringtone.
if ($xmlstr = file_get_contents("http://$phoneIP/admin/spacfg.xml")){
if (strlen($xmlstr) < 1){
$ringtone = "1";
} else {
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$ringtone = $xml->Default_Ring_1_;
if ($ringtone == "User 1") {
$ringtone = "11";
} elseif ($ringtone == "User 2") {
$ringtone = "12";
}
}
} else {
//default ringtone for people in the directory
$ringtone = "12";
}
return $ringtone;
}

function updatePhonePDir($phoneIP,$pDir){
//this generates the wget command. -t 1 means it will only try once. if it fails then it won't try again until the next day.
$command = "wget --post-data '".$pDir."' http://".$phoneIP."/pdir.spa -t 1";
runCommand($command); // or die("update to $phoneIP failed");
}

function runCommand($command){
//calls the command and writes some debugging to the screen
system($command,$returned);
echo $command." ";
echo $returned." ";
return $returned;
}

function getGroups($info){
//this is used for getting groups in ldap and finding their exts etc... read up in a previous post for more on this. Note that groups are prepended with '*' to make them appear at the top of the directory
global $extID;
global $extensions;
for ($i=0; $i<$info["count"]; $i++) {
if (ereg("[[6][0-9]{3}]",substr($info[$i]["info"][0],0,6))){
//calling groups
$extensionstring .= "&".$extensions[$extID]."=n%3D*".strtoupper(str_replace(" ","%20",$info[$i]["name"][0])).";";
$extensionstring .= "p%3D".substr($info[$i]["info"][0],1,4).";r%3D11";
$extID--;
}
}
return $extensionstring;

}

Asterisk Bootcamp

Geoff Jacobs — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:55:00 +0000

Just a quick post to mention that I’m heading to Melbourne next month for the Asterisk Bootcamp (care of work). Should be a good opportunity to learn a lot of info about Asterisk and VoIP in general.

More SPA942 Firmware stuff

Geoff Jacobs — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 01:48:00 +0000

Well I’m trailing out the 5.15a firmware for the SPA942 phones. Firstly, I have figured out the problem I was having previously with the first line being one pixel out of alignment. For our users, we display $EXT – Line # on each of the lines, so for me it appears as:

- Line 1
- Line 2
- Line 3
- Line 4

In the previous (5.1.5) firmware, this was left aligned, where as the newer firmwares are right aligned. Because the number 1 is thinner than the numbers 2,3 and 4, the text looked out of line. Other people probably wouldn’t have this issue, because adding in the Line numbers was a custom change I made for my users (in response to too many questions about why there where 4 buttons).

The other issue I was having with

<2nd_preferred_codec_1_ group="Ext_1/Audio_Configuration">

has been changed to

<Second_Preferred_Codec_1_ group="Ext_1/Audio_Configuration">

There’s also a new feature that allows you to set a background image that I’m hoping to play around with shortly – more info about that on voip-info

SPA942 Personal Directory with LDAP

Geoff Jacobs — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:03:00 +0000

A while ago, I posted a blog about the SPA942 Personal Directory. Well I’ve built on it a bit now and managed to get it populated from the information taken out of our LDAP server (Microsoft Active Directory).

When we allocate a phone to someone, we fill in the ipphone field with their extension. We then also add two other ipphone entries, the first being the MAC address of the phone, the second being the phone’s IP.

I’m also managing calling groups (queues) in LDAP by creating security groups and using the Notes field to enter the information that I then use to build Asterisk’s queues.conf file (I might post more on that later if people are interested). An example of one of these entries for the groups is:

[6000]
fullname = {groupname}
strategy = ringall
timeout = 15
wrapuptime = 0
autofill = yes
autopause = no
maxlen = 0
joinempty = yes
leavewhenempty = yes
reportholdtime = yes
musicclass = default

From this information in LDAP, I have a PHP script that is run as a cron job each night to update the phones with the new Personal Directory.

I’ll post the PHP as one big chunk, and explain it a bit further below.

set_time_limit(300);

//Include a list of all the extensions - this is page that lists the id's for the pdir. $extensions=array('25454','25390','25582', etc...
include('voip_ext.php');

//Doing LDAP connection stuff
$ldap_host = "ldapserver";
$base_dn = "DC=domain,DC=com";
$filter = "(|(ipphone=*)(info=[*))";
$ldap_user = "CN=Admin User,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com";
$ldap_pass = "fullysecretpassword";
$connect = ldap_connect($ldap_host,$ldap_port)
or exit(">>Could not connect to LDAP server<<");
ldap_set_option($connect, LDAP_OPT_PROTOCOL_VERSION, 3);
ldap_set_option($connect, LDAP_OPT_REFERRALS, 0);
$bind = ldap_bind($connect, $ldap_user, $ldap_pass)
or exit(">>Could not bind to $ldap_host<<");
$read = ldap_search($connect, $base_dn, $filter)
or exit(">>Unable to search ldap server<<");
$info = ldap_get_entries($connect, $read);

//start doing things
ldapPhoneIPs($info);

//close the ldap connection
ldap_close($connect);

//FUNCTIONS
function ldapPhoneIPs($info){
$pDir = ldapUsers($info);
for ($i=0; $i<$info["count"]; $i++) {
if ($info[$i]["otheripphone"][0] <> "") {
echo "
".$info[$i]["samaccountname"][0]."
";
$phoneIP = $info[$i]["otheripphone"][0];
$phoneMAC .= $info[$i]["otheripphone"][1];
$ringtone = getRingTone($phoneIP);
$pDir2 = str_replace("r%3D0",$ringtone,$pDir);
updatePhonePDir($phoneIP,$pDir2);
}
}
}

//This just makes sure we don't overwrite somone's customised ringtone
function getRingTone($phoneIP){
$xmlstr = file_get_contents("http://$phoneIP/admin/spacfg.xml");
if (strlen($xmlstr) < 1){
$ringtone = "0";
} else {
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$ringtone = $xml->Default_Ring_1_;
if ($ringtone == "User 1") {
$ringtone = "11";
} elseif ($ringtone == "User 2") {
$ringtone = "12";
}
}
return "r%3D".$ringtone;
}

function updatePhonePDir($phoneIP,$pDir){

$command = "wget --post-data '".$pDir."' http://".$phoneIP."/pdir.spa";
runCommand($command); // or die("update to $phoneIP failed");
}

function ldapUsers($info){
//get the list of users
global $extensions;
$extID = 99;

for ($i=0; $i<$info["count"]; $i++) {
if ($info[$i]["ipphone"][0] <> "") {
//individual users
if ($info[$i]["otheripphone"][0] <> "") {
$extensionstring .= "$extensions[$extID]=n%3D".str_replace(" ","%20",$info[$i]["displayname"][0]).";";
$extensionstring .= "p%3D".$info[$i]["ipphone"][0].";r%3D0&";
$extID--;
}
} elseif (ereg("[[6][0-9]{3}]",substr($info[$i]["info"][0],0,6))){
//calling groups
echo substr($info[$i]["info"][0],0,6);
$extensionstring .= "$extensions[$extID]=n%3D".strtoupper(str_replace(" ","%20",$info[$i]["name"][0])).";";
$extensionstring .= "p%3D".substr($info[$i]["info"][0],1,4).";r%3D0&";
$extID--;
}

}
$extensionstring = substr($extensionstring,0,(strlen($extensionstring)-1));
return $extensionstring;
}

function runCommand($command){
system($command,$returned);
echo $command ."
";
return $returned;
}
?>

Ok, so firstly we include another file. There’s nothing flash about this file, in fact all it contains is a list of all the id’s in the Personal Directory page

$extensions=array('25454','25390','25582',
?>

Next it’s a matter of setting up the LDAP connection and filters. I’m filtering for either an entry in the ipphone field (for individual users) OR the notes(info) field (for the groups).
Then we get into actually doing things.
The first bit parses the info from LDAP and extracts the fields I care about. I’ve added in filtering for custom ringtones, so that if someone has set a custom ringtone for a particular entry, it doesn’t get overwritten.
From there, we go through and construct the wget strings (see my previous post for an explanation on this). It puts regular users in CamelCase and groups in UPPERCASE so that users can distinguish the difference.
Once all that is done, we run the wget command and push out the updates.

SPA942 Personal Directory

Geoff Jacobs — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:52:00 +0000

I’ve been setting up Asterisk at work recently, as our old PABX has reached it’s limits.
We picked up half a dozen SPA942′s for some initial testing.
I have to say that while the phones are nice as an end user, however some of the administration functions seem to come up a bit short.
One of the big issues for us was that the personal directory on the phones doesn’t actually have to option to be populated from Asterisk (or any other PBX other than SPA9000). I have to admit though, I’m not really one to accept that something can’t be done.
After trying a number of things, I upgraded to the latest firmware (5.1.5 at time of writing) and after some more stuffing around, I was finally able to get the following line to populate the Personal Directory:

wget --post-data '24686=n%3DGeoff;p%3D6004;r%3D1&25390=n%3DMatt;p%3D6001;r%3D1' http://myphoneIP/pdir.spa

A few things about the command.
Firstly, the command will enter in two contacts in the Directory. These will be under entry #5 (24686) and entry #2 (25390). A complete list of all the codes here can be seen in the source of the Personal Directory page in the phone’s web interface.
So taking the first of the two entries (24686), what we’re posting is:

n%3DGeoff;

n=Geoff; (we need to escape the ‘=’ signs so that wget will actually pass the info on correctly)
n is the Display Name that will appear in the Directory

p%3D6004;

p=6004;
p is the extension number (or phone number). My extension is 6004.

r%3D1

r=1
r is the ring to use. 0 is no sound, just flashing. Play around with the other numbers to find the ringtone you want to use.

To add more than one entry at a time, simply separate the strings with ‘&’.

From here I’m going to look into LDAP integration, so that I can autorun the command, pulling the users and extensions out of Active Directory.