WARP Xtra

Provisioning Polycom phones via the WARP Appliance

If you are provisioning more than 1 phone that will be connected to the WARP appliance, you may want to automate the way it’s done.  A good source of information on how to commission a Polycom phone can be found in Asterisk@Home Handbook Wiki Chapter 7 VOIP Phones.

The following instructions are used to commission the Poylcom phone from the WARP and are primarily based on the Asterisk@Home Handbook and Configuration File Management on SoundPoint IP Phones.

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There has been a new GA release of PADS, version 1.1.0.62, for the PIKA appliance. This new release is the one that will be flashed on all appliances that PIKA ships, replacing the current version. This release can be retrieved from the public svn repository here: http://svn.pikatech.com/pads/distro/tags/1.1.0.62 A tarball version of the package can be retrieved here.

The full Release notes for this release can be read here or they can be downloaded in pdf here.

Some of the hi-lights of this release are:

1. Updated Asterisk GUI
2. Upgraded to Asterisk version 1.4.21.2
3. Echo cancellation improvements
4. Fixes multiple issues, see release notes.
5. Adds the two other available persistent partitions, as described here, to the build by default.

Lots of good things here. Enjoy everybody.

 Skar

The purpose of this submission is to talk about WinSCP and Putty, which are two very useful and free utilities for accessing the warp appliance from a Windows machine. WinSCP uses the SCP protocol to allow you to easily browse copy or move files to and from windows and Linux. You can also edit files over the network on a Linux based system from a windows machine. The Putty application allows you to connect to any device that supports the SSH protocol; it uses this protocol to generate a command shell for the device. The first step is to download these free utilities; they can be obtained by following the links below:

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You may have been wondering how much persistent storage is a particular application taking. The easiest way that I have found is to delete the <PADS_DIR>/build_warp/root and build each package individually. I have compiled this information for a bunch of them. Please bear in mind that these numbers are rough measurements and may differ if a package is compiled with different switches turned on/off. But at least it will give you an idea as to how much a particular application is taking.

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When compiling my 1.0.x version of PADS recently I noticed it was failing.  Was it a change I made?  (… which is usually the culprit)  No, looks like the link to the Asterisk gui code has changed.  Sneaky.  The solution?

Well, one solution is to follow the steps below and modify the PADS framework.  Here is how I have done that …

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Tonight the Toronto Asterisk User Group featured Michael Jerris of FreeSWITCH fame.  During the presentation, Michael described the design of FreeSWITCH including its modular architecture, implemented functionality, and approach to development. 

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I am not about to answer the question literally because most would say I have no memory at all based on the lists and notes that clutter my desk.  Actually I am more inclined to answer the question as applied to the PIKA WARP appliance.  It is a very common question I am asked because unlike less destructive methods of storing electronic data, writing to flash memory (like found on the appliance) has a measureable life span.  That being said for a limited number of write operations, flash memory - with no moving parts - will typically last longer then the traditional hard drive which is spinning away. 

First and foremost the appliance’s NAND based memory chip itself has a “write-life” and once exceeded the chip can no long be written to.  So what do these numbers actually work out to?

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Terry Atwood, VP of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Care at PIKA has offered to do an ongoing series of posts describing some of the cool applications that PIKA customers are deploying using the WARP appliance. Today, Terry’s featured application is a call recording platform.

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Just a notice to everyone using the Warp. There has been a new release for PADS, version 1.0.2.8, for the PIKA appliance. This new release is the one that will be flashed on all appliances that PIKA ships, replacing the GA version. This release can be retrieved from the public svn repository here: http://svn.pikatech.com/pads/distro/tags/1.0.2.8/

Why the new release you ask. Well this release contains the following enhancements over the GA version:

1. Enables the autoflash from USB by default
2. Adds support for autoflash from SD cards
3. Echo cancellation improvements
4. Fixes an issue with the audio line in and out ports where paging disrupted music on hold
5. Fixes an issue with calling reload of the pika channel driver in asterisk that resulted in one way audio.

Lots of good things here. Enjoy everybody.

 Skar

A year and a half ago I didn’t know and barely cared about any of the following 10 things. Since that time however, I have had the fortunate opportunity to be involved (from a safe distance I assure you) in the development cycle of PIKA’s WARP Appliance.  It introduced me to a number of new aspects of both product manufacturing and the design and implementation of an embedded device.  This is not a complete list by any means, merely the ones that stick out in my mind and that I feel like sharing.
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