MavEtJu's Distorted View of the World - 2004-11

Asterisk - seize a trunk
Bouncing email
Asterisk - PRI settings for Australia
The abandoned toilet
Unwired as an backup solution
Dream about John Kerry

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Asterisk - seize a trunk

Posted on 2004-11-28 22:37:36, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Voice over IP, Asterisk, PRI

Problem: Before switching to asterisk, it was possible for people to seize the trunk and dial out any number, and thus bypassing the numbering plan. The error you currently get is:

-- Extension '' in context 'SJH05-A4400' from '282122348' does not exist. Rejecting call on channel 3/21, span 3

Solution: In zapata.conf, add overlapdial=yes to the group definition. This will cause an additional delay of three seconds before the number is forwarded:

-- Starting simple switch on 'Zap/206-1'
-- Accepting overlap call from '293312303' to '<unspecified>' on channel 7/20, span 7
-- Executing Dial("Zap/206-1", "Zap/g8/95212347||") in new stack

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Bouncing email

Posted on 2004-11-19 22:55:10, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness

<Suzan> Edwin am trying to send you an email and every address I try is bouncing pls tell me your email
<MavEtJu> what does it say when it bounces?
<Suzan> boing boing boing
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Asterisk - PRI settings for Australia

Posted on 2004-11-10 23:28:07, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Voice over IP, Asterisk, PRI

To connect an TE410P / TE405P card to the australian PSTN, use the following settings:

In /etc/zaptel.conf:

span=1,1,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4
bchan=1-15,17-21
dchan=16
unused=22-31

The 1 in span means that you use the clock from their network.

Please note that this is for an OnRamp20, which has 20 B-channels. With an OnRamp10 you need only channels 1-10 and modify unused too.

In /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf, use:

[trunkgroups]
trunkgroup => 1,16
spanmap => 1,1,1

[channels]
group = 1
context=PRI-Telstra
switchtype=national
pridialplan=unknown
prilocaldialplan=unknown
signalling = pri_cpe
channel => 1-15,17-21

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The abandoned toilet

Posted on 2004-11-09 15:32:51, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Adventures

Short story about my adventure on an abandoned toilet.

Early afternoon, just had lunch, needed to go shopping. And to the toilet, but it's not a priority right now.

Got back home and the not-such-a-priority has become a priority. And guess who forgot his keys: I can't get into the apartment building! What a timing... Nobody else answers their doorbells (not that it would help, I still couldn't get inside our apartment). There is a big garden outside, but everybody can see you there. And the only public toilets nearby I know are at the surf-club ten minutes walking (and this priority wouldn't let me do it).

Garden... pants... garden... pants... garden... GARAGE!

There is a toilet in the garage under the apartments. I have seen it when we moved in and for the rest I totally forgot about it. A real solution!

The garage under the apartments isn't the best illuminated place you can think of. And it has indirect "direct" access for all kind of bugs, spiders and snails to move through your garage.

First light-switch... doesn't do anything, but it's the one for the rest of the corridor where locked doors are... I see the door to the toilet, but it's locked. And it's dark here. Am I brave enough to open the door?

There are big ugly hairy spiders here in Australia, the ones you don't want to see during night or day. And cockroaches. And snails. And whatever can survive (or not!) in a locked room...

I'm brave enough to open the door. I hope so at least. The doorhandle is a turn knob. And it's dark inside, very dark. I fully open the door and turn on the light. Bad idea, now I see everything...

I carefully scan the floor, no sign of a spider. The right hand wall, no sign of something. OH FSCK, there is something in the top right hand corner! There is an exoskeleton of a spider hanging there. At least the owner isn't in it anymore. At the top of the roof is the air-hole to the garden, another place for things to hide in. A careful peek up doesn't show anything at three of the four walls inside. And the fourth one neither.

The water in the toilet is kind of strangely black. Not black-black, but transparent black. It gets mixed with about a liter of yellow water and the priority which brought me there in the first place is becoming less and less a priority and I even dare to look at the wall in front of me.

BAD IDEA! Something is making a shadow in front of me when I move my head! There must be a spider behind me at the light. And left! And right! Oh bloody, it's my own hair making the shadow. The last drops fall in the toilet pot and I reach out to do the last thing I want to do here: press the yellow button to flush.

I move out quickly, still haven't checked what's at the wall behind the door and I don't want to know. I survived and that is what most important. The light goes off and I wait until the car with my girl arrives. She doesn't leave her keys at home.


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Unwired as an backup solution

Posted on 2004-11-09 09:45:04, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Networking

At BarNet, we are experimenting with different backup solutions for our fast radio links. Right now we are using the Unwired solution.... Read on!

Unwired is in theory the ideal backup ISP: Their network is via wireless access points, so where-ever you are, just connect your Unwired modem to your computer and you're online. No need for cables, telephone lines etc. Just use DHCP.

There are some issues though...

  • Our network uses RFC1918 addresses for its computers. So we need to setup a tunnel between the remote site and the central site. This works fine, except when the DHCP address changes. And that is three times per day...
  • We have two internet links, one via Uecomm and one via Comindico. Half of the time, the packets come in via Uecomm, the other half of the time they come in via Comindico. Flaky routing...
  • When testing it out, we were on the ground level of the building and we got a happy green light on the modem, indicating a good signal strength. The modem is right now on the 36th floor, sitting on the window bench and the reception is close to non-existent. Instead of the 1024Mbps we pay for, we barely get 100kbps and the packet loss is about 15%...

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Dream about John Kerry

Posted on 2004-11-05 08:37:54, modified on 2006-01-09 16:29:22
Tags: Happiness

My wife: "I dreamt I met John Kerry last night."
Me: "Oh, how was he?"
My wife: "He wasn't really in the mood to talk to an Australian chick who felt sorry for him."
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