Debian Zaptel Package

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 05:33:14PM -0600, KParkansky at milwcnty.com wrote:
> I'm trying to set up an Asterisk server with
> Sarge r1 and I have a question about the
> Zaptel package.
> 
> I installed the asterisk, zaptel, and libzap1
> packages.  I have an X100P clone card
> installed.  The same system and X100P
> worked fine with Asterisk at home.  When
> I try and run ztcfg I get the error:
>    line 142: Unable to open master device '/dev/zap/ctl'

What's the next part of the error message? 
"No such device" or "no such file"? 

> /dev/zap/ctl is there (0 bytes) 

"No such device" then, I figure.

> and from what
> I've read in researching this, it indicates that
> the wcfxo driver is not loaded.  

Actually: the module responsible for that is zaptel and not wcfxo, but
in 99% of the cases (and also in your case) they'll be installed
together and you'll modprobe for wcfxo anyway.

> (A HiSax module
> gets loaded.)

hisax simply happens to be loaded when a device with the specific pci ID
of the X100P (and many of the Digium cards) have (they only differ by
sub-vendor ID). 

> 
> Many pages I've seen said that I need to
> modprobe zaptel and modprobe wcfxo.
>
> However, I get "Can't locate module" with
> both of these commands.

Not at all.

Start with 'modinfo zaptel' Do you have such a module in the first
place?

Debian does not come with such a module built by default. You're
generally supposed to build it from the package zaptel-source using
module-assistant. Basically:

  apt-get install zaptel-source kernel-headers-`uname -r`
  m-a a-i zaptel

Though from what I understand this doesn't work exactly as described in
the Sarge packages. If so, I wonder if this warants a fix in a package
for any future Sarge R2 (along with an upgrade to 1.0.10, e.g. , to
support newer cards).

> 
> _Some_ Web pages say I need to compile
> a wcfxo driver.  However In using other types
> of hardware (Web cams, etc.) with Debian
> I've never had to compile drivers before.

There's always the first time :-(

Anyway, the point of modules-assistant is to keep the kernel modules 
mess still insode the package management system. In fact, the packages
it builds could safely be installed on other systems with the same
kernel package.

> Simply installing the appropriate package
> supplied the necessary drivers.  And the
> modutils file references the wcfxo driver as if
> it should be with zaptel.  I cannot find a
> wcfxo* file anywhere on my system (in trying
> to locate the wcfxo module).
> 
> I have checked _many_ Web pages and newsgroups
> trying to find out how to get these modules loaded
> and have tried the things that were mentioned on some
> of these pages (adding the asterisk user to the dialout
> group, uncommenting lines in the modutils file, unloading
> the HiSax module, etc.) but nothing has worked.  How/where
> do I get the wcfxo and zpatel module files ?
> 
> Any insight you could offer would be deeply appreciated.
> 
> (Just as a side note, once I make a change to
> /etc/default/asterisk and asterisk runs at bootup,
> I get "permission denied" errors to the log files.)

This is probably the result of running 'asterisk' manually, which runs
it as root. When running Asterisk manually for troubleshooting, don't
forget to use -U asterisk  .

Anyway, some commands of the followings would probably permit Asterisk
to run:


  chown -R asterisk /var/log/asterisk
  chown -R asterisk /var/run/asterisk
  chown -R asterisk /var/spool/asterisk

However you may also try the simpler:

  dpkg-reconfigure asterisk

Because IIRC those commands are already present in the postinst script
of Asterisk.

Hmmm, BTW: try also http://xorcom.com/rapid ;-)

Sadly when I worked on earlier versions I didn't realise how much time
is wasted later on from not "wasting time" on contributing my fixes back
to Debian.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen     icq#16849755  +972-50-7952406
tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com  http://www.xorcom.com