AstWind - Asterisk for Windows
==============================
AstWind is a package that allows you to run Asterisk on top of a Windows
operating system using Cooperative Linux (coLinux for short). A port of
the Linux kernel, coLinux runs cooperatively alongside legacy operating
systems on a single PC. It allows one to freely run Linux on Windows
2000/XP, without using a commercial PC virtualization software. With the
addition of the WinPCap library, the coLinux kernel has access to the
network through the host machine and can fully participate as a separate
PC with a unique IP address. A Debian GNU Linux file system, with a full
development environment and a pre-built Asterisk installation is provided
to get you up and running.

Here's the quick way to get started:

1. Download the "astwind-installer and run it, extracting the necessary
   files wherever it is convenient. The installer will default to the 
   current directory.

2. The installer will run a batch file to install WinPcap, coLinux and
   copy the necessary files to run AstWind. These files will live in
   C:\Progam Files\coLinux\.

3. IMPORTANT: IF YOU WANT NETWORKING TO WORK, YOU MUST CONFIGURE IT IN
   "astwind.colinux.xml". This is the SINGLE HARDEST PART of getting
   your installation working. For instructions, read:
   http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/CoLinuxNetworking and look for
   the section on "Native network (Bridged) (Windows2000 or WindowsXP)".
   You just need to change <network index='0' name='XXXX' type='bridged'/> to
    <network index='0' name='Local Area Connection' type='bridged'/> where 
   'Local Area Connection' is a substring of you interface, which is connected to the 
   internet. To find your choices watch the dos window when booting the linux.
         
[note: you may also want to configure swop_file configuration to the astwind.colinux.xml file, as per coLinux instructions here]

4. From "C:\Program Files\coLinux" execute "astwind" from a command
   prompt.

5. Login as "root" with the password "asterisk"

6. IMMEDIATELY CHANGE YOUR ROOT PASSWORD.

7. Edit /etc/networking/interfaces and update for your networking
   configuration. The default is to get an IP from DHCP. You will also
   want to edit /etc/resolv.conf to add a valid DNS server and /etc/hosts
   to add the local machine name and IP address. These are all critical to 
   ensuring that Asterisk and it's related modules (such as SIP and MGCP)
   work correctly.

8. Make changes to, or install your configuration files in
   /etc/asterisk/*.conf to customize your Asterisk installation. 

9. Run Asterisk! (asterisk -vvvgc)

10. If you want to update, sources are in /usr/src/asterisk and you can
   do a "cvs update -d" and then "make clean" (to "clean" the previous
   compilation), "make" (to compile) and if everything is OK, issue the
   "make install" to install what you just compiled.

11. Have fun!



Potential User Comments: If you think the above is enough information to get this pig to work, you're sadly mistaken. This package is utterly broken. Have fun? Hah! The main problem isn't the XML file as stated above, but the fact that the Linux installation isn't actually installed. So etc/networking/interfaces and etc/resolv.conf and etc/hosts can't be edited, because they simply don't exist. When you log in, the once-off upgrade script TRIES to upgrade, but finding nothing there it fails. And so it all has to be uninstalled and reinstalled to try again.

There's an option in the installation to download one of two different Linux packages, but only the BZ2 is downloaded and it isn't actually installed. Try unpacking that with WinZip. :) In short, it's a typical half-assed Linux author's attempt at programming for Windows. Maybe next version. Then again in my experience of Linux packaging and usability, maybe not.


Another Potential User's Comments: You can safely disregard the above, this person seems unfamilar with linux or unix in general. In any event, you will need to boot into colinux in order to edit the files mentioned in the instructions above.

Another Comment: The hardest thing was really the networking - then just apt-get install anything
you want and you are home. The bad thing in my case was very choppy sound. But I gues it
is because of my computer CPU - only 300Mhz. Hope so.


AstWind is maintained by Gregory J. Boehnlein <damin@nacs.net>
Last Revised: 09/01/2004
Version 0.1.1 - Edited by Gregory J. Boehnlein <damin@nacs.net>
Version 0.1.0 - Created by Mark Spencer <markster@digium.com>

Other port:
AsteriskWin32