PIAF on ClearOS

[hraynor]

I'd love to see a build of PIAF that could be installed on top of a ClearOS installation. This would allow the ability to create a SINGLE box to handle Voice, IM/chat, network, file sharing, web server, email server, etc.

This would be targeted more at small businesses (or even home) or non profits.

I see a lot of benefits in combining the two, and in my opinion it should be relatively straightforward since ClearOS is (currently) based on CentOS 5.6. Biggest effort I would think (other than testing) would be firewall rules.

There are instructions out there for deploying Asterisk (from sources) onto ClearOS, as well as FreePBX (if you search clearfoundation.com you'll see these). However, I actually like PIAF, and would like to stick with this instead.

I think this would be a killer application. We're currently using ClearOS, PIAF, and Edubuntu (as an LTSP terminal server) under ProxMox VE (all as KVMs) on a single box and it works great in two different locations (non profit). (actually one location currently has PIAF on a dedicated Atom, other its running under KVM. Planning on moving the other PIAF into a VM shortly and redeploying the Atom to other uses).

However, the ability to put the two critical applications (PIAF and ClearOS) on a single small (perhaps Atom) box with its own UPS would be ideal in many cases (versus two physical boxes).

Anyone have any thoughts along this line? I think this would be a great application.

 

[jroper]

Hi

The concern of combining VoIP with other services is that you may not be able to control what else is going on in the server, which in turn may affect voice quality in that either the network, IO or processor may be overloaded by other services, causing poor quality VoIP, which customers tend to get really peeved about.

The phrase "all your eggs in one basket" also springs to mind.

Joe

 

[rossiv]

Look at it this way - If your "IM/chat, network, file sharing, web server, email server, etc." crashed, your phones would crash with it. NOT GOOD.

 

[hraynor]

Totally agree, however one thing about Clear itself is that it does strip out what is not needed, so it itself is pretty lean.

Of course based on what is enabled in Clear, I agree you could have some contention issues, but that could be managed if sized properly.

I probably oversold a bit how I would like to see ClearOS used here when combined with PIAF. Most likely this would NOT be then used as a file server, but probably just for things like basic Internet gateway, web proxy/content filter, LDAP server, and perhaps email server. For under 50 Internet users and perhaps 5-10 simultaneous calls, I would imagine this should be fine on the same box, depending on how one sizes that box.

Also note that in most cases I prefer to use external gateways (AudioCodes) instead of FXO cards in the Asterisk box, which provides a bit of additional resiliency (ie: if the Asterisk box goes down, GW sends calls directly to phones, and emergency calls from phones will go straight to the GW (phone configuration)).