Virtualizing PIAF

[dswartz]

I currently have 4 servers in my basement: a mail/web/file server, PIAF, firewall and NAS. My file/mail/web server is actually pretty good - 8GB RAM on a server motherboard with a hyperthreaded 2.8GHZ Xeon. I am embarking on a mission to get rid of extra hardware by virtualizing the PIAF and firewall boxes. As I type this, I am watching PIAF 1755 bronze installing. I had already forwarded the landline to my freepbx DID, so the absence of zaptel/dahdi HW is not a showstopper. As soon as it all looks good, I will try to restore my current PIAF config onto it. Keep 'em crossed

 

[tshif]

What virtualization tech are you using?

 

[dswartz]

I opted to go with ESXI 4.1. It is more restrictive in terms of device support but it supports the two intel gig nics and I decided to put all of the virtual "disk" storage on my openfiler NAS and have the hypervisor access them as iScsi targets. I do very little that requires disk performance, and since the NAS has two 640GB disks in a raid1 mirror, I have some protection - if the hypervisor box dies, it's trivial to get back up.

 

[dswartz]

The biggest hassle: my main server is on the server I am going to use for virtualizing everything, so there is a flag day there, obviously [in fact, I am restoring the filesystem backup to the VM as I type this...]

 

[dswartz]

Okay, the pfsense gateway and main server are live. I have build a piaf bronze VM and have updated it to freepbx 2.8 (I went with these options, since that is what I have been running for awhile now.) I have not finished the config since I thought I had a spare PAP2T to connect to the house wiring (the old box has a rhino PCI card with FXO and FXS port, so I didn't need one then.) One other question: my provider does not provide 411 outbound support, so I am thinking I will need to map 411 to GOOG411, but the only downside there is that it is business numbers only, not residential. Is there any free or PAYG 411 option? It is not a huge deal, since I think we called 411 a total of 3 times last year

 

[MiB]

Your PiaF VM might need a timing source. I wonder if you can use this in pass thru on ESX 4.1.

 

[angoyr]

Hi dswartz,
I also opted to give ESXI 4.1 a try. The installation was a breeze. I created 2 containers and loaded PIAF 1.7.5.5 and everything looks as though I was running it on a standalone machine. I created a couple of extensions and an IAX2 trunk and was really excited. I stopped configuring because I don't know where to install the license they sent me. I keep getting this message that my trial expires in X days. I thought I installed the free version. Did I install the wrong package or I'm just missing something? Your feedback is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Robin

 

[golfnut]

ESXi license

I am running an ESXi server at my office and am loving it. To administer it I using vSphere client, which can be downloaded from the same page as ESXi. I use it on a window machine. Once that is downloaded and installed it will ask you to apply the license...Very Simple!

 

[dswartz]

ah yeah i had trouble finding where to enter the key

Hi dswartz,
I also opted to give ESXI 4.1 a try. The installation was a breeze. I created 2 containers and loaded PIAF 1.7.5.5 and everything looks as though I was running it on a standalone machine. I created a couple of extensions and an IAX2 trunk and was really excited. I stopped configuring because I don't know where to install the license they sent me. I keep getting this message that my trial expires in X days. I thought I installed the free version. Did I install the wrong package or I'm just missing something? Your feedback is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Robin

Click on the hypervisor entry itself (not the virtual machines that can be expanded under it) over on the left. The right should show a screen with various tabs. Select "Configuration". You will now see two sections, Hardware and Software. In the Software section, select "Licensed Features". Over on the right there will be a link called "edit..." you can click on. Do so, and there is a wizard to enter the key

FYI (possible gotcha for some folks): the free esxi only allows one physical cpu (with up to 6 cores.)

 

[dswartz]

This is working very well for me, although I may switch to CentOS 5.5 using the xen hypervisor. Two reasons: esxi has too limited HW support. I have a 3ware PATA card with two 160GB drives I was mirroring. Can't use it with esxi. Also, I want to connect the USB cable from my UPS to the esxi box so it can shut down the VMs if AC power is gone for too long. No can do there either (there are ways to get around this, but they are expensive or major pains in the ***).

 

[angoyr]

Hi,
This is exciting. I uninstalled vsphere client and reinstalled it but nothing happened. I then followed the direction of dswartz and oh boy, I'm happy. Everything else is so simple. I know this can't be good. I was too easy.
Anyhow here is my license info:

Product: vSphere 4 Hypervisor Licensed for 2 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)
License Key: XX997-6EJD1-J8638-DREU4-2199A
Expires: Never

Product Features:
Up to 256 GB of memory
Up to 4-way virtual SMP

The key has been sanitized.

Thanks a million.
Robin.

 

[dswartz]

Good to hear.

 

[dswartz]

I am in the processing of doing an install of Centos 5.5 (64 bit) with XEN support. When done, I will have to see how the responsiveness is compared to ESXI.

 

[dswartz]

looks interesting but doubtful

Your PiaF VM might need a timing source. I wonder if you can use this in pass thru on ESX 4.1.

Not sure how well USB pass through works, but according to the sangoma site: "NOTE: For best operation use a 2.6.25 or newer Linux kernel. The USB sub-system has changed drastically and earlier kernels are not as stable". FYI, my piaf box is running 2.6.18, so that doesn't look reliable.

 

[MiB]

Thanks. I've been meaning to try a newer kernel with PiaF to take advantage of some of the newer enhancements in more recent kernels like virtual environment improvements and trim for SSDs.

I'm going to try and get the PiaF payload installed and running on Fedora 13 with wget and see what happens. Never done this before tho.

 

[Sacrilego]

USB Pass through is slow, but stable.
So it might work.
I've tried some wirless cards, external storage and some other bandwidth critical devices and they all worked, but at a fraction of their speed.
Wireless N or G, never saw over 6mbps. Same with external storage, and a tv tuner was dropping frames unless I lowered the resolution.
YMMV
You might have better luck using pci-passthrough if your cpu/mobo support it, you could stick back in the Rhino or even give the vm access to the mobos onboard usb controller.

 

[dswartz]

Well, my mobo/cpu are old enough (5 yrs) that pci passthru is not an option. I'm fine with that though...

 

[Thumos]

GOOG411 is toast after Nov. 12:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye-to-old-friend-1-800-goog-411.html

 

[rg00dman]

ESXi Kernal changes

Hi All I am just wondering what kernal you moved over to when installing PBX onto ESXI, every time I have done it I have always had choppy sound. I use various providers here in the UK and they are all pretty much the same, also I have tried two different internet connections a Cable Modem 50MB Service and a DSL 10MB connection and both give the same call quality. Just to mix things up alittle I also tried about 3 different routers. I am really at a loss on how to fix this issue.

Also what spec did you assign to the VM ie memory hdd size and process speed and priority.

Thanks for any help you can provide with this.

 

[dswartz]

To be honest, I moved off of esxi several weeks ago. Not because of call quality but because esxi had too limited driver support (didn't support my 3ware raid controller.) I am currently running proxmox with an openvz piaf appliance. Works just fine.