Hi guys,

 

I have one trixbox installed directly on the net on a dsl link, following
the direction in nerdsvittle and it works great, firestarter as a basic
firewall is ok, but i prefer shorewall. And no more nat problems ;)

 

  _____  

De : Mike Ashton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Envoyé : 29 juillet 2006 10:01
À : [email protected]
Objet : Re: [on-asterisk] TRIXBOX

 

Blaine,

I've not yet installed the latest TrixBox, so my views/reviews may be not
quite up todate.

TrixBox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] is Asterisk through and through, the older [EMAIL 
PROTECTED] was the older
version where TrixBox is *1.2.8.

If you have a small install  it is a wonder, but it is specifically targeted
at a certain segment. It's one ISO, that without any intelligence you can
have a working install up and running in under an hour ( that includes
configuration ). But one has no real options. Now that can be good, but it
can also be bad. They changed the name due to the pigeon hole that the @Home
gave it. Now I'm also not fond f the new name, sounds too gimmicky. 

The install will take a raw machine, install centOS 4.3 (
RedHatEnterprise4.3 ) optimize the OS for the hardware you installed it on,
detect and configure your cards, if any are present plus :
* Asterisk 1.2.8
* mySQL 4.1.2
* Flash Operator Panel 0.25
* Festival Speech Engine version 1.96
* weather agi scripts
* wakeup calls
* Integrated WebMeetMe GUI
* AMP-1.10.010
* SugarCRM with Cisco XML Services interface + Click to Dial
* Native Music On Hold
* Fax support (spanDSP)
* xPL support
* Digium card auto-config
* Open A2Billing

And when it is done, everything works. But there are shortcomings also:
- firewall is not running
- ssh accepts root login
- no ntp synch running
- g729 and g723 are not installed so only work in pass through.
- ftp is running and accepts anon connections

Now these shortcomings are there for a reason, assumption is running on an
internal LAN, is for a home or a small office, you want CRM.

The installs I have are very stable, and since it is so easy to install, you
can build a test machine very quickly before deployment. On a P4 1.6 takes
40 minutes to have a fully configured machine running and most of that is
the compile time for the optimization, only really takes about 20 minutes of
interaction/configure time ( longer if it is your first time, I've done
about 10 ). The guys who have developed ths have done a great job for the
target they are trying to hit. They have allowed for customization using
includes, so they don't get whacked when the system regenerates conf files.

But if your looking for a lean asterisk machine, this is not it since you
have apache, ftp, mysql, Sugar all running on one box. So if you are
building for a call center,a TISP then TrixBox is not your solution. But if
you are a provider of small office solutions, you'd be hard pressed to do a
better job yourself with fully integrated CRM.

They have also integrated an update script for fetching and installing
updates, and have a very active wiki.

Mike

Blaine Aldridge wrote: 

As far as I know, trixbox target audience/market is for home / small 
business and not the enterprise or commercial market. That being said, 
there's nothing stopping you from using I just have some fears and 
concerns about using the trixbox product. 

I did a quick google search for trixbox vs asterisk and [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
(its previous name) vs asterisk and couldn't find much substance. Due 
to the amount of posts I see weekly about trixbox on this list, I 
think we should put together some of the pros and cons of using it. 
This could be a good wiki article later. 

Security: I like building boxes from scratch/minimal installs and 
install each individual package I need as I go. That way, I have 
nothing installed but packages I consider absolutely necessary to have 
on my asterisk box. The main dial plan I believe is stored in mysql 
and asterisk grabs what it needs via realtime. This sounds great but 
unless I specifically need realtime for something, I prefer storing my 
settings in configuration files. 

Running mysql is an additional headache and security risk. Yes, mysql 
could be locked down and not even exposed to the Internet but somehow 
that would make me feel as if I'm moving backwards. I prefer to start 
from the ground up, fix the leaks in my roof while I'm doing the roof 
instead of leaving it for after I am done the kitchen. 

Stability: I question the stability / reliability of the trixbox 
product. Even if we say the product is perfect, it's still fair to say 
each additional package I install has the possibility to decrease 
stability. 

Product Lifetime: What is the product release cycle like? Every 4 
months? Is my asterisk installation critically vulnerable because I am 
waiting for a new trixbox release to come out? Meanwhile, anyone 
running asterisk can do a cvs update and install. 

What about when trixbox lacks a specific feature needed in dialplan. I 
have read a few threads on this mailing list that cite you can use a 
extensions-custom.conf and, of course, the other option is to edit the 
php interface. When I did look at some code for one of the php 
interfaces a while back when it was [EMAIL PROTECTED], the code lacked 
meaningful comments and some things could have been coded better (a 
problem common in the open source community). 

Community: Where do you go for help with this product? As soon as I 
hear [EMAIL PROTECTED] or trixbox I quickly excuse myself from the 
conversation because I cannot help you. #asterisk on freenode sends 
everyone with [EMAIL PROTECTED] / trixbox questions to #freepbx. Most of 
the posts on this mailing list about trixbox go either unanswered, or 
somewhat answered, but not too in depth. 

The fact is that people who know asterisk really know nothing about 
trixbox because it's another beast of its own. I just can't apply my 
knowledge of asterisk to your trixbox installation. 

It would be fair to say that the 'regular' asterisk community has more 
'hardcore' nerds let's call them and a much larger community. 
(ignorant assumption warning light) The trixbox community would be 
mainly composed of people who like GUIs and are generally expect their 
answers to be solved by said GUI. When their answers are not solved by 
the GUI, they come running for help from others who, like them, are 
mostly unaware of what's going on in the background and how to solve 
the issue at hand. I am sure that is not all of the community again 
ignorant assumption warning light is on but for the most part the idea 
is that the developers of trixbox know what's going on and the 
consumer or the person using the product does not. 

Let the (constructive) flame wars begin. For good measure, let's throw 
Windows vs Linux in there as well :) 

This mailing list will also be biased towards trixbox so someone feel 
free to play devil's advocate. 

I have done little research on trixbox/[EMAIL PROTECTED], its community, 
or even installed it. 

Blaine Aldridge 

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