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treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

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Pbx on embedded system

Voip Guru's
can anybody tell me if there is an pbx software that would run on embedded system or not?
twinclouds
join:2010-06-12
San Diego, CA

twinclouds

Member

The definition of embedded system is not clear to me. For example, a router with a MIPS processor inside can be considered as an embedded system. It can certainly run Asterisk/PBX. We need to know which embedded system platform you are thinking about first.
Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
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join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

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to treich
Yes.
mazilo
From Mazilo
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join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

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said by twinclouds:

The definition of embedded system is not clear to me. For example, a router with a MIPS processor inside can be considered as an embedded system. It can certainly run Asterisk/PBX.

Exactly.

As a matter of fact, an IP Phone can also be considered as an embedded system.

mgraves1
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join:2004-04-05
Houston, TX

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Been there. Done that. Many times over.

»www.mgraves.org/2008/01/ ··· k-pbx-2/

»www.mgraves.org/2010/07/ ··· f-scale/

People now run Freeswitch or Asterisk on a Raspberry Pi.

Google is your friend.

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

Member

I am talking about thin clients not Soho home routers sorry if I wasn't clear on type of embedded setup.
Expand your moderator at work
twinclouds
join:2010-06-12
San Diego, CA

1 edit

twinclouds

Member

Re: Pbx on embedded system

There are also different thin clients. As far as I know, some of the thin clients are windows based, i.e., they are only a low power windows machine, and some are not. As I said, Asterisk uses little computation power. The question is, is there a PBX developed for its operating system. if not, you are out of luck.
I think it is very like the thin client machine is able to run linux so it can support Asterisk. However, it may not come in that form.
mazilo
From Mazilo
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join:2002-05-30
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said by treich:

I am talking about thin clients not Soho home routers sorry if I wasn't clear on type of embedded setup.

OT: How much are you going to pay for a thin client system?

treich
join:2006-12-12

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Seriously all thin clients are the same there is NO differents in them all they are all on DOM disk which is you can rewrite the DOM and put linux on them. You can run linux on minimum requirements. Right now I am running pfsense on an thin client that is 800mhz with 2GB of memory and 4GB flash drive on it.

You can buy used ones on ebay for 20-90 dollars.
mazilo
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join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

mazilo

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said by treich:

You can buy used ones on ebay for 20-90 dollars.

For that money, I would contemplate for an Android Google TV on an HDMI stick with a quad-core ARM CPU. Unless your choice of PBX software has been ported to an Android OS, this won't be a turn-key project.
engineerdan
join:2006-12-07
Washington, DC

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said by treich:

I am talking about thin clients not Soho home routers sorry if I wasn't clear on type of embedded setup.

This sounds a great deal like AstLinux, which I've been quite happy running since 2006.

See »www.astlinux.org

toro
join:2006-01-27
Scarborough, ON

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I've been running Debian and Asterisk successfully on a HP T5740 thin client. It has plenty of power for a home PBX and probably even for a small office.
For home Asterisk I am currently using a Buffalo Linkstation LS-WVL (also running Debian, not the stock firmware).
toro

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said by mazilo:

said by treich:

You can buy used ones on ebay for 20-90 dollars.

For that money, I would contemplate for an Android Google TV on an HDMI stick with a quad-core ARM CPU. Unless your choice of PBX software has been ported to an Android OS, this won't be a turn-key project.

Just keep in mind that those sticks don't have an Ethernet port, so you'd have to use either wireless or a USB to Ethernet dongle. Personally I don't think either one is reliable enough.
twinclouds
join:2010-06-12
San Diego, CA

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said by treich:

Seriously all thin clients are the same there is NO differents in them all they are all on DOM disk which is you can rewrite the DOM and put linux on them. You can run linux on minimum requirements. Right now I am running pfsense on an thin client that is 800mhz with 2GB of memory and 4GB flash drive on it.

You can buy used ones on ebay for 20-90 dollars.

I don't have much experience with thin client. At that spec, I think it is possible to run PBX software. However, for the price, you can find better platform. I would say Raspberry Pi will be the best suitable one. You can also get others like Pogo Mobile, which you can get from Amazon for less than $15 is probably the cheapest and very reliable. I have one setup running on it right now.
BTW, have you every tried to find how much power you thin client consuming when idle? I tried to find a X68 based box at low power but cannot find unless go to something like Intel NUC at higher price.
mazilo
From Mazilo
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said by toro:

said by mazilo:

said by treich:

You can buy used ones on ebay for 20-90 dollars.

For that money, I would contemplate for an Android Google TV on an HDMI stick with a quad-core ARM CPU. Unless your choice of PBX software has been ported to an Android OS, this won't be a turn-key project.

Just keep in mind that those sticks don't have an Ethernet port, so you'd have to use either wireless or a USB to Ethernet dongle. Personally I don't think either one is reliable enough.

You are correct, especially if your system has to handle huge traffics.

For a personal use as a PBX System on top of an original (factory default) usage, using a WiFi or through a USB/RJ45 dongle shall not be a problem. I had tested a Seagate Dockstar configured using a cheap (not inexpensive) USB/RJ4510M/100M Lan Ethernet Adapter (based on a Davicom DM9601 Linux kernel driver) and it could sustain a throughput of 1.45/4.5 (up/down) Mbps (I don't remember exactly Mbps or MBps, but just to be on the safe side I assumed Mbps) without a problem. I tested with up to 4 concurrent SIP calls with G711 CoDec for hours sans any hick ups. At the time, I only had 4 extensions. Along with my Dockstar (where my FreeSWITCH was hosted), all the four extensions (on two Linksys PAP2v1 units) were connected to my 16-port 10/100 Mbps switches. All the calls (audio streams) went through my FS. In other words, if I placed a call from one extension to the other, the audio streams would go through from an extension (on a Linksys PAP2v1) to the switch, to my FS, back to the switch, and finally to the other extension (on another Linksys PAP2v1). So, with two extensions calling another two extensions, the USB/RJ45 dongle handled 4 audio streams. If each audio stream consumed 64Kbps, then all 4 audio streams added up to 256Kbps (way below 1.45 Mbps).

If I had this Hexin Ethernet USB 2.0 Lan Network Card RJ45 Adapter 100/1000 Mbps (based on an ASIX AX88179 Linux driver), perhaps the throughput will be greater and better.
mazilo

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said by twinclouds:

However, for the price, you can find better platform. I would say Raspberry Pi will be the best suitable one.

By the time you furnish everything to get an Rpi up running, chances are you would have spent nearly $50. With that budget, you can buy a better hardware with at least a dual-core CPU clocked @1GHz+.

UHF
All static, all day, Forever
MVM
join:2002-05-24

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I have a box of HP Thin clients. I hadn't considered running PBX software on them for some reason, but I like that idea. I think these are 5720's.
twinclouds
join:2010-06-12
San Diego, CA

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said by toro:

ust keep in mind that those sticks don't have an Ethernet port, so you'd have to use either wireless or a USB to Ethernet dongle. Personally I don't think either one is reliable enough.

I have tried using MK802s to run Debian and Asterisk. They worked fine off Wifi. However, as Toro said, reliability might be a problem. The one worked best is an original Rikomagic 802II. Other clones always have some stability issue. As for MK808 and alike with multicores, I am yet to find a stable linux distribution to run on them so I think they are not for prime time yet for that purpose.
BTW, my GV callback setups, which I described in my blog, run pretty reliably right now on Dockstar and Pogo mobile. I have transitioned all my GV telephone services to the dialback mode. It takes 2-3 seconds longer than XMPP when dial out but the quality is pretty good, at least in my opinion. I feel it handles coming in calls even better than XMPP on asterisk.
twinclouds

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said by mazilo:

By the time you furnish everything to get an Rpi up running, chances are you would have spent nearly $50.

I agree with you. The reason I always use RPi is because it has the best community support so become very popular. My most reliable workhorses are still the Dockstar/Pogo platforms.
Which dual-core 1GHz+ unit you have in mind?
mazilo
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join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

mazilo

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said by twinclouds:

said by mazilo:

By the time you furnish everything to get an Rpi up running, chances are you would have spent nearly $50.

I agree with you. The reason I always use RPi is because it has the best community support so become very popular. My most reliable workhorses are still the Dockstar/Pogo platforms.
Which dual-core 1GHz+ unit you have in mind?

Originally, I wanted to get a Measy U4C and put FS on it to test mod_skypopen along with other things. But, my budget doesn't seem to permit. Now, Measy has a new toy U4K (based on an AllWinner A31 chipset) to support a 4K video, First, I thought this would be an excellent device, alas no built-in webcam.

toro
join:2006-01-27
Scarborough, ON

toro

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By the way, a bit off topic: all of those MK80x (and other RK3066) Android TV sticks advertise 1080p high def playback. In reality, the graphics chip can barely play at 720p. I have no experience with the RK3188 based sticks, but I wouldn't expect a huge improvement.
mazilo
From Mazilo
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join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

mazilo

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said by toro:

By the way, a bit off topic: all of those MK80x (and other RK3066) Android TV sticks advertise 1080p high def playback. In reality, the graphics chip can barely play at 720p. I have no experience with the RK3188 based sticks, but I wouldn't expect a huge improvement.

Yes and I read it somewhere years ago about this issue. Some also exhibit an issue with heat dissipation. Since I don't have a hands on experience with the device, I wouldn't know much. In other words, I wouldn't know if its graphics chip isn't capable of playing 1080p or if it is the software/driver. For the later, however, all I can say is a lot of time such an issue is fixable through some firmware upgrades.

Eight years ago, I bought a Netgear WGT634U WiFi router. At the time, not only Netgear had discontinued the router, but it got a lot of bad reputations, i.e. WiFi and/or router crashes for no apparent reasons, heat dissipation, etc., yet I bought three units. When I flashed it with a self-built OpenWRT firmware, none of those problems ever exists. This was just one of examples I have encountered.
Stewart
join:2005-07-13

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IMO, the BeagleBone is far superior to Raspberry Pi in most PBX applications. See comparison at »www.beaglebone-asterisk.org/ .

There are a couple of downsides:

BeagleBone lacks analog audio outputs, which could be useful for overhead paging, talking caller ID, etc.

If you give up using it for a PBX, you likely won't be able to re-purpose it for entertainment applications, as it lacks a GPU.
RonR
join:2003-10-10
Ash Flat, AR

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I've been running FreePBX (RasPBX) on a Raspberry Pi for a while now and haven't found any downsides with it. It's never crashed and handles multiple calls with CPU usage remaining extremely low.

It uses an OBi202 as two FXS ports plus a Bluetooth and OBiTALK trunk. Is also uses an OBi110 as a third FXS port plus a PSTN trunk.

I'm very pleased with the results.
twinclouds
join:2010-06-12
San Diego, CA

twinclouds

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I would agree with what RonR said. BBB maybe somewhat more powerful than RPi. It does not really matter if your computation need is low. Like Asterisk, it only takes less than10% of RPi's CPU load. Overall, BBB may a more solid industrial like design while RPi is more geared towards hobbyists. However, both of them will work fine for most applications. I would guess RPi has more community support but BBB is also catching up. Most applications of RPi will work on BBB anyway.

sammoats
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join:2014-02-16
Winchester, VA

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I happen to like »www.plugpbx.org/ or check out »raspberry-asterisk.org/ I have customers running on the raspberry but it seems a little under powered.

Sam

mgraves1
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Wow, go ahead, don't follow any links. They might actually given you the details you seek. I ran Astlinux on an HP T5700 five years ago. Astlinux and Askozia were in fact developed for just such small systems.

treich
join:2006-12-12

treich

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Micheal Askozia is not free anymore you have to pay for it yes you can get the older versions of it but not the newer ones.

mgraves1
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Houston, TX

2 edits

mgraves1

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Nonetheless, the small systems of today have the processing power of production systems from 7-8 years ago. I ran Asterisk on a Soekris Net4801 and it worked fine as long as you avoided transcoding. That was a 266 MHz CPU! A T5700 with a 1 GHz CPU can do even better.

You didn't say anything about wanting it for free.