In keeping with Rhino’s goal to be OPEN and part of the community, we announced back in January that we would start shipping a multitude of Asterisk based distributions. Today Rhino shipped out our first Ceros with PBX in a Flash.

Pbx in a flash entered into the game not too long ago built by Joe Roper and distributed by Ward Mundy of Nerd Vittles. The distribution has gained a foothold and a following that is based on the fans of Ward Mundy and his Asterisk scripts. The First PBX in a Flash Ceros is on its Way to Oregon and we hope there will be many more shipping. You may also notice that this isn’t the Ceros you may be familiar with. After months of design changes the Ceros has been given an extreme makeover. Keep an eye out for the Official announcement of the new, more attractive Ceros.

More on PBX in a Flash at http://pbxinaflash.com

If Anaconda (the CentOS installer) detects a PAE compatible processor it will install kernel and kernel-pae

kernel-PAE (x86-only): Contains a kernel with support for 64GB of memory on x86 systems through Physical Address Extensions (PAE). Only x86 CPUs that support PAE can run this kernel. This kernel is provided because x86 systems can’t address more than 4GB of memory without PAE extensions.

trixbox is package based and everything wraps around modules in a specific kernel.

If your system gets the pae kernel you can correct this by editing /etc/grub.conf

you should see something to the effect of :
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title trixbox (2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE ro root=LABEL=/1 acpi=off
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE.img
title trixbox-base (2.6.18-53.1.4.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5 ro root=LABEL=/1 acpi=off
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.img

Simply use # to comment out:
#title trixbox (2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE)
#root (hd0,0)
#kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE ro root=LABEL=/1 acpi=off
#initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5PAE.img

Now you can ensure it will boot to the correct image.

Just got word that 2 of the 4 scholarships are gone and from what I hear the Hotel is almost full so if you want to grab a discount you better make a run for it because it didnt take long to fill the 2 slots I imagine the other 2 will be gone in a day or so.

By the way I was watching American Idol ( I know shut-up) and they were in Charleston SC. And they did the little intro where they scrolled through the area and It looks like an awesome place to visit. I Like old buildings so definitely on my list.

EDIT as of 2PM 01/24 only 1 Rhino Seat remains

For more info visit: http://freepbx.org/open-telephony-training-seminar-rhino

The folks over at FreePBX have announced there long awaited training. It may seem like were slow on announcing this but we didn’t want it to get lost in the mix.
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Our Ceros restore disk has been posted. This disk is 99% automated only thing you should have to do is run /var/rhino_load/setup-ceros.sh for the display after it installs.

RAID users use restore-raid1
Non RAID users use restore or just press enter at the prompt

ftp://ftp.rhinoequipment.com/Ceros/Drivers/RhinoRecoveryCD_2.4-080111.iso

Keep your eyes open, restore disks for Elastix, PBX in a Flash and CentPBX coming soon.

Allot of ceros users are upgrading to trixbox 2.4 we do not recommend using any of the betas if your using a beta it would be best to push up to 2.4 stable.

In trixbox 2.4 betas and in 2.4 there is what trixbox calls a hardware audit tool also referenced to as a “phone home script”. (more…)

trixbox2.3.0.10 (note 2.2 has rpms)
Centos 5 has some quirks which make compiling difficult. We hope to have an RPM out today but in the mean time I have written a few scripts to make compiling as painless as possible. Please note these steps require an internet connection that can do proper dns resolution

1. go to /usr/src
2. Download the scripts:
wget ftp://ftp.rhinoequipment.com/Drivers/Contrib/fakezap.sh
wget ftp://ftp.rhinoequipment.com/Drivers/Contrib/driversfs.sh
3. Make the scripts executable:
chmod +x *.sh
4. Find your zaptel version and run fakezap
modinfo zaptel #please note you only want the version not the build so 1.4.7-1234 is 1.4.7
./fakezap.sh -v 1.4.7 #replace 1.4.7 with the proper version
5. Build the drivers. our latest version is 2.2.2
./driversfs.sh -v 2.2.2
6. I recommend downloading our modprobe file
wget -O /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.rhino ftp://ftp.rhinoequipment.com/Drivers/Contrib/modprobe.rhino

Rhino Equipment is pleased to announce the availability of Elastix on our Rhino Ceros line of equipment.

Elastix allows us to gain a stable platform that is fully compatible out of the box with modern hardware such as PCI Express and SATA. This allows for proper use of interrupt management features like ACPI. All of this without losing the PBX features you have come to love.

You also gain new features such as an integrated HylaFax server, Communications and more flexibility through the web UI.

This system has been fully tested and integrated into our Rhino Ceros product. We recommend the 2.6.18 and above kernel for boxes that contain multiple network cards, digital cards used in conjunction with other digital or analog cards, and PCI-E cards. This kernel is native to the Elastix distrobution.

For more information please visit:

http://www.elastix.org

http://www.rhinoequipment.com

FYI all trixbox CE users

Just to give everyone a heads up from the Rhino’s mouth. Rhino products are proud to continually work with trixbox CE and future trixbox distributions. We also take great pride in our customers and realize that the more information that is posted the better informed we all are. That is why we take it very seriously to keep our customers informed of any ongoing issues with our hardware and distributions that we recommend.

The following issue has been popping up all over so please be aware of what you are installing at all times.

Please note that if you do a yum update for any of the following systems we cannot support your system until the system has been completely restored to factory settings.

trixbox CE 2.2

trixbox CE 2.2.1

trixbox CE 2.2.2

trixbox CE 2.2.3

trixbox CE 2.2.4

trixbox CE 2.2.5

trixbox CE 2.2.6

trixbox CE 2.2.7

trixbox CE 2.2.8

trixbox CE 2.2.9

This includes any future releases on the trixbox CE 2.2.x branch

This is due to errors in the trixbox repositories and this leads to corruption to your trixbox system.

The repositories for the upcoming trixbox 2.4 will be updated from what our trixbox sources have said, but for the trixbox 2.2.x repository this is not something that they can currently fix.

If you are seeing HDLC and FCS aborts in your logs. This is could be due to one of the following reasons:

1:

Make sure that your T1/E1 cards are at the following revisions and have the apropriate drivers installed on your system.

R1T1 -EC and Non-EC models must be at Hardware version 37 or above

R2T1 and R4T1 must be at Hardware version 36 or above

Driver revision must be at 2.0 and above.

If the above criteria is not met then you may see the aborts in your logs.

2:

If you are using CentOS4 and are using SATA drives you may see this issue.

You must use a kernel greater than 2.6.9.

By upgrading to an asterisk distribution with an updated kernel such as CentOS5 will alleviate these issues.

Please try one of the following systems:

Elastix

trixbox CE 2.4 (Beta for Cent 5)

RhinOSterisk (Alpha)