Problem with installing Single BRI Card (HFC - Cologne Chip)

Distro Discussion & Help
1

Hi,

I recently tried to install a Single BRI Card with the Cologne Chip with no success with the DAHDI that the FreePBX Distro provides. The card was:

[code]

lspci | grep Cologne

01:00.0 Network controller: Cologne Chip Designs GmbH ISDN network controller [HFC-PCI] (rev 02)[/code]

The problem was that the module zaphcf was not present. I had to recompile DAHDI with zaphfc module.

I am not sure if this intended or not but it would be nice to include support for single BRI cards with that chipset. Distro Version was: 1.814.210.58-2

Thanks,

2

Should I make a ticket for that of it is not necessary?

Regards

3

Hello, did you found a solution ? probably I’ve the same ISDN PCI Card you had (at least a Cologne Chip based, single port, BRI ISDN PCI one). I recently posted on the Forum here and then I also opened the Ticket 6244.
Regards, Davide.

4

Yes, I have solved it by downloading and rebuilding dahdi provided by openvox (modified, I don’t recommend it cause it will break with updates).Keep in mind that, it was the EOL Distro (1.814.210.58-2). I haven’t tested the new Distro but if I recall correct they added support for HFC cards. At the moment I do not have a card of that type to test it, as soon as I get one I will report back here.

Regards

5

Great.
I tested the new one FreePBX Distro (latest stable 2.210-62-3, -4 and -5…see both links I provided) and the BRI ISDN HFC Cologne Chip based PCI Card was immediately recognized by the Kernel (which is unrelated to FreePBX itself) but, from the FreePBX Graphical User Interface (GUI) point of view and once installed the DAHDi Configuration Module, was not possible to define some parameters regarding the digital Span (as example: BRI Euro-ISDN, BRI_PtP or BRI_PtMP signalling method).

I ask myself if I can survive with a running HFC Card WITHOUT DAHDi Configuration Module (only with the dahdi plus eventually dahdi-tools installed).

Probably there are (or there was) differences between dahdi rpm developed or, at least, used by various different entities (FreePBX, Elastix, Asterisk itself) but I can’t understand if these differences are an issue or if it is something related to configuration files: it seems to me that some configuration files are missing in FreePBX Distro implementation…maybe I’m wrong…but I have to cross-check DAHDi related configuration files - one by one - against another Asterisk based working distro setup I have (e.g. Elastix 2.4.0-RC2).

Best regards, Davide.

6

Now you cited OpenVox I see that the OpenVox B100E BRI ISDN PCI Card looks very similar (looking at the picture of B100E it’s clear it has a Cologne Chip HFC-S) to the unbranded one I have.

7

So your card works ok now? I did not understand. If no try this,

Uninstall dahdi module and from SSH do the following:

  1. Run lspci to see if your card is recognized
  2. Run dahdi_genconf -vvvvvv. What is the output?
  3. Run dahdi_cfg -vvvvv. What is the output?

If everything is ok, you can configure manually the config files of dahdi (/etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf, /etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf). There wouldn’t be any need usually for this.

Also, do this only if there is only the HFC card in the system cause it might break your other card configuration (if there are any others).

Hope this helps

8

Thanks esarant for your answer.

The card I have works under Elastix 2.4.0: I made a lot of incoming and outgoing ISDN calls with very good audio quality (via Grandstream GXP2200 IP phone) without issues.

The point is I don’t want to use Elastix (I don’t like its model of development). I like too much FreePBX Distro and its community. But this is just my personal opinion.

The HFC card is correctly recognized by Linux (so at low level, at module level, ) at least on:

  • FreePBX Distro 2.210.62-3 (then updated via Script to -4 and -5)
  • Elastix 2.4.0 Distro (then updated via yum)
  • AsteriskNow 2.0.2 Distro (then updated via yum)

Look my findings here and Ticket 6244.

Just to make the reading easier for you:

lspci -v

05:00.0 Network controller: Cologne Chip Designs GmbH ISDN network controller [HFC-PCI] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Cologne Chip Designs GmbH ISDN Board
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 16, IRQ 21
I/O ports at 1000 [disabled] [=8]
Memory at f0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [=256]
Capabilities: (40) Power Management version 1
Kernel driver in use: vzaphfc
Kernel modules: zaphfc, hisax, hfcpci

dmesg | grep HFC

vzaphfc: HFC-S PCI A ISDN (V1.42) loading
vzaphfc: card 0: registered ZTHFC1/0/1
vzaphfc: card 0: registered ZTHFC1/0/2
vzaphfc: card 0: registered ZTHFC1/0/3

dahdi_hardware

pci:0000:05:00.0 zaphfc+ 1397:2bd0 HFC-S ISDN BRI card

dahdi_scan

(1) active=yes
alarms=UNCONFIGURED
description=HFC-S PCI A ISDN card 0 [TE]
name=ZTHFC1
manufacturer=Cologne Chips
devicetype=HFC-S PCI-A ISDN
location=PCI Bus 05 Slot 01
basechan=1
totchans=3
irq=0
type=digital-TE
syncsrc=0
lbo=0 db (CSU)/0-133 feet (DSX-1)
coding_opts=AMI
framing_opts=CCS
coding=
framing=CAS

and for which the dahdi service seems to be up and running:

service dahdi status

Span 1: ZTHFC1 "HFC-S PCI A ISDN card 0 [TE] " (MASTER)

1 BRI
2 BRI
3 BRI

Are you suggesting me to configure manually the config files of dahdi (/etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf and /etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf) WITHOUT installing the DAHDI Configuration Module on FreePBX GUI ? I noticed that /etc/asterisk/dahdi-channels.conf was absent when I installed the DAHDI Configuration Module (If I recall well).

As you can see at low level the Card is OK, the Kernel Modules are loaded OK (vzaphfc as Kernel Driver) so there are no issues with modules like hisax or hfcpci…maybe the point is the configuration file/files to be manually configured (and not via touched by FreePBX through DAHDI Configuration Module).

Regards, Davide.

9

Sorry the last statement should be really “…maybe the point is that each configuration file of dahdi should be manually configured either than leave that FreePBX DAHDI Configuration Module touches (or creates) them messing up things.”

10

At this time the DAHDI GUI module for FreePBX does not support BRI cards. It is being worked on and should be done in the next month and published.

You need to manually configure your card with the dahdi_genconf script