Telium Support Group

The license file contains a ‘signature’ to verify the license has not been changed. You are inadvertently changing the license file; there are subtle differences between Linux text files and Windows text files. (In particular, Windows uses CRLF while Linux uses CR only.) You don’t need to know the details, but even opening the file in Notepad and then saving it again is changing the file!

This time go to your mail client and save the attachment directly from the message (without opening in Notepad) to the PBX. Your license should then work fine.

Exit code 158 means that HAAst is unable to find the service/executable file needed to control Asterisk. Since you installed Asterisk from source, I assume you are not using any configuration generator (eg: Elastix) as well. If that’s the case then the ‘distribution’ setting in the [asterisk] stanza of the haast.conf file should be set to 2 (Digium Asterisk). Confirm that setting – then proceed to the steps below if the error remains.

Next ensure that you installed an Asterisk service file appropriate for your Linux distribution. Most recent Linux distributions have switched to systemd, which requires you use an asterisk.service file. If you are using an older Linux distribution then you require a SysV / initd style service file.

While Asterisk includes a sample SysV style service file for Asterisk, it might not include a systemd style service file just yet (as of Dec 2016). You can find one by searching the Digium support forums, but here’s an example you can use:


[Unit]
Description=Asterisk PBX and telephony daemon
Documentation=man:asterisk(8)
Wants=network.target
After=network.target
 
[Service]
Type=simple
User=asterisk
Group=asterisk
ExecStart=/usr/bin/asterisk -f -C /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf
ExecStop=/usr/bin/asterisk -rx ‘core stop now’
ExecReload=/usr/bin/asterisk -rx ‘core reload’
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target


Save the above as ‘asterisk.service’ and place it in /etc/systemd/system/ and set file permissions to 755. Don’t add restart directives (like you might find on the internet) since HAAst should be responsible for restarting Asterisk when necessary. You will also have to tell Linux about the new service file with the ‘systemctl daemon-reload’ command (or similar depending on your Linux distro).

If you want to use the SysV / initd style service file that’s ok too, but you’ll need to tell HAAst which style of service file you are using. To do so contact Telium support and we will provide you with details specific to your Linux distribution. (But in general if your Linux distro uses systemd, stick with systemd service files).

The problem is that you have a space character after the backslash on line 5 (based on analyzing the config file sent). If you add any character after a backslash it means ‘escape’ as opposed to ‘continuation’. So SecAst stops reading your excludes at line 5.

The solution is to ensure you have no characters following the backslash character.

Yes. No problem!

Many call centers are keeping their primary PBX’s on site (for performance and other reasons), and using the cloud for their backup PBX’s. HAAst will run on Amazon Web Services (AWS) + Amazon Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2), Microsoft Azure, and more, to create your primary PBX, backup PBX, or both. You can even place the HAAst operational database in Amazon Relational Data Services (RDS) or equivalent with both peers writing performance and operating data to the shared database. (The HAAst web GUI allows you to view combined and individual PBX reports in many areas). We do not recommend placing Asterisk configuration databases in RDS or equivalent – but this should not be a problem as they are fairly static and small.

Unlike other open source and closed source commercial HA products, HAAst does not use any LAN based protocols (NFS/DRBD/hearbeat/etc). HAAst is designed around only WAN based protocols, primarily it’s own PeerLink protocol. HAAst can accommodate large swings in network latency as would be seen in links between in-house servers and the cloud. HAAst (Commercial Unlimited edition) even learns these variations and adapts to the changes, so you never have a false positive fail-over of the cluster. This approach allows customers to even place their PBX instances in different Amazon Recovery Zone’s, and in different Regions.

With AWS, or any cloud provider, you will want to use their static network hardware option; Amazon calls it Elastic Network Interfaces (ENI). As of August 2016 Azure (ARM and ASM) support static network hardware (MAC address).

UPDATE: Based on feedback this change helped some users, but hurt others. So we’ve created a SUPPORTCODE which you can add to your haast.conf file which will force HAAst to use initd, even if your Linux distribution uses systemd.

Just send an email to support requesting the code, and then HAAst will operate as it did before. Note that you must be running HAAst version 2.3.2.2 or later for the SUPPORTCODE to work.

Yes! HAAst would start without any problem.

A lot of people don’t realize that all other PBX HA solutions in the marketplace are based on DRBD, an open source product which creates a mirrored logical disk between peers. As a result, any corruption to files on one system are immediately mirrored to the other system! This is why critical call centers like 911/PSAP’s, hospitals, etc. will not allow DRBD based PBX solutions – each peer must be fully independent of the other.

HAAst is the only product which does not mirror the hard disk. HAAst synchronizes individual files/directories/databases that you specify, and, it only synchronizes if the peer is healthy! So a failing peer will never corrupt files on the other peer.

You’ll find that many configuration generators now offer an ‘HA’ module, and they are all based on DRBD. Some organizations like Elastix are very honest about this – and show you how to install the open source product for free. Some organizations are less forthcoming, and actually charge you $3000 for a free open source product (DRBD).

Vendors of other PBX HA solutions are not telling you the whole picture. Many HAAst clients start with HA modules built into configuration generators, and switch to HAAst after their ‘cluster’ couldn’t withstand any failure other than the most simplistic scenario of unplugging one box.

There are lots of other differences too. DRBD solutions don’t allow for configuration differences between peers. HAAst allows peers to have different trunks, users, dialplans, etc. (yet still share a common base that is synchronized), all things you can’t do if you simply mirror a disk.

Telium is a big supporter of free and open source software, and DRBD is a wonderful product. But adding DRBD to a PBX and calling it ‘HA’ is naive; just like adding RAID to a PBX and declaring it ‘HA’ is naive.

HAAst is a commercial tool, targeted at large and commercial call centers. These environments don’t use Rasberry PI’s, so we haven’t compiled for the PI yet.

FreePBX targets home and small office installations (large commercial call centers don’t generally use FreePBX). However, as some of our developers are PI enthusiasts at home, we may chose to offer a free version of HAAst for the PI some day. But this would be a hobby version only!

If you are using a PI and want HAAst, please post to tell us the Linux distro & version you are using on the Pi (so we can figure out what to compile for).