Linux client

[ckleea]

Will there be a client that works until linux centos?

[MichiganTelephone]

Will there be a client that works until linux centos?

I've been hoping for one that would work under either Mac OS X or Ubuntu Linux.

[ckleea]

For linux, we do not necessary to have GUI client as PC but command line is ok. We are in anyway using a SIP client.

[biomesh]

I would prefer to have it available for most distributions, not just one or two.

[MichiganTelephone]

For linux, we do not necessary to have GUI client as PC but command line is ok. We are in anyway using a SIP client.

Good point — much as I generally hate using the command line for anything, in this case it makes sense because it could then be started as a service when the system starts, and also would likely have much greater compatibility.  And if the source were available, it's possible that one of the projects that ports Linux software to the Mac (MacPorts, Fink, Rudix, etc.) might be able to post it to OS X.  On the other hand, if it ran as a service, maybe you could run it on one server on your local network and route traffic from all your other local computers through it.

[biomesh]

Yes, an ObiApp proxy service that I could run on my plug computer would be my top choice.  This would mean that the source would need to be available.

[jasmitch]

I have the OBIAPP running under Ubuntu using wine(http://wiki.winehq.org/), using X-Lite v3.

[MichiganTelephone]

I have the OBIAPP running under Ubuntu using wine(http://wiki.winehq.org/), using X-Lite v3.

Really?  I had tried it under Codeweavers' Crossover on a Mac (which is supposed to be a commercial version of WINE, more or less) and the installer wouldn't run.  I have an Acer Aspire Revo running Ubuntu Karmic that I'm using as a HTPC — I'll have to see if I can get it to work on that.

[MichiganTelephone]

Okay, very interesting.  I was able to install the client under WINE on my HTPC box, and after installing it appears to be running normally.  There is a little white box with a capital O in it (which I assume stands for OBiAPP) in the top menu bar, and if I right click on it it brings up the OBiAPP preferences dialog, which shows four tabs along the top.

X-Lite doesn't work worth crap on a Mac (at least not on mine) - it keeps crashing, though I was able to get it to stay up intermittently.  However, Zoiper seems stable enough.  And both exhibit the same problem - if I try to connect to the OBiAPP on the HTPC box it works and I can receive incoming calls, and all appears to be fine except that when I hang up the softphone, it takes about 15 to 20 seconds for the call to actually disconnect, as if the OBiAPP either isn't receiving the hangup signal or is not passing it along.

The real issue is on outgoing calls. With both X-Lite (when it didn't crash) and Zoiper, I observe that no matter what I try to call, the call drops after approximately 8 to 10 seconds. For example, if I call the 222222222 echo test, it gets to the words "immediately echoed" (and sometimes not even that far) and then the call is just dropped. Yet on an incoming call to the softphone, there's no such issue - the call stays connected.  Don't know why there would be a difference, but there is.  That indicates to me that everything is registering correctly but for some reason OBiAPP is not getting something it wants to see from the client.

In this case the softphone is running on the Mac and the OBiAPP is running under Ubuntu.  I haven't tried a softphone client on the Ubuntu (HTPC) system because I don't have a microphone hooked up there, but I will go ahead and try that next just to see if that will hold a connection on an outgoing call.

[MichiganTelephone]

Hmmm, I have tried two different softphones on the Ubuntu box and neither seem to want to register - one complains that port 5060 is already in use.  I don't really have time to deal with this any more tonight but at least the OBiAPP installed under WINE, so that's hopeful.

[ckleea]

Very interesting findings. Would install wine for my centos to test out

[ckleea]

My windows zoiper can login in the linux but can't make a call

[MichiganTelephone]

Yeah, that was how it played out for me.  With the client installed on a different machine (Ubuntu-based) I could receive calls fine, but otugoing calls got cut off within 8-10 seconds.  When I tried to run a client on the same machine, out of three I tried (including the Linux version of Zoiper) none worked properly, and Zopier in particular crashed the OBiTALK app on an incoming call, although that may have partly been because it didn't recognize the audio support in this system (which is strange because I can run Winamp under WINE and it runs fine).

I also took the unusual step of just moving the unpacked, post-installation "OBIHAI" directory from my Linux box to my Mac, and just running obiapp.exe under Crossover.  That actually did work briefly, but because it had not been "installed" correctly, it didn't create an icon in the top menu bar.  Therefore, once it was running, there was no way to stop it short of shutting down Crossover, but the problem there was when I tried to bring it up a second time, Zoiper would not register with it.  So I suspect it left something behind in memory (and this may have to do with why one of the Linux clients wouldn't register there, claiming that port 5060 was already in use). A reboot might fix the problem but it takes a good ten minutes minimum to completely sat down and reboot my Mac Mini (I will honestly tell you that some Apple products are VERY overrated) so I haven't done that yet.  And unfortunately, there is no "official" way to install WINE on a Mac, though there are several unofficial methods.

[ckleea]

I notice that despite my windows zoiper showed registered, when I was in centos environment, the registration status was not. Hence I believe it is not possible to use PC client with wine /centos

[ckleea]

Yeah, that was how it played out for me.  With the client installed on a different machine (Ubuntu-based) I could receive calls fine, but otugoing calls got cut off within 8-10 seconds.  When I tried to run a client on the same machine, out of three I tried (including the Linux version of Zoiper) none worked properly, and Zopier in particular crashed the OBiTALK app on an incoming call, although that may have partly been because it didn't recognize the audio support in this system (which is strange because I can run Winamp under WINE and it runs fine).

I also took the unusual step of just moving the unpacked, post-installation "OBIHAI" directory from my Linux box to my Mac, and just running obiapp.exe under Crossover.  That actually did work briefly, but because it had not been "installed" correctly, it didn't create an icon in the top menu bar.  Therefore, once it was running, there was no way to stop it short of shutting down Crossover, but the problem there was when I tried to bring it up a second time, Zoiper would not register with it.  So I suspect it left something behind in memory (and this may have to do with why one of the Linux clients wouldn't register there, claiming that port 5060 was already in use). A reboot might fix the problem but it takes a good ten minutes minimum to completely sat down and reboot my Mac Mini (I will honestly tell you that some Apple products are VERY overrated) so I haven't done that yet.  And unfortunately, there is no "official" way to install WINE on a Mac, though there are several unofficial methods.

Have you played around with Centos/Redhat + Wine?

I got no success.

[MichiganTelephone]

Have you played around with Centos/Redhat + Wine?

I got no success.

No, because the only Centos based systems I have access to are Asterisk servers and they aren't supporting a GUI mode, and OBiAPP very much requires a GUI to configure, even if it's not so much needed in normal operation.  I know it's possible to change the bootup mode (forget what it's called, runlevel or something like that) to get a minimal GUI, but I very much doubt that OBiAPP would run properly under WINE on Centos, assuming you could get WINE to run in the first place.

The only way I got WINE to run on a Mac was to run Wineskin - and I only got it to run once under that, for a few minutes, and then I couldn't get it to work again.  But Wineskin is a Mac OS X only program, and I really don't know if there is any equivalent Linux program.

[stevea]

I got obiapp working with Linphone on Fedora14.

The opiapp runs under Wine and setup is as before.

Using the 'linphonec' configuration tool you need to create the proxy settings and arrange for their use and set the sip port to 5061 (5060 is in use by the opiapp.:

# linphonec
[[[ various messages omitted]]]
linphonec> proxy add
Adding new proxy setup. Hit ^D to abort.
Enter proxy sip address: sip:290XXXXXX@127.0.0.1
Your identity for this proxy: sip:290XXXXXX@127.0.0.1
Do you want to register on this proxy (yes/no): yes
Specify register expiration time in seconds (default is 600): 30
Expiration: 30 seconds
Specify route if needed: <enter>
No route specified.
--------------------------------------------
sip address: sip:290XXXXXX@127.0.0.1
route:
identity: sip:290XXXXXX@127.0.0.1
register: yes
expires: 30
registered: no
--------------------------------------------
Accept the above proxy configuration (yes/no) ?: yes
Proxy added.
linphonec>
linphonec> proxy use
Current default proxy is 0.
linphonec>
linphonec> ports sip 5061
Setting sip port to 5061
linphonec>

where "290XXXXXX" is your obiapp 9 digit "OBi number".

After this you should be able to start the 'linphone-3' gui to complete the configuration.
From the "Modes" dropdown select "Audio only"
from the Linphone dropdown select "Preferences"

In the new Preferences window:
In the "Network Settings" tab make sure the SIP port is now 5061 ,set the audio RTP port to 36000,  and the "Nat and Firewall" are "Direct connection ...".
In the Manage SIP accounts" tab, enter your display name, as "Your username" enter your OBi number 290XXXXXX,
also select and edit the "proxy accounts" entry that should be present.  It should have
sip:290XXXXXX@127.0.0.1, for both SIP Identity and SIP proxy address.  Route is empty and Registration duration is 30 seconds..  Make sure "Register at startup" is selected.
Use "OK" and "Done" to exit the preferences.

You may need to quit and restart linphone-3, or take the connection offline & back on then wait a couple seconds for the registration to complete.

[ckleea]

I now got it registered and can dial out from zoiper which connects from a remote PC.

[ckleea]

I don't know. from time to time, it may not be able to register. Sometimes it responds as timeout.

[ckleea]

Have you played around with Centos/Redhat + Wine?

I got no success.

No, because the only Centos based systems I have access to are Asterisk servers and they aren't supporting a GUI mode, and OBiAPP very much requires a GUI to configure, even if it's not so much needed in normal operation.  I know it's possible to change the bootup mode (forget what it's called, runlevel or something like that) to get a minimal GUI, but I very much doubt that OBiAPP would run properly under WINE on Centos, assuming you could get WINE to run in the first place.

The only way I got WINE to run on a Mac was to run Wineskin - and I only got it to run once under that, for a few minutes, and then I couldn't get it to work again.  But Wineskin is a Mac OS X only program, and I really don't know if there is any equivalent Linux program.

At the end, I got success by using asterisk to connect to the OBiApps as well. I can even dial in and out.
However, I would request to OBiHAI to build a simple command line native linux program to allow even less resource.