online_set - Finally make test calls through a dialup session on your OXE

[E32]

There are lots of useful tools available in our terminal sessions to the OXE. However we're still lacking one: an online test set that we can run from the terminal session.
Until now all we had to work with were real sets or maybe a softphone requiring direct access to the PBX (and a pricey license to boot). Because we need direct network access for those it is not possible to run them through dial-up sessions. Giving you the not so welcome prospect of having to drive over to that remote site in the dead of night to examine a problem.

So I thought it would be an interesting experiment to write some software to use as a 'terminal softphone' which I can run from anywhere as long as I have a shell on the call server.
The result of this is a very small (several kb) piece of software called 'online_set' which will allow me to dial a number and playback a G.711 aLaw test sound (1000Hz sinus) as well as pick up an incoming call and play back the same test sound.

Requirements:
1 CS (with role address set up)
1 standard IP user license

Instructions:

• Log on to the call server and upload the binary somewhere you like (/DHS3bin/mtcl for instance)
• Add a 4008 set
• Configure this set with a fake mac address (eg 00:00:00:00:00:01) and disable "Reset For Update Authorized"
• Start the online set with

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  ./online_set <role IP address CS> <fake mac address> <local IP address CS>

Once you're logged on you are able to use the following commands:
Dialing:

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dial <character sequence>

Off-hook receiver:

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hook

Release call:

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release

Quit:

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quit

It is also possible to input individual characters to dial 0-9, # and *
Press enter to confirm a command, I did not implement backspace because ancient ncurses was misbehaving when combined with readline (so I had to drop readline) and I couldn't be bothered to fix that

Download here

Disclaimer:
This was written just for fun, I take no responsibility for your OXE blowing up on you. I have intentionally crippled voice functionality because this is a troubleshooting tool.
It works alright for me on release 11.2 but I have no reason to assume earlier releases won't work. I expect it will be broken on release 12, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Implementing G.711 muLaw should be no problem, drop me a line. Compressed codecs are pretty much out of the question.

[tgn]

thanks for this peace of cake
if it works, it will be very helpful.
i'll test it soon.

regards...

[tot3nkopf]

Thank you. Very interesting.
For reference you can use also a virtual ghost with xmon or Frank's dialer (which is based on xmon). For already working sets pilot2a is also an option.

[E32]

I was playing around with pilot2a before, but it just didn't work the way I wanted. I didn't know about xmon actually.

[samuel.aflalo]

Hi. Have problem downloading the file.
Is there anywhere I can download ?
Thank you
Samuel

[jasic]

Cool work great with 11.2.2
Thx

[jasic]

unfortunally it doesn't work with 12.2.
error while loading shared libraries: libreadline.so.4.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory