End of support for asterisk 1.4

ckleea

There is a discussion in the asterisk-users discussion forum  on

Friends,

We have a discussion on asterisk-dev about the maintenance of the 1.4 branch. According to the release plans, support for 1.4 was scheduled to close in April 2011 - basically now. After that, only security patches would be committed. This is already a delay from the original plan published by Russell Bryant.

Unfortunately, I think this is way too early. My feeling and experience is that 1.8 is not ready for production in the environments I work in - large scale installations. Customers are not planning migration and all new installs are still 1.4. Tests we've been doing with 1.8 has failed within just a short time and so badly that customers has not paid me to spend any further time with 1.8.

Last time we went through this process with a LTS release (which we did not know then) it took over one year before we had a stable product to migrate away from 1.2 and jump on the 1.4 track. Hopefully, with the help of community, we can move up to 1.8 late this year or early next year. For me 1.8 is the focus, it's the LTS release.

Not having a supported 1.4 version from the Digium-hosted repositories will mean that we will have to move to separate repositories or branch off from the main track. I already maintain a ton of subversion branches with various patches to 1.4 It takes a lot of time to manage this version that is a fork from the main 1.4 branch. I will soon have to start working with subversion branches for 1.8 to create a compatible version for my customers to test, since most of the patches is not part of 1.8. After a few years of doing this, I know the work involved with managing code myself.

The Digium team wants to go ahead and not support 1.4 any more, I want to keep 1.4 open for normal bug fixes. What do you think?

Kevin proposed that the community maintains the 1.4 branch without support from the Digium team. I don't think that's a good solution, but it may be the only solution.  I haven't got the resources to manage the 1.4 code myself, so I won't step forward as a maintainer if I can't get proper funding. Anyone else out there that has the time and resources to manage the code?

Feel free to send me mail off list if you have ideas or suggestions on how to solve this - or continue the discussion here.

Regards,
/Olle

PS. Please don't start a discussion about 1.8 quality in this thread, that's a separate issue. I just want to know what you think about closing 1.4 support now. If you want to discuss 1.8 quality, start a new thread. Thanks.

ckleea

Though I am not using asterisk 1.4, I share their worries especially many have been using 1.4 in large scale production environment.

Our embedded IPPBX is using 1.4 as well but with the hardware constraints, the impact will be minimal.

bubblestar

Thats the world it goes, embedded IPPBX has its constraints and inflexibility to updrade to other higher version.

Despite of this. from another angle, Asterisk 1.4 has become very mature for years.  If one is running this version on its track in a proper way, it should not have any problem. The thing is we should not tweak it anymore.

Also, a backup of a stable configuration and setup is a MUST.

ckleea

回復 3# bubblestar

We are more on the play side though voice function is important for our communication.
However, for a production environment, new function is not important for them but bug fixes and security patches are really important.

I read an interesting configuration today that the asterisk machine has 2 NIC. One allows asterisk to expose to internet and other allows for internal call. The user said it avoids some of the problems like NAT, audio, etc.

bubblestar

回復 4# ckleea


   
The one who suggests 2 NIC must be a demon.  Ha ha ha, we have to invest to expand and make it work.

Partially agree with those ideas.  NAT and audio problem can easily be resolved for internal call communications.  However, when we go to the outside world through Internet, we still have to face the NAT and audio exchange with others.  I don't see how it makes the differences.

Maybe, I have to see the suggestions in-depth before my conclusion.  Thanks for your sharing.

ckleea

What I refer to
I have placed Asterisk outside the firewall / nat router to avoid the
translation. I usually will setup the server with dual NICs. One has
the public IP and another has the internal private IP. Set the default
gateway to the public IP gateway. Then just configure iptables to
firewall the server interfaces accordingly. This configuration allows
Asterisk to sit directly on the Internet while keeping your internal
phones from going out your nat router and back to Asterisk. Basically
the best of both worlds.

ckleea

回復 5# bubblestar

It won't be expensive. You can get a USB to ethernet giga at HK$140

http://hk.f1.page.auctions.yahoo ... 387871?u=well.birch
   
Driver is available for Centos.

Or enable the built in wireless adaptor

ckleea

The discussion at the asterisk  users lists is really hot.

角色

This is because Asterisk 1.4 has been used for a very long time and most appliances are still using Asterisk 1.4. I guess only a few number of users who have switched to use the higher Asterisk version 1.8.

YH

ckleea

回復 9# 角色

Yes, only some switch to 1.8 as production. Not many for 1.6.

They are also talking about 1.10 now. May be available next year.