We're running Asterisk version 1.8.4.2 and I'm looking to create a server application that will allow several client programs to check on the "presence" of specific extensions, among other things. I understand that the AMI will allow me to poll this information, however I was hoping there might be a way to give the server an extension and subscribe it to the extensions in question to avoid having to poll the AMI constantly.
It seems like I might have to implement the SIP protocol into my server if BLF were the route I wanted to take. Is there a better and simpler solution that I've managed to overlook in my research?
You could implement these approaches:
AMI event hook and digging in incoming events
Make your application subscribing on notifies on extension status changes via SIP notifies
Make your asterisk publishing extensions status with XMPP
Related
This is what I want
A user(bot) that always shows status Online
When a message comes for the user, I will hit a webhook associated with the user
The response from the webhook request will be sent as reply to the sender
This user will be able to intercept any message (let's say for profanity moderation)
This user will be able to send message to anyone (let's say broadcast)
This user will come in every users roster as default(like echo bot of skype)
I can't seem to find any resource on how to achieve this. I've found a way to intercept the incoming packet in openfire but I don't see any easy way to do this with MongooseIM. I haven't started diving deep into the source code yet, still looking for a way to do this without touching the source code and locking myself to a specific version of MongooseIM.
Disclaimer: I'm on the MongooseIM core team.
There are multiple ways this could be achieved. The easiest way to achieve this depends on your familiarity with Erlang, the programming language MongooseIM is written in.
You won't need any Erlang to use the event pusher module with its HTTP backend and the default settings, but you'd need some Erlang to control what messages get forwarded to the HTTP service or to make more complex setups. To send messages back, you'd either need to use the MongooseIM REST API or connect as an ordinary XMPP client to the server using one of the many XMPP libs available out there. This is probably the best approach to achieve your goal.
You can skip using the event pusher and just connect your bot as an XMPP client written in any language whatsoever. The bot might have your business logic within or can forward messages it gets to the HTTP service.
If you're comfortable working in Erlang, then the mechanism to extend the server is called Hooks and handlers and is described in the official MongooseIM documentation. This requires writing code in Erlang and building from source, but does not necessarily require modifying upstream MongooseIM code.
You could use the XMPP component protocol, which allows to extend the functionality of an XMPP server, yet structure it as multiple services. The components may be written in any technology you want and the most popular XMPP libraries should support the component protocol out of the box.
Depending on your choice from the above list and the language and environment you prefer, you might have to pick an XMPP library to use. There are XMPP libs available for iOS (ObjC and Swift), Android (Java and Kotlin), Python, JavaScript, C, and even some emerging ones for Rust, Dart and possibly more.
I'm willing to use ejabberd / mongooseIm in a microservice network. XMPP should be our chat protocol aside from a REST API network. I want to send messages incoming at the xmpp server downstream to worker services. Has anybody done this or could lead me into the right direction?
My first thoughts are using RabbitMQ for sending the new incoming messages to the workers.
There are basically two choices to giving your workers access to the messages routed by ejabberd / MongooseIM. I'll focus on MongooseIM, since I know it better (DISCLAIMER: I'm in the dev team).
The first is to scan the message archive in an async / polling fashion. The Message Archive Management describes XMPP level protocol for accessing it, but for your use case the important part is message persistence - so just making sure the relevant module (mod_mam) is enabled in server config and the messages will hit the database. The databases supported for MAM are PostgreSQL and Riak, though there was also some work on a Cassandra backend (YMMV). This doesn't require tinkering with the server / in Erlang for as long as there's a DB driver for your language of choice available. Since PR#657 it's possible to store the messages in raw XML or even some custom format if you're willing to write the serialization module.
The second option is to use the server mechanism of hooks and handlers (also available in ejabberd), which can trigger a server action on events like "user sent a message", "user logged in", "user logged out", ... This, however, requires a server side extension written in Erlang. In the simplest case the extension could forward any interesting event (with message content and metadata) via AMQP or just call some external HTTP/REST API - that way the real work is carried out by the workers giving you the freedom with regard to implementation language. This options also doesn't require to enable mod_mam or set up a database for message persistency (which you could still have with a persistent message queue...).
In general, the idea is perfectly feasible.
Generally, the most common XMPP extension use to build messaging systems for machines-to-machines, internet of things, microservices, etc is PubSub, as defined in XEP-0060.
This is a module you can enable in ejabberd. It is API based, so you can even customize the behaviour of that module to your application specific.
Pubsub basically allows to decouple senders and receivers and is especially designed for that use case.
I have been exploring plugin development for IBM notes.
I have downloaded expeditor toolkit, set up the dev environment, tried out simple plugin as described here
Also I have gone through some openntf projects.
Now I am looking for ways to intercept outgoing mail so that some additional processing can be done, like encrypting attachments.
Is it possible to intercept outgoing mail in notes client plugin?
Some examples/pointer would be appreciated. Thanks.
It is more often done with plugins on the Domino server rather than with client-based code, but in either case intercepting mail messages can be done with the Extension Manager feature of the Notes C API Toolkit. The technique involves hooking NSFNoteUpdate operations to the router mailbox, putting the message on hold so that the routing software will ignore it while the work is done, signaling a separate task to do the work, and then returning control to the client. Then the separate task can take whatever time is needed and then finally release the message from hold to allow the router to move the message.
I'm not sure if it would be possible to do something similar with the expeditor toolkit. It's operating at a higher level, so catching the message before the routing software kicks in may be a problem. It will also only handle manually submitted messages, whereas an Extension Manager solution will also catch messages sent by agents or standalone programs.
I have a client company with a simple web application (Python Flask) and I need to add a phone notification functionality to it.
The main requirement is that the app should call users, play a certain sound file and accept some tone input ("Hello! This is an automated message from your WebApp account. You have a meeting with $John today at $5pm. Please press 1 to confirm").
The other requirement is that the solution should be relatively cheap and fast to market.
I have done some research already and it seems that there are a few consequent steps to achieve that:
Set up an Asterisk or a FreeSwitch server;
Set up a SIP account;
Write some business logic for the Asterisk server which allows to make calls and play sounds via a SIP account;
Write an API at the Asterisk server and expose it to the Python Flask web app.
Do I miss something here? Can any of the steps be omitted anyhow? Can I do it simpler?
the fastest way to get it working is to use one of the cloud voice services with speech synthesiser. Here's a short list to check out:
Twilio
Tropo
Plivo
Here I listed some details.
Those services charge you per minute, plus you may have to pay some monthly fee.
If you want to run an independent and standalone service, I would recommend FreeSWITCH instead of Asterisk. It's got reach integration possibilities and API. You will need to read the FreeSWITCH book in order to understand how it works and how to build your service.
I agree with Stanislav Sinyagin on the cloud based solutions, but I would add one more, Voxeo Prophecy. Tropo is from Voxeo, but they have offered Prophecy as a solution for a lot longer and it supports the open standards CCXML and VoiceXML. The advantage of CCXML for outbound notification applications is you have a lot more control of the notification process.
The Prophecy platform has excellent call progress analysis (CPA) which will allow you to determine whether a machine or a human answered and handle the call accordingly. For example, it does not make sense to ask a machine to "...press one to confirm". Instead you may want to leave a message that provides a call back number for the user to confirm with after they have listened to the voice message. The CPA can be used to leave a message on a machine at the correct time (when the greeting message has stopped) so that you do not get clipped messages in the voice mail. CPA will also allow you to provide detailed reports on who was notified and for those that did not it can tell you whether it was a bad number (received a SIT tone), a modem or fax answered, or ring-no-answer (pretty rare these days). These type of details can factor into your retry process for failed notifications.
The other advantage to using Prophecy and open standards is your application will be portable to other IVR systems that are VoiceXML/CCXML compatible if you ever want to migrate. Tropo, Twilio, and Plivo all use proprietary API's which does not allow you to move your applications to other services. Prophecy is also available as a software solution so that if you want to take it out of the cloud you can run it on premise. You can get a two port version for free to try it out.
There is excellent documentation on developing outbound notification systems on Voxeo's developer site. Take a look at the CCXML documentation in section F on Outbound Dialing.
Not sure which development languages you are familiar with, but if you are used to ASP.NET MVC there is an open source project called VoiceModel that makes it easier to develop VoiceXML applications. The other advantage of VoiceModel is that you develop your application once and it will run on any VoiceXML compatible platform and Tropo. They are currently working on adding outbound notification support in this project that will work for both Tropo and VoiceXML.
Third party solutions listed are your easy choice. Running your own asterisk is also suitable for what you want to do, but i think for only this much it would be overkill, from an operational perspective.
In asterisk, you can originate a call that has the 2 variables you need with an (basic-authenticated) HTTP request. You will also need some settings and a tiny dialplan. Setting up the SIP account is easier or more difficult, depending on the documentation from the provider. Most of them have detailed documentation for configuring asterisk (not so much so for freeswitch). Keeping the damn thing alive is what's gonna get to you :)
We use XMPP XEP-0060 pub/sub feature to build a notification system.
According to XEP-0060, node can be created automatically when publishing.
My question is can it be created when subscribing?
If not, is there any alternative solution to implement this? (create node after subscribed)
Thanks
There's no inherent reason this can't be done transparently on the server-side. Prosody has a service-wide autocreate_on_subscribe option, for example.
Not via the XEP, as it doesn't specifically have that use case. You will have to either use a server that supports this natively, (as mentioned by #MattJ) or extend one to do so yourself, as most XMPP servers have some form of plugin/extension mechanism built in.
The caveat though, is that this is no longer to spec and you will be tied to a specific implementation so your application will not be portable.