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Use a LEB or home thin client server
asterisk14
Member
I am into voip as a hobby....waste so much time on it, if I worked as many hours, I'd make some good money!
I have a question for you guys. Currently I am using a LEB for a hosted Asterisk voip server on OpenVZ with low specs and it's working OK, sometimes it goes down, but as I just use it for home calls (and I'm at home most of the time so) it's not a huge deal (at the minute), but could be once I start work in a few months time.
total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 131072 42112 88960 0 0 22644 -/+ buffers/cache: 19468 111604 Swap: 524288 112 524176
Was thinking of getting rasperberry Pi, but think it's overpriced and over hyped and fragile! So I recently purchased two 10ZIG Model 5402 thin clients each with 512MB RAM, 512MB DOM (flash disk), 500MHz Eden processor, no moving parts or fans, which consume around 8-10 Watts. They run 10ZIG linux software which has Firefox, RDP, VNC etc on it already. I was thinking of wiping this an putting asterisk on it and having a home voip server.
Plus points of this :-
-£~10 of electricity/year
-at home so if it breaks down (unlikely) I can just fix it easily
-??easier to configure/backup as it is physically present
-less likely that some one will try to hack it (someone has tried to hack my hosted asterisk several times)
-could also use as a bittorrent/NAS/usenet downloader during 'off peak' time (0000-0700 hrs)
Negative:-
-I have ADSL 10meg down/1 meg up Be broadband internet - so it would use my own upload bandwidth although I not a heavy user of internet so this may no be a problem
-Voice quality - what will it be like?? Have used home server with 3CX once before and it was OK but was on Virgin BB and had decent upload speed at the time, plus a pretty static IP address.
-Hassle - configuring ports/opening ports on a ISP supplied consumer grade shitty routers with not much QoS config
-Cost - £10 electricity- probably could do this on a £3-6 OpenVZ LEB (eg HTTPzoom/Lowendspirit) with say 96MB saving a whopping £4-7 :-), but will probably go for a 128 KVM plan, with Asterisk and GUI software so more likely a £10-13 LEB (eg Crowncloud or Torqhost 256MB- if I could get a 128MB that would be great)
-Won't have a LEB to tinker with :-(
Can anyone think of any other plus/negative points?
What do you guys vote? LEB hosted Asterisk PBX or Home Server PBX?
PS: I have a spare 10ZIG thin client if anyone wants one - PM for price if interested.
Comments
I don't really think this is a good sentence. It is cheap, and not so fragile.
RPi's dirt cheap for what you get. It may not be cheap for what you need if it's overpowered for your purposes..
Go with an LEB. Some providers even have ISOs for Trixbox/PIAF/whatever PBX-specific distros and you'll get a better experience with a reliable LEB provider.
Security will probably be an issue either way. It'll probably be easier to flatten and rebuild a VPS than your thin client.
I used a thin client as a server before and I have had a few problems.
1. Power may go out here and while I have UPS, it does hold a lot of other things such as switches, routers, adsl modem, phone, clocks, whatever, and is going down in like 1 hour.
2. When the ip change it takes a while for the dns to pick it up, mind you, I have a static IP, but on another connection which I didnt want to use for the thin server.
3. Cat trouble may appear or cleaner trouble which like to pull plugs and jump up on the thin server.
4. It gathers dust and generating heat, at least mine which was based on x86 via c7.
5. Last, but not least, there is no upfront cost for a LEB, you need to purchase the thin server if you dont have it already.
@asterisk14 Rasberry Pi starts from 25$, the 10ZIG Model 5402 according to the internet is at around 300$. I believe that Rasberry Pi will get the job done, about the fragility You just need to buy a case. I would choose home hosted only because it's more fun to play with the hardware itself right on the spot.
@ihatetonyy - thin clients can be purchased for less than the Pi and are more robust in my opinion. They have been designed to work 24/7 in office environments. I have tried Trixbox/PIAF/Elastix - too overbloated for a home user like me, and my Trixbox was targetted by hackers. One of them even got through but as it wasn't production, i only had a few test sip providers with no credit in them. My Asterisk is also being targetted by hackers (mostly from Israel), but so far it's been OK. The problem is I am a linux noob and no 100% sure how to lock the system down enough. In this way asterisk is better for me than trixbox as less vunerabilities in plain asterisk. I did run a 3cx voip server at home for a month or so before the config got messed up in it and had no hack attempts from what I could see, so I think home thin client may be more secure in that regard.
@maounique - yes, you made some good points that I did not think of, thanks. if power goes out, a LEB won't save me as my voip (sip) device and router have to have power for everything to work.
IP change (dynnamic dns is something i need to look into) could be an issue as I have a remote extension. When I had a home server previously I mananged to set it up, but it did take some time I am not good with networking.
@janevski - i got the 10zig for less than a Pi and it is fully cased and quite solid. And like you I can play with it :-)
Why not just get your DanielM username un-disabled? :P
@Infinity who is DanielM?
@asterisk14 Can you explain how do you use a PBX, and what for?
I know what SIP is, I have a SPA2102 at home, it connects to my account at a SIP provider I can call other people and even call landlines all over the world for very cheap.
So far never needed my own PBX.
Aside from that, what caught my attention in your post is
You seem to expect your server at home to be more reliable than the LEB option. And this is just beyond silly. Residential power and/or internet go down an order of magnitude more often than LEBs at some good providers. If yours does, then just get a less crappier LEB. There are providers well within the $7 range where people have literally hundreds of days of uptime with not even a network hiccup of any sort.
Basically it is a switch between landlines and extensions where some extensions are over VoIP. Sure, it should be able to do VoIP only, for example, instead of using skype, you can use a regular internet connection to dial your PBX and it will ring another SIP connection on a device which is set to receive them.
So, you can call your PBX over the internet with a SIP connection and it will route you through the landline or ring another extension in the home.
@rm_ I use a PBX as I have multiple incoming DID's. Have around 4 incoming numbers, which I don't want to lose (through lack of use). If I only had one I could like you register directly with the VoIP provider, but I need the PBX for multiple registrations. Also the PBX lets me use multiple outgoing providers and does least cost routing, so for example if I dial 01XXXXXX, it puts it through provider A, if I dial 02XXXXXX it puts it through provider B which might be cheaper. I also have a remote extension so 2 people share all the betamax/dellmont freedays :-) For the past 2 years I have been using Sipsorcery.com which does the same thing for £25/year. I wanted to use a LEB/my own server as it would probably work a little cheaper and to increase my knowledge of Linux/Asterisk at the same time
I'm not sure about LEB provider being more reliable than home BB. I don't know where you live, but here in the UK my BB and the electricity is quite reliable and if my BB or electriciity go down, then I would not be able to use the VoiP line as the router and sip device need power/BB, (might need to get a UPS, I think) so that point is moot anyway. With the LEB provider I am currently using, over the past month the longest uptime had been ~14 days, it's had quite a few 5-10 min outages. The outages haven't affected me as I am a low user and the pbx boots up when the openvz container comes online so I don't habe to manually start it when it goes down. I think a PBX on a thin client would probably be more reliable in this regard, as I don't have 5-10 mins power outages every few days and my BB is also stableish.
I have a Linksys SPA 3000 which can handle upto 4 outgoing providers and it can do least cost routing using it alone too, but it has only 1 sip registration, so it only can register 1 sip provider. The other 3 it just uses when a call is put through them from my device.
I've seen people use thin clients in a pinch, and they have plenty of power for Asterisk for small call volumes, so for just a few concurrent calls it would do fine. A Raspberry PI works well too.
This is a question that's been asked before, in different contexts. Can I host my service at home, or is it better to move it out to a provider?
For me, it comes down to:
If the answer to all is 'Yes!', go for it. If you're uncertain, experiment
@dot_txt - i reckon my thin client could probably handle 20 concurrent calls if not more, the limiting factor would be my upload bandwidth which can only do approx 10 G711 calls (I have ~1.3 meg upload speed). But I wouldn't be doing more than 3 concurrent calls so this would never be an issue.
I think the answer for me is YES to all. (Economics/)Power consumption is the only other factor you've not touched on. This would be ~$15/yr so approx same price as VPS/yr (only need 64-96MB RAM, 1GB HDD, 10GB bandwidth). Thinking about what you have written and my replies, I'm not sure why I am tinkering with asterisk on a VPS at all with all the time it takes! Guess I'm like some of the other people here and just do it for the kicks!