====================================================================== === === This file documents the new and/or enhanced functionality added in === the Asterisk versions listed below. This file does NOT include === changes in behavior that would not be backwards compatible with === previous versions; for that information see the UPGRADE.txt file === and the other UPGRADE files for older releases. === ====================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Functionality changes from Asterisk 1.6.2 to Asterisk 1.8 ---------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIP Changes ----------- * Added preferred_codec_only option in sip.conf. This feature limits the joint codecs sent in response to an INVITE to the single most preferred codec. * Added SIP_CODEC_OUTBOUND dialplan variable which can be used to set the codec to be used for the outgoing call. It must be one of the codecs configured for the device. * Added tlsprivatekey option to sip.conf. This allows a separate .pem file to be used for holding a private key. If tlsprivatekey is not specified, tlscertfile is searched for both public and private key. * Added tlsclientmethod option to sip.conf. This allows the protocol for outbound client connections to be specified. * The sendrpid parameter has been expanded to include the options 'rpid' and 'pai'. Setting sendrpid to 'rpid' will cause Remote-Party-ID header to be sent (equivalent to setting sendrpid=yes) and setting sendrpid to 'pai' will cause P-Asserted-Identity header to be sent. * The 'ignoresdpversion' behavior has been made automatic when the SDP received is in response to a T.38 re-INVITE that Asterisk initiated. In this situation, since the call will fail if Asterisk does not process the incoming SDP, Asterisk will accept the SDP even if the SDP version number is not properly incremented, but will generate a warning in the log indicating that the SIP peer that sent the SDP should have the 'ignoresdpversion' option set. * The 'nat' option has now been been changed to have yes, no, force_rport, and comedia as valid values. Setting it to yes forces RFC 3581 behavior and enables symmetric RTP support. Setting it to no only enables RFC 3581 behavior if the remote side requests it and disables symmetric RTP support. Setting it to force_rport forces RFC 3581 behavior and disables symmetric RTP support. Setting it to comedia enables RFC 3581 behavior if the remote side requests it and enables symmetric RTP support. * Slave SIP channels now set HASH(SIP_CAUSE,) on each response. This permits the master channel to know how each channel dialled in a multi-channel setup resolved in an individual way. * Added 'externtcpport' and 'externtlsport' options to allow custom port configuration for the externip and externhost options when tcp or tls is used. * Added support for message body (stored in content variable) to SIP NOTIFY message accessible via AMI and CLI. * Added 'media_address' configuration option which can be used to explicitly specify the IP address to use in the SDP for media (audio, video, and text) streams. * Added 'unsolicited_mailbox' configuration option which specifies the virtual mailbox that the new/old count should be stored on if an unsolicited MWI NOTIFY message is received. * Added 'use_q850_reason' configuration option for generating and parsing if available Reason: Q.850;cause= header. It is implemented in some gateways for better passing PRI/SS7 cause codes via SIP. IAX2 Changes ----------- * Added rtsavesysname option into iax.conf to allow the systname to be saved on realtime updates. MGCP Changes ------------ * Added ability to preset channel variables on indicated lines with the setvar configuration option. Also, clearvars=all resets the list of variables back to none. * PacketCable NCS 1.0 support has been added for Docsis/Eurodocsis Networks. See configs/res_pktccops.conf for more information. Applications ------------ * Added 'p' option to PickupChan() to allow for picking up channel by the first match to a partial channel name. * Added "ready" option to QUEUE_MEMBER counting to count free agents who's wrap-up timeout has expired. * Added 'R' option to app_queue. This option stops moh and indicates ringing to the caller when an Agent's phone is ringing. This can be used to indicate to the caller that their call is about to be picked up, which is nice when one has been on hold for an extened period of time. * Added .m3u support for Mp3Player application. * Added progress option to the app_dial D() option. When progress DTMF is present, those values are sent immediately upon receiving a PROGRESS message regardless if the call has been answered or not. * Added functionality to the app_dial F() option to continue with execution at the current location when no parameters are provided. * Added the 'a' option to app_dial to answer the calling channel before any announcements or macros are executed. * Modified app_dial to set answertime when the called channel answers even if the called channel hangs up during playback of an announcement. * Modified app_dial 'r' option to support an additional parameter to play an indication tone from indications.conf * Added c() option to app_chanspy. This option allows custom DTMF to be set to cycle through the next available channel. By default this is still '*'. * Added x() option to app_chanspy. This option allows DTMF to be set to exit the application. * The Voicemail application has been improved to automatically ignore messages that only contain silence. * If you set maxmsg to 0 in voicemail.conf, Voicemail will consider the associated mailbox(es) to be greetings-only. * The ChanSpy application now has the 'S' option, which makes the application automatically exit once it hits a point where no more channels are available to spy on. * The ChanSpy application also now has the 'E' option, which spies on a single channel and exits when that channel hangs up. * The MeetMe application now turns on the DENOISE() function by default, for each participant. In our tests, this has significantly decreased background noise (especially noisy data centers). * Voicemail now permits storage of secrets in a separate file, located in the spool directory of each individual user. The control for this is located in the "passwordlocation" option in voicemail.conf. Please see the sample configuration for more information. * The ChanIsAvail application now exposes the returned cause code using a separate variable, AVAILCAUSECODE, instead of overwriting the device state in AVAILSTATUS. * Added 'd' option to app_followme. This option disables the "Please hold" announcement. * Added 'y' option to app_record. This option enables a mode where any DTMF digit received will terminate recording. * Voicemail now supports per mailbox settings for folders when using IMAP storage. Previously the folder could only be set per context, but has now been extended using the imapfolder option. * Voicemail now supports per mailbox settings for nextaftercmd and minsecs. * Voicemail now allows the pager date format to be specified separately from the email date format. * New applications JabberJoin, JabberLeave, and JabberSendGroup have been added to allow joining, leaving, and sending text to group chats. * MeetMe has a new option 'G' to play an announcement before joining a conference. * Page has a new option 'A(x)' which will playback an announcement simultaneously to all paged phones (and optionally excluding the caller's one using the new option 'n') before the call is bridged. * The 'f' option to Dial has been augmented to take an optional argument. If no argument is provided, the 'f' option works as it always has. If an argument is provided, then the connected party information of all outgoing channels created during the Dial will be set to the argument passed to the 'f' option. * Dial now inherits the GOSUB_RETVAL from the peer, when the U() option runs a Gosub on the peer. * The OSP lookup application adds in/outbound network ID, optional security, number portability, QoS reporting, destination IP port, custom info and service type features. * Added new application VMSayName that will play the recorded name of the voicemail user if it exists, otherwise will play the mailbox number. Dialplan Functions ------------------ * PITCH_SHIFT dialplan function added. This function can be used to modify the pitch of a channel's tx and rx audio streams. * Added new dialplan functions CONNECTEDLINE and REDIRECTING which permits setting various connected line and redirecting party information. * CALLERID and CONNECTEDLINE dialplan functions have been extended to support ISDN subaddressing. * The CHANNEL() function now supports the "name" option. * For DAHDI channels, the CHANNEL() dialplan function now supports changing the channel's buffer policy (for the current call only), using this syntax: exten => s,n,Set(CHANNEL(buffers)=6,full) This would change the channel to the 'full' buffer policy and 6 (six) buffers. Possible options for this setting are the same as those in chan_dahdi.conf. * For DAHDI channels, the CHANNEL() dialplan function now allows the dialplan to request changes in the configuration of the active echo canceller on the channel (if any), for the current call only. The syntax is: exten => s,n,Set(CHANNEL(echocan_mode)=off) The possible values are: on - normal mode (the echo canceller is actually reinitialized) off - disabled fax - FAX/data mode (NLP disabled if possible, otherwise completely disabled) voice - voice mode (returns from FAX mode, reverting the changes that were made when FAX mode was requested) * Added new dialplan function MASTER_CHANNEL(), which permits retrieving and setting variables on the channel which created the current channel. Administrators should take care to avoid naming conflicts, when multiple channels are dialled at once, especially when used with the Local channel construct (which all could set variables on the master channel). Usage of the HASH() dialplan function, with the key set to the name of the slave channel, is one approach that will avoid conflicts. * Added new dialplan function MUTEAUDIO() for muting inbound and/or outbound audio in a channel. * func_odbc now allows multiple row results to be retrieved without using mode=multirow. If rowlimit is set, then additional rows may be retrieved from the same query by using the name of the function which retrieved the first row as an argument to ODBC_FETCH(). * Added JABBER_RECEIVE, which permits receiving XMPP messages from the dialplan. This function returns the content of the received message. * Added REPLACE, which searches a given variable name for a set of characters, then either replaces them with a single character or deletes them. * Added PASSTHRU, which literally passes the same argument back as its return value. The intent is to be able to use a literal string argument to functions that currently require a variable name as an argument. * HASH-associated variables now can be inherited across channel creation, by prefixing the name of the hash at assignment with the appropriate number of underscores, just like variables. * GROUP_MATCH_COUNT has been improved to allow regex matching on category Dialplan Variables ------------------ * Added DYNAMIC_FEATURENAME which holds the last triggered dynamic feature. * Added DYNAMIC_PEERNAME which holds the unique channel name on the other side and is set when a dynamic feature is triggered. * Added PARKINGLOT which can be used with parkeddynamic feature.conf option to dynamically create a new parking lot matching the value this varible is set to. * Added PARKINGDYNAMIC which represents the template parkinglot defined in features.conf that should be the base for dynamic parkinglots. * Added PARKINGDYNCONTEXT which tells what context a newly created dynamic parkinglot should have. * Added PARKINGDYNPOS which holds what parking positions a dynamic parkinglot should have. Queue changes ------------- * A new config option, penaltymemberslimit, has been added to queues.conf. When set this option will disregard penalty settings when a queue has too few members. * A new option, 'I' has been added to both app_queue and app_dial. By setting this option, Asterisk will not update the caller with connected line changes or redirecting party changes when they occur. * A 'relative-peroidic-announce' option has been added to queues.conf. When enabled, this option will cause periodic announce times to be calculated from the end of announcements rather than from the beginning. mISDN channel driver (chan_misdn) changes ---------------------------------------- * Added display_connected parameter to misdn.conf to put a display string in the CONNECT message containing the connected name and/or number if the presentation setting permits it. * Added display_setup parameter to misdn.conf to put a display string in the SETUP message containing the caller name and/or number if the presentation setting permits it. * Made misdn.conf parameters localdialplan and cpndialplan take a -1 to indicate the dialplan settings are to be obtained from the asterisk channel. * Made misdn.conf parameter callerid accept the "name" format used by the rest of the system. * Made use the nationalprefix and internationalprefix misdn.conf parameters to prefix any received number from the ISDN link if that number has the corresponding Type-Of-Number. NOTE: This includes comparing the incoming call's dialed number against the MSN list. * Added the following new parameters: unknownprefix, netspecificprefix, subscriberprefix, and abbreviatedprefix in misdn.conf to prefix any received number from the ISDN link if that number has the corresponding Type-Of-Number. * Added new dialplan application misdn_command which permits controlling the CCBS/CCNR functionality. * Added new dialplan function mISDN_CC which permits retrieval of various values from an active call completion record. * For PTP, you should manually send the COLR of the redirected-to party for an incomming redirected call if the incoming call could experience further redirects. Just set the REDIRECTING(to-num,i) = ${EXTEN} and set the REDIRECTING(to-pres) to the COLR. A call has been redirected if the REDIRECTING(from-num) is not empty. * For outgoing PTP redirected calls, you now need to use the inhibit(i) option on all of the REDIRECTING statements before dialing the redirected-to party. You still have to set the REDIRECTING(to-xxx,i) and the REDIRECTING(from-xxx,i) values. The PTP call will update the redirecting-to presentation (COLR) when it becomes available. * Added outgoing_colp parameter to misdn.conf to filter outgoing COLP information. thirdparty mISDN enhancements ----------------------------- mISDN has been modified by Digium, Inc. to greatly expand facility message support to allow: * Enhanced COLP support for call diversion and transfer. * CCBS/CCNR support. The latest modified mISDN v1.1.x based version is available at: http://svn.digium.com/svn/thirdparty/mISDN/trunk http://svn.digium.com/svn/thirdparty/mISDNuser/trunk Tagged versions of the modified mISDN code are available under: http://svn.digium.com/svn/thirdparty/mISDN/tags http://svn.digium.com/svn/thirdparty/mISDNuser/tags libpri channel driver (chan_dahdi) DAHDI changes ------------------------------------------- * The channel variable PRIREDIRECTREASON is now just a status variable and it is also deprecated. Use the REDIRECTING(reason) dialplan function to read and alter the reason. * For Q.SIG and ETSI PRI/BRI-PTP, you should manually send the COLR of the redirected-to party for an incomming redirected call if the incoming call could experience further redirects. Just set the REDIRECTING(to-num,i) = CALLERID(dnid) and set the REDIRECTING(to-pres) to the COLR. A call has been redirected if the REDIRECTING(count) is not zero. * For outgoing Q.SIG and ETSI PRI/BRI-PTP redirected calls, you need to use the inhibit(i) option on all of the REDIRECTING statements before dialing the redirected-to party. You still have to set the REDIRECTING(to-xxx,i) and the REDIRECTING(from-xxx,i) values. The call will update the redirecting-to presentation (COLR) when it becomes available. * Added the ability to ignore calls that are not in a Multiple Subscriber Number (MSN) list for PTMP CPE interfaces. * Added dynamic range compression support for dahdi channels. It is configured via the rxdrc and txdrc parameters in chan_dahdi.conf. * Added support for ISDN calling and called subaddress with partial support for connected line subaddress. * Added support for BRI PTMP NT mode. (Requires latest LibPRI.) * Added handling of received HOLD/RETRIEVE messages and the optional ability to transfer a held call on disconnect similar to an analog phone. * Added CallRerouting/CallDeflection support for Q.SIG, ETSI PTP, ETSI PTMP. Will reroute/deflect an outgoing call when receive the message. Can use the DAHDISendCallreroutingFacility to send the message for the supported switches. * Added standard location to add options to chan_dahdi dialing: Dial(DAHDI/g1[/extension[/options]]) Current options: K() R Reverse charging indication * Added Reverse Charging Indication (Collect calls) send/receive option. Send reverse charging in SETUP message with the chan_dahdi R dialing option. Dial(DAHDI/g1/extension/R) Access received reverse charge in SETUP message by: ${CHANNEL(reversecharge)} (requires latest LibPRI) * Added ability to send/receive keypad digits in the SETUP message. Send keypad digits in SETUP message with the chan_dahdi K() dialing option. Dial(DAHDI/g1/[extension]/K()) Access any received keypad digits in SETUP message by: ${CHANNEL(keypad_digits)} (requires latest LibPRI) Asterisk Manager Interface -------------------------- * The Hangup action now accepts a Cause header which may be used to set the channel's hangup cause. * sslprivatekey option added to manager.conf and http.conf. Adds the ability to specify a separate .pem file to hold a private key. By default sslcert is used to hold both the public and private key. * Options in manager.conf and http.conf with the 'ssl' prefix have been replaced for options containing the 'tls' prefix. For example, 'sslenable' is now 'tlsenable'. This has been done in effort to keep ssl and tls options consistent across all .conf files. All affected sample.conf files have been modified to reflect this change. Previous options such as 'sslenable' still work, but options with the 'tls' prefix are preferred. * Added a MuteAudio AMI action for muting inbound and/or outbound audio in a channel. (res_mutestream.so) * The configuration file manager.conf now supports a channelvars option, which specifies a list of channel variables to include in each channel-oriented event. * The redirect command now has new parameters ExtraContext, ExtraExtension, and ExtraPriority to allow redirecting the second channel to a different location than the first. * Added new event "JabberStatus" in the Jabber module to monitor buddies status. Channel Event Logging --------------------- * A new interface, CEL, is introduced here. CEL logs single events, much like the AMI, but it differs from the AMI in that it logs to db backends much like CDR does; is based on the event subsystem introduced by Russell, and can share in all its benefits; allows multiple backends to operate like CDR; is specialized to event data that would be of concern to billing sytems, like CDR. Backends for logging and accounting calls have been produced, but a new CDR backend is still in development. CDR --- * 'linkedid' and 'peeraccount' are new CDR fields available to CDR aficionados. linkedid is based on uniqueID, but spreads to other channels as transfers, dials, etc are performed. Thus the peices of CDR can be grouped into multilegged sets. * Multiple files and formats can now be specified in cdr_custom.conf. * cdr_syslog has been added which allows CDRs to be written directly to syslog. See configs/cdr_syslog.conf.sample for more information. * A 'sequence' field has been added to CDRs which can be combined with linkedid or uniqueid to uniquely identify a CDR. Calendaring for Asterisk ------------------------ * A new set of modules were added supporing calendar integration with Asterisk. Dialplan functions for reading from and writing to calendars are included, as well as the ability to execute dialplan logic upon calendar event notifications. iCalendar, CalDAV, and Exchange Server calendars are supported (Exchange support only tested on Exchange Server 2003 with no support for forms-based authentication). Multicast RTP Support --------------------- * A new RTP engine and channel driver have been added which supports Multicast RTP. The channel driver can be used with the Page application to perform multicast RTP paging. The dial string format is: MulticastRTP/// Type can be either basic or linksys. Destination is the IP address and port for the RTP packets. Control address is specific to the linksys type and is used for sending the control packets unique to them. Security Events Framework ------------------------- * Asterisk has a new C API for reporting security events. The module res_security_log sends these events to the "security" logger level. Currently, AMI is the only Asterisk component that reports security events. However, SIP support will be coming soon. For more information on the security events framework, see the "Security Events" chapter of the included documentation - doc/tex/asterisk.pdf. Fax --- * A technology independent fax frontend (res_fax) has been added to Asterisk. * A spandsp based fax backend (res_fax_spandsp) has been added. * The app_fax module has been deprecated in favor of the res_fax module and the new res_fax_spandsp backend. Miscellaneous ------------- * The transmit_silence_during_record option in asterisk.conf.sample has been removed. Now, in order to enable transmitting silence during record the transmit_silence option should be used. transmit_silence_during_record remains a valid option, but defaults to the behavior of the transmit_silence option. * Addition of the Unit Test Framework API for managing registration and execution of unit tests with the purpose of verifying the operation of C functions. * SendText is now implemented in chan_gtalk and chan_jingle. It will simply send XMPP text messages to the remote JID. * Modules.conf has a new option - "require" - that marks a module as critical for the execution of Asterisk. If one of the required modules fail to load, Asterisk will exit with a return code set to 2. * An 'X' option has been added to the asterisk application which enables #exec support. This allows #exec to be used in asterisk.conf. * jabber.conf supports a new option auth_policy that toggles auto user registration. * A new lockconfdir option has been added to asterisk.conf to protect the configuration directory (/etc/asterisk by default) during reloads. * The parkeddynamic option has been added to features.conf to enable the creation of dynamic parkinglots. * chan_dahdi now supports reporting alarms over AMI either by channel or span via the reportalarms config option. CLI Changes ----------- * The 'core set debug' and 'core set verbose' commands, in previous versions, could optionally accept a filename, to apply the setting only to the code generated from that source file when Asterisk was built. However, there are some modules in Asterisk that are composed of multiple source files, so this did not result in the behavior that users expected. In this version, 'core set debug' and 'core set verbose' can optionally accept *module* names instead (with or without the .so extension), which applies the setting to the entire module specified, regardless of which source files it was built from. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Functionality changes from Asterisk 1.6.1 to Asterisk 1.6.2 ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIP Changes ----------- * Added support for SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY with dialog-info based call pickups. Snom phones use this for call pickup of extensions that the phone is subscribed to. * Added support for setting the domain in the URI for caller of an outbound call by using the SIPFROMDOMAIN channel variable. * Added a new configuration option "remotesecret" for authentication to remote services. For backwards compatibility, "secret" still has the same function as before, but now you can configure both a remote secret and a local secret for mutual authentication. * If the channel variable ATTENDED_TRANSFER_COMPLETE_SOUND is set, the sound will be played to the target of an attended transfer * Added two new configuration options, "qualifygap" and "qualifypeers", which allow finer control over how many peers Asterisk will qualify and the gap between them when all peers need to be qualified at the same time. * Added a new 'ignoresdpversion' option to sip.conf. When this is enabled (either globally or for a specific peer), chan_sip will treat any SDP data it receives as new data and update the media stream accordingly. By default, Asterisk will only modify the media stream if the SDP session version received is different from the current SDP session version. This option is required to interoperate with devices that have non-standard SDP session version implementations (observed with Microsoft OCS). This option is disabled by default. * The parsing of register => lines in sip.conf has been modified to allow a port to be present in the "user" portion. Please see the sip.conf.sample file for more information * Added support for subscribing to MWI on a remote server and making the status available as a mailbox. Please see the sip.conf.sample file for more information. * Added a function to remove SIP headers added in the dialplan before the first INVITE is generated - SIPRemoveHeader() * Channel variables set with setvar= in a device configuration is now set both for inbound and outbound calls. * Added support for ITU G.722.1 and G.722.1C (Siren7 and Siren14) media streams. IAX2 changes ------------ * Added immediate option to iax.conf * Added forceencryption option to iax.conf * Added Encryption and Trunk status to manager command "iaxpeers" Skinny Changes -------------- * The configuration file now holds separate sections for devices and lines. Please have a look at configs/skinny.conf.sample and change your skinny.conf accordingly. DAHDI Changes ------------- * chan_dahdi now supports MFC/R2 signaling when Asterisk is compiled with support for LibOpenR2. http://www.libopenr2.org/ * The UK option waitfordialtone has been added for use with BT analog lines. * Added a 'faxbuffers' configuration option to chan_dahdi.conf. This option is used in conjunction with the 'faxdetect' configuration option. When 'faxbuffers' is used and fax tones are detected, the channel will dynamically switch to the configured faxbuffers policy. For example, to use 6 buffers and a 'full' buffer policy for a fax transmission, add: faxbuffers=>6,full The faxbuffers configuration will be in affect until the call is torn down. * Added service message support for 4ESS/5ESS switches. Dialplan Functions ------------------ * Added a new dialplan function, CURLOPT, which permits setting various options that may be useful with the CURL dialplan function, such as cookies, proxies, connection timeouts, passwords, etc. * Permit the syntax and synopsis fields of the corresponding dialplan functions to be individually set from func_odbc.conf. * Added debugging CLI functions to func_odbc, 'odbc read' and 'odbc write'. * func_odbc now may specify an insert query to execute, when the write query affects 0 rows (usually indicating that no such row exists). * Added a new dialplan function, LISTFILTER, which permits removing elements from a set list, by name. Uses the same general syntax as the existing CUT and FIELDQTY dialplan functions, which also manage lists. * Added REALTIME_FIELD and REALTIME_HASH, which should aid users in better obtaining realtime data from the dialplan. * Added LOCAL_PEEK, which allows access to variables in any stack frame within a subroutine when using the GoSub() and Return() applications. * Added AUDIOHOOK_INHERIT. For information on its use, please see the output of "core show function AUDIOHOOK_INHERIT" from the CLI * Added AES_ENCRYPT. For information on its use, please see the output of "core show function AES_ENCRYPT" from the CLI * Added AES_DECRYPT. For information on its use, please see the output of "core show function AES_DECRYPT" from the CLI * func_odbc now supports database transactions across multiple queries. Applications ------------ * Scheduled meetme conferences may now have their end times extended by using MeetMeAdmin. * app_authenticate now gives the ability to select a prompt other than the default. * app_directory now pays attention to the searchcontexts setting in voicemail.conf and will look through all contexts, if no context is specified in the initial argument. * A new application, Originate, has been introduced, that allows asynchronous call origination from the dialplan. * Voicemail now permits setting the emailsubject and emailbody per mailbox, in addition to the setting in the "general" context. * Added ConfBridge dialplan application which does conference bridges without DAHDI. For information on its use, please see the output of "core show application ConfBridge" from the CLI. Miscellaneous ------------- * The Asterisk CLI has a new command, "channel redirect", which is similar in operation to the AMI Redirect action. * extensions.conf now allows you to use keyword "same" to define an extension without actually specifying an extension. It uses exactly the same pattern as previously used on the last "exten" line. For example: exten => 123,1,NoOp(something) same => n,SomethingElse() * musiconhold.conf classes of type 'files' can now use relative directory paths, which are interpreted as relative to the astvarlibdir setting in asterisk.conf. * All deprecated CLI commands are removed from the sourcecode. They are now handled by the new clialiases module. See cli_aliases.conf.sample file. * Times within timespecs are now accurate down to the minute. This is a change from historical Asterisk, which only provided timespecs rounded to the nearest even (read: evenly divisible by 2) minute mark. * The realtime switch now supports an option flag, 'p', which disables searches for pattern matches. * In addition to a time range and date range, timespecs now accept a 5th optional argument, timezone. This allows you to perform time checks on alternate timezones, especially if those daylight savings time ranges vary from your machine's native timezone. See GotoIfTime, ExecIfTime, IFTIME(), and timed includes. * The contrib/scripts/ directory now has a script called sip_nat_settings that will give you the correct output for an asterisk box behind nat. It will give you the externhost and localnet settings. * The Asterisk core now supports ITU G.722.1 and G.722.1C media streams, and can connect calls in passthrough mode, as well as record and play back files. * Successful and unsuccessful call pickup can now be alerted through sounds, by using pickupsound and pickupfailsound in features.conf. * ASTVARRUNDIR is now set to $(localstatedir)/run/asterisk by default. This means the asterisk pid file will now be in /var/run/asterisk/asterisk.pid on LINUX instead of the /var/run/asterisk.pid where it used to be. This will make installs as non-root easier to manage. Asterisk Manager Interface -------------------------- * When using the AMI over HTTP, you can now include a 'SuppressEvents' header (with a non-empty value) in your request. If you do this, any pending AMI events will *not* be included in the response to your request as they would normally, but will be left in the event queue for the next request you make to retrieve. For some applications, this will allow you to guarantee that you will only see events in responses to 'WaitEvent' actions, and can better know when to expect them. To know whether the Asterisk server supports this header or not, your client can inspect the first response back from the server to see if it includes this header: Pragma: SuppressEvents If this is included, the server supports event suppression. * Added 4 new Actions to list skinny device(s) and line(s) SKINNYdevices SKINNYshowdevice SKINNYlines SKINNYshowline LDAP Schema File Additions -------------------------- * Added AsteriskDialplan, AsteriskAccount and AsteriskMailbox objectClasses to allow standalone dialplan, account and mailbox entries (STRUCTURAL) * Added new Fields: - AstAccountLanguage, AstAccountTransport, AstAccountPromiscRedir, - AstAccountAccountCode, AstAccountSetVar, AstAccountAllowOverlap, - AstAccountVideoSupport, AstAccountIgnoreSDPVersion * Removed redundant IPaddr (there's already IPAddress) - Gives more configuration Flags for SIP-Users available (tested) - Allows to create Asterisk Attributes in defined Asterisk ObjectClasses without extensibleObject (which really should be the last resort); gives also additional possibilities for LDAP-filter ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Functionality changes from Asterisk 1.6.0 to Asterisk 1.6.1 ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Device State Handling --------------------- * The event infrastructure in Asterisk got another big update to help support distributed events. It currently supports distributed device state and distributed Voicemail MWI (Message Waiting Indication). A new module has been merged, res_ais, which facilitates communicating events between servers. It uses the SAForum AIS (Service Availability Forum Application Interface Specification) CLM (Cluster Management) and EVT (Event) services to maintain a cluster of Asterisk servers, and to share events between them. For more information on setting this up, see doc/distributed_devstate.txt. Dialplan Functions ------------------ * Added a new dialplan function, AST_CONFIG(), which allows you to access variables from an Asterisk configuration file. * The JACK_HOOK function now has a c() option to supply a custom client name. * Added two new dialplan functions from libspeex for audio gain control and denoise, AGC() and DENOISE(). Both functions can be applied to the tx and rx directions of a channel from the dialplan. * The SMDI_MSG_RETRIEVE function now has the ability to search for SMDI messages based on other parameters. The default is still to search based on the forwarding station ID. However, there are new options that allow you to search based on the message desk terminal ID, or the message desk number. * TIMEOUT() has been modified to be accurate down to the millisecond. * ENUM*() functions now include the following new options: - 'u' returns the full URI and does not strip off the URI-scheme. - 's' triggers ISN specific rewriting - 'i' looks for branches into an Infrastructure ENUM tree - 'd' for a direct DNS lookup without any flipping of digits. * TXCIDNAME() has a new zone-suffix parameter (which defaults to 'e164.arpa') * CHANNEL() now has options for the maximum, minimum, and standard or normal deviation of jitter, rtt, and loss for a call using chan_sip. DAHDI channel driver (chan_dahdi) Changes ---------------------------------------- * Channels can now be configured using named sections in chan_dahdi.conf, just like other channel drivers, including the use of templates. * The default for pridialplan has changed from 'national' to 'unknown'. PBX Changes ----------- * It is now possible to specify a pattern match as a hint. Once a phone subscribes to something that matches the pattern a hint will be created using the contents and variables evaluated. * Dialplan matching has been extended to allow an extension to return to the PBX core to wait for more digits. This is done by using the new dialplan application called "Incomplete". This will permit a whole new level of extension control, by giving the administrator more control over early matches employing one of the short-circuit pattern match operators. Note that custom applications can trigger this same behavior by returning the special value AST_PBX_INCOMPLETE. Application Changes ------------------- * Directory now permits both first and last names to be matched at the same time. In addition, the number of digits to enter of the name can be set in the arguments to Directory; previously, you could enter only 3, regardless of how many names are in your company. For large companies, this should be quite helpful. * Voicemail now permits a mailbox setting to wrap around from first to last messages, if the "messagewrap" option is set to a true value. * Voicemail now permits an external script to be run, for password validation. The script should output "VALID" or "INVALID" on stdout, depending upon the wish to validate or invalidate the password given. Arguments are: "mailbox" "context" "oldpass" "newpass". See the sample voicemail.conf for more details * Dial has a new option: F(context^extension^pri), which permits a callee to continue in the dialplan, at the specified label, if the caller hangs up. * ChanSpy and ExtenSpy have a new option, 's' which suppresses speaking the technology name (e.g. SIP, IAX, etc) of the channel being spied on. * The Jack application now has a c() option to supply a custom client name. * Chanspy has a new option, 'B', which can be used to "barge" on a call. This is like the pre-existing whisper mode, except that the spy can also talk to the participant on the bridged channel as well. * Chanspy has a new option, 'n', which will allow for the spied-on party's name to be spoken instead of the channel name or number. For more information on the use of this option, issue the command "core show application ChanSpy" from the Asterisk CLI. * Chanspy has a new option, 'd', which allows the spy to use DTMF to swap between spy modes. Use of this feature overrides the typical use of numeric DTMF. In other words, if using the 'd' option, it is not possible to enter a number to append to the first argument to Chanspy(). Pressing 4 will change to spy mode, pressing 5 will change to whisper mode, and pressing 6 will change to barge mode. * ExternalIVR now takes several options that affect the way it performs, as well as having several new commands. Please see doc/externalivr.txt for the complete documentation. * Added ability to communicate over a TCP socket instead of forking a child process for the ExternalIVR application. * ChanIsAvail has a new option, 'a', which will return all available channels instead of just the first one if you give the function more then one channel to check. * PrivacyManager now takes an option where you can specify a context where the given number will be matched. This way you have more control over who is allowed and it stops the people who blindly enter 10 digits. * ForkCDR has new options: 'a' updates the answer time on the new CDR; 'A' locks answer times, disposition, on orig CDR against updates; 'D' Copies the disposition from the orig CDR to the new CDR after reset; 'e' sets the 'end' time on the original CDR; 'R' prevents the new CDR from being reset; 's(var=val)' adds/changes the 'var' variable on the original CDR; 'T' forces ast_cdr_end(), ast_cdr_answer(), obey the LOCKED flag on cdr's in the chain, and also the ast_cdr_setvar() func. * The Dial() application no longer copies the language used by the caller to the callee's channel. If you desire for the caller's channel's language to be used for file playback to the callee, then the file specified may be prepended with "${CHANNEL(language)}/" . * SendImage() no longer hangs up the channel on error; instead, it sets the status variable SENDIMAGESTATUS to one of 'SUCCESS', 'FAILURE', or 'UNSUPPORTED'. This change makes SendImage() more consistent with other applications. * Park has a new option, 's', which silences the announcement of the parking space number. * A non-numeric, zero, or negative timeout specified to Dial() will now be interpreted as invalid input and will be assumed to mean that no timeout is desired. SIP Changes ----------- * Added DNS manager support to registrations for peers referencing peer entries. DNS manager runs in the background which allows DNS lookups to be run asynchronously as well as periodically updating the IP address. These properties allow for better performance as well as recovery in the event of an IP change. * Performance improvements via using hash tables (astobj2) and doubly-linked lists to improve load/reload of large numbers of peers/users by ~40x (for large lists of peers). These changes also provide performance improvements for call setup and tear down. * Added ability to specify registration expiry time on a per registration basis in the register line. * Added support for T140 RED - redundancy in T.140 to prevent text loss due to lost packets. * Added t38pt_usertpsource option. See sip.conf.sample for details. * Added SIPnotify AMI command, for sending arbitrary SIP notify commands. * 'sip show peers' and 'sip show users' display their entries sorted in alphabetical order, as opposed to the order they were in, in the config file or database. * Videosupport now supports an additional option, "always", which always sets up video RTP ports, even on clients that don't support it. This helps with callfiles and certain transfers to ensure that if two video phones are connected, they will always share video feeds. IAX Changes ----------- * Existing DNS manager lookups extended to check for SRV records. * IAX2 encryption support has been improved to support periodic key rotation within a call for enhanced security. The option "keyrotate" has been provided to disable this functionality to preserve backwards compatibility with older versions of IAX2 that do not support key rotation. CLI Changes ----------- * New CLI command, "config reload " which reloads any module that references that particular configuration file. Also added "config list" which shows which configuration files are in use. * New CLI commands, "pri show version" and "ss7 show version" that will display which version of libpri and libss7 are being used, respectively. A new API call was added so trunk will now have to be compiled against a versions of libpri and libss7 that have them or it will not know that these libraries exist. * The commands "core show globals", "core set global" and "core set chanvar" has been deprecated in favor of the more semanticly correct "dialplan show globals", "dialplan set chanvar" and "dialplan set global". * New CLI command "dialplan show chanvar" to list all variables associated with a given channel. DNS manager changes ------------------- * Addresses managed by DNS manager now can check to see if there is a DNS SRV record for a given domain and will use that hostname/port if present. AMI - The manager (TCP/TLS/HTTP) -------------------------------- * The Status command now takes an optional list of variables to display along with channel status. * The QueueEntry event now also includes the channel's uniqueid ODBC Changes ------------ * res_odbc no longer has a limit of 1023 total possible unshared connections, as some people were running into this limit. This limit has been increased to 4.2 billion. Queue changes ------------- * The TRANSFER queue log entry now includes the the caller's original position in the transferred-from queue. * A new configuration option, "timeoutpriority" has been added. Please see the section labeled "QUEUE TIMING OPTIONS" in configs/queues.conf.sample for a detailed explanation of the option as well as an explanation about timeout options in general * Added a new option - C - for forcing the "answered elsewhere" flag on cancellation of calls in to members of the queue. This is to avoid the call to a member of a queue having the call listed as a "missed call". Realtime changes ---------------- * Several (ODBC, Postgres, MySQL, SQLite) realtime drivers have been given adaptive capabilities. What this means in practical terms is that if your realtime table lacks critical fields, Asterisk will now emit warnings to that effect. Also, some of the realtime drivers have the ability (if configured) to automatically add those columns to the table with the correct type and length. Miscellaneous ------------- * The channel variable ATTENDED_TRANSFER_COMPLETE_SOUND can now be set using the 'setvar' option to cause a given audio file to be played upon completion of an attended transfer. Currently it works for DAHDI, IAX2, SIP, and Skinny channels only. * You can now compile Asterisk against the Hoard Memory Allocator, see doc/hoard.txt for more information. * Config file variables may now be appended to, by using the '+=' append operator. This is most helpful when working with long SQL queries in func_odbc.conf, as the queries no longer need to be specified on a single line. * CDR config file, cdr.conf, has an added option, "initiatedseconds", which will add a second to the billsec when the ending time is set, if the number in the microseconds field of the end time is greater than the number of microseconds in the answer time. This allows users to count the 'initiated' seconds in their billing records. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Functionality changes from Asterisk 1.4.X to Asterisk 1.6.0 ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AMI - The manager (TCP/TLS/HTTP) -------------------------------- * Manager has undergone a lot of changes, all of them documented in doc/manager_1_1.txt * Manager version has changed to 1.1 * Added a new action 'CoreShowChannels' to list currently defined channels and some information about them. * Added a new action 'SIPshowregistry' to list SIP registrations. * Added TLS support for the manager interface and HTTP server * Added the URI redirect option for the built-in HTTP server * The output of CallerID in Manager events is now more consistent. CallerIDNum is used for number and CallerIDName for name. * Enable https support for builtin web server. See configs/http.conf.sample for details. * Added a new action, GetConfigJSON, which can return the contents of an Asterisk configuration file in JSON format. This is intended to help improve the performance of AJAX applications using the manager interface over HTTP. * SIP and IAX manager events now use "ChannelType" in all cases where we indicate channel driver. Previously, we used a mixture of "Channel" and "ChannelDriver" headers. * Added a "Bridge" action which allows you to bridge any two channels that are currently active on the system. * Added a "ListAllVoicemailUsers" action that allows you to get a list of all the voicemail users setup. * Added 'DBDel' and 'DBDelTree' manager commands. * cdr_manager now reports events via the "cdr" level, separating it from the very verbose "call" level. * Manager users are now stored in memory. If you change the manager account list (delete or add accounts) you need to reload manager. * Added Masquerade manager event for when a masquerade happens between two channels. * Added "manager reload" command for the CLI * Lots of commands that only provided information are now allowed under the Reporting privilege, instead of only under Call or System. * The IAX* commands now require either System or Reporting privilege, to mirror the privileges of the SIP* commands. * Added ability to retrieve list of categories in a config file. * Added ability to retrieve the content of a particular category. * Added ability to empty a context. * Created new action to create a new file. * Updated delete action to allow deletion by line number with respect to category. * Added new action insert to add new variable to category at specified line. * Updated action newcat to allow new category to be inserted in file above another existing category. * Added new event "JitterBufStats" in the IAX2 channel * Originate now requires the Originate privilege and, if you want to call out to a subshell, it requires the System privilege, as well. This was done to enhance manager security. * Originate now accepts codec settings with "Codecs: alaw, ulaw, h264" * New command: Atxfer. See doc/manager_1_1.txt for more details or manager show command Atxfer from the CLI * New command: IAXregistry. See doc/manager_1_1.txt for more details or manager show command IAXregistry from the CLI Dialplan functions ------------------ * Added the DEVICE_STATE() dialplan function which allows retrieving any device state in the dialplan, as well as creating custom device states that are controllable from the dialplan. * Extend CALLERID() function with "pres" and "ton" parameters to fetch string representation of calling number presentation indicator and numeric representation of type of calling number value. * MailboxExists converted to dialplan function * A new option to Dial() for telling IP phones not to count the call as "missed" when dial times out and cancels. * Added LOCK(), TRYLOCK(), and UNLOCK(), which provide a single level dialplan mutex. No deadlocks are possible, as LOCK() only allows a single lock to be held for any given channel. Also, locks are automatically freed when a channel is hung up. * Added HINT() dialplan function that allows retrieving hint information. Hints are mappings between extensions and devices for the sake of determining the state of an extension. This function can retrieve the list of devices or the name associated with a hint. * Added EXTENSION_STATE() dialplan function which allows retrieving the state of any extension. * Added SYSINFO() dialplan function which allows retrieval of system information * Added a new dialplan function, DIALPLAN_EXISTS(), which allows you to check for the existence of a dialplan target. * Added two new dialplan functions, TOUPPER and TOLOWER, which convert a string to upper and lower case, respectively. * When bridging, Asterisk sets the BRIDGEPVTCALLID to the channel drivers unique ID for the call (not the Asterisk call ID or unique ID), provided that the channel driver supports this. For SIP, you get the SIP call-ID for the bridged channel which you can store in the CDR with a custom field. CLI Changes ----------- * Added CLI permissions, config file: cli_permissions.conf default is to allow all commands for every local user/group. Also this new feature added three new CLI commands: - cli check permissions {|@|@} [] - cli reload permissions - cli show permissions * New CLI command "core show hint" (usage: core show hint ) * New CLI command "core show settings" * Added 'core show channels count' CLI command. * Added the ability to set the core debug and verbose values on a per-file basis. * Added 'queue pause member' and 'queue unpause member' CLI commands * Ability to set process limits ("ulimit") without restarting Asterisk * Enhanced "agi debug" to print the channel name as a prefix to the debug output to make debugging on busy systems much easier. * New CLI commands "dialplan set extenpatternmatching true/false" * New CLI command: "core set chanvar" to set a channel variable from the CLI. * Added an easy way to execute Asterisk CLI commands at startup. Any commands listed in the startup_commands section of cli.conf will get executed. * Added a CLI command, "devstate change", which allows you to set custom device states from the func_devstate module that provides the DEVICE_STATE() function and handling of the "Custom:" devices. * New CLI command: "sip show sched" which shows all ast_sched entries for sip, sorted into the different possible callbacks, with the number of entries currently scheduled for each. Gives you a feel for how busy the sip channel driver is. * Added 'skinny show lines verbose' CLI command. This will show the subs for every channel. * Cleanup another bunch of CLI commands. Now all modules follow the same schema. (Done by lmadsen, junky and mvanbaak during the devcon 2008) SIP changes ----------- * Added a new 'faxdetect=yes|no' configuration option to sip.conf. When this option is enabled, Asterisk will watch for a CNG tone in the incoming audio for a received call. If it is detected, the channel will jump to the 'fax' extension in the dialplan. * Improved NAT and STUN support. chan_sip now can use port numbers in bindaddr, externip and externhost options, as well as contact a STUN server to detect its external address for the SIP socket. See sip.conf.sample, 'NAT' section. * The default SIP useragent= identifier now includes the Asterisk version * A new option, match_auth_username in sip.conf changes the matching of incoming requests. If set, and the incoming request carries authentication info, the username to match in the users list is taken from the Digest header rather than from the From: field. This feature is considered experimental. * The "musiconhold" and "musicclass" settings in sip.conf are now removed, since they where replaced by "mohsuggest" and "mohinterpret" in version 1.4 * The "localmask" setting was removed in version 1.2 and the reminder about it being removed is now also removed. * A new option "busylevel" for setting a level of calls where asterisk reports a device as busy, to separate it from call-limit. This value is also added to the SIP_PEER dialplan function. * A new realtime family called "sipregs" is now supported to store SIP registration data. If this family is defined, "sippeers" will be used for configuration and "sipregs" for registrations. If it's not defined, "sippeers" will be used for registration data, as before. * The SIPPEER function have new options for port address, call and pickup groups * Added support for T.140 realtime text in SIP/RTP * The "checkmwi" option has been removed from sip.conf, as it is no longer required due to the restructuring of how MWI is handled. See the descriptions in this file of the "pollmailboxes" and "pollfreq" options to voicemail.conf for more information. * Added rtpdest option to CHANNEL() dialplan function. * Added SIPREFERRINGCONTEXT and SIPREFERREDBYHDR variables which are set when a transfer takes place. * SIP now adds a header to the CANCEL if the call was answered by another phone in the same dial command, or if the new c option in dial() is used. * The new default is that 100 Trying is not sent on REGISTER attempts as the RFC specifically states it is not needed. For phones, however, that do require it the "registertrying" option has been added so it can be enabled. * A new option called "callcounter" (global/peer/user level) enables call counters needed for better status reports needed for queues and SIP subscriptions. (Call-Limit was previously used to enable this functionality). * New settings for timer T1 and timer B on a global level or per device. This makes it possible to force timeout faster on non-responsive SIP servers. These settings are considered advanced, so don't use them unless you have a problem. * Added a dial string option to be able to set the To: header in an INVITE to any SIP uri. * Added a new global and per-peer option, qualifyfreq, which allows you to configure the qualify frequency. * Added SIP Session Timers support (RFC 4028). This prevents stuck SIP sessions that were not properly torn down due to network or endpoint failures during an established SIP session. * Added experimental TCP and TLS support for SIP. See doc/siptls.txt and configs/sip.conf.sample for more information on how it is used. * Added a new configuration option "authfailureevents" that enables manager events when a peer can't authenticate properly. * Added DNS manager support to registrations for peers not referencing a peer entry. IAX2 changes ------------ * Added the trunkmaxsize configuration option to chan_iax2. * Added the srvlookup option to iax.conf * Added support for OSP. The token is set and retrieved through the CHANNEL() dialplan function. XMPP Google Talk/Jingle changes ------------------------------- * Added the bindaddr option to gtalk.conf. Skinny changes ------------- * Added skinny show device, skinny show line, and skinny show settings CLI commands. * Proper codec support in chan_skinny. * Added settings for IP and Ethernet QoS requests MGCP changes ------------ * Added separate settings for media QoS in mgcp.conf Console Channel Driver changes ------------------------------ * Added experimental support for video send & receive to chan_oss. This requires SDL and ffmpeg/avcodec, plus Video4Linux or X11 to act as a video source. Phone channel changes (chan_phone) ---------------------------------- * Added G729 passthrough support to chan_phone for Sigma Designs boards. H.323 channel Changes --------------------- * H323 remote hold notification support added (by NOTIFY message and/or H.450 supplementary service) Local channel changes --------------------- * The device state functionality in the Local channel driver has been updated to indicate INUSE or NOT_INUSE when a Local channel is being used as opposed to just UNKNOWN if the extension exists. * Added jitterbuffer support for chan_local. This allows you to use the generic jitterbuffer on incoming calls going to Asterisk applications. For example, this would allow you to use a jitterbuffer for an incoming SIP call to Voicemail by putting a Local channel in the middle. This feature is enabled by using the 'j' option in the Dial string to the Local channel in conjunction with the existing 'n' option for local channels. * A 'b' option has been added which causes chan_local to return the actual channel that is behind it when queried. This is useful for transfer scenarios as the actual channel will be transferred, not the Local channel. Agent channel changes ---------------------- * The ackcall and endcall options are now supplemented with options acceptdtmf and enddtmf. These allow for the DTMF keypress to be configurable. The options default to their old hard-coded values ('#' and '*' respectively) so this should not break any existing agent installations. DAHDI channel driver (chan_dahdi) Changes ---------------------------------------- * SS7 support (via libss7 library) * In India, some carriers transmit CID via dtmf. Some code has been added that will handle some situations. The cidstart=polarity_IN choice has been added for those carriers that transmit CID via dtmf after a polarity change. * CID matching information is now shown when doing 'dialplan show'. * Added dahdi show version CLI command. * Added setvar support to chan_dahdi.conf channel entries. * Added two new options: mwimonitor and mwimonitornotify. These options allow you to enable MWI monitoring on FXO lines. When the MWI state changes, the script specified in the mwimonitornotify option is executed. An internal event indicating the new state of the mailbox is also generated, so that the normal MWI facilities in Asterisk work as usual. * Added signalling type 'auto', which attempts to use the same signalling type for a channel as configured in DAHDI. This is primarily designed for analog ports, but will also work for digital ports that are configured for FXS or FXO signalling types. This mode is also the default now, so if your chan_dahdi.conf does not specify signalling for a channel (which is unlikely as the sample configuration file has always recommended specifying it for every channel) then the 'auto' mode will be used for that channel if possible. * Added a 'dahdi set dnd' command to allow CLI control of the Do-Not-Disturb state for a channel; also ensured that the DNDState Manager event is emitted no matter how the DND state is set or cleared. New Channel Drivers ------------------- * Added a new channel driver, chan_unistim. See doc/unistim.txt and configs/unistim.conf.sample for details. This new channel driver allows you to use Nortel i2002, i2004, and i2050 phones with Asterisk. * Added a new channel driver, chan_console, which uses portaudio as a cross platform audio interface. It was written as a channel driver that would work with Mac CoreAudio, but portaudio supports a number of other audio interfaces, as well. Note that this channel driver requires v19 or higher of portaudio; older versions have a different API. DUNDi changes ------------- * Added the ability to specify arguments to the Dial application when using the DUNDi switch in the dialplan. * Added the ability to set weights for responses dynamically. This can be done using a global variable or a dialplan function. Using the SHELL() function would allow you to have an external script set the weight for each response. * Added two new dialplan functions, DUNDIQUERY and DUNDIRESULT. These functions will allow you to initiate a DUNDi query from the dialplan, find out how many results there are, and access each one. ENUM changes ------------ * Added two new dialplan functions, ENUMQUERY and ENUMRESULT. These functions will allow you to initiate an ENUM lookup from the dialplan, and Asterisk will cache the results. ENUMRESULT can be used to access the results without doing multiple DNS queries. Voicemail Changes ----------------- * Added the ability to customize which sound files are used for some of the prompts within the Voicemail application by changing them in voicemail.conf * Added the ability for the "voicemail show users" CLI command to show users configured by the dynamic realtime configuration method. * MWI (Message Waiting Indication) handling has been significantly restructured internally to Asterisk. It is now totally event based instead of polling based. The voicemail application will notify other modules that have subscribed to MWI events when something in the mailbox changes. This also means that if any other entity outside of Asterisk is changing the contents of mailboxes, then the voicemail application still needs to poll for changes. Examples of situations that would require this option are web interfaces to voicemail or an email client in the case of using IMAP storage. So, two new options have been added to voicemail.conf to account for this: "pollmailboxes" and "pollfreq". See the sample configuration file for details. * Added "tw" language support * Added support for storage of greetings using an IMAP server * Added ability to customize forward, reverse, stop, and pause keys for message playback * SMDI is now enabled in voicemail using the smdienable option. * A "lockmode" option has been added to asterisk.conf to configure the file locking method used for voicemail, and potentially other things in the future. The default is the old behavior, lockfile. However, there is a new method, "flock", that uses a different method for situations where the lockfile will not work, such as on SMB/CIFS mounts. * Added the ability to backup deleted messages, to ease recovery in the case that a user accidentally deletes a message, and discovers that they need it. * Reworked the SMDI interface in Asterisk. The new way to access SMDI information is through the new functions, SMDI_MSG_RETRIEVE() and SMDI_MSG(). The file smdi.conf can now be configured with options to map SMDI station IDs to Asterisk voicemail boxes. The SMDI interface can also poll for MWI changes when some outside entity is modifying the state of the mailbox (such as IMAP storage or a web interface of some kind). * Added the support for marking messages as "urgent." There are two methods to accomplish this. One is to pass the 'U' option to VoiceMail(). Another way to mark a message as urgent is to specify "review=yes" in voicemail.conf. Doing this will cause allow the user to mark the message as urgent after he has recorded a voicemail by following the voice instructions. When listening to voicemails using VoiceMailMain urgent messages will be presented before other messages Queue changes ------------- * Added the general option 'shared_lastcall' so that member's wrapuptime may be used across multiple queues. * Added QUEUE_VARIABLES function to set queue variables added setqueuevar and setqueueentryvar options for each queue, see queues.conf.sample for details. * Added keepstats option to queues.conf which will keep queue statistics during a reload. * setinterfacevar option in queues.conf also now sets a variable called MEMBERNAME which contains the member's name. * Added 'Strategy' field to manager event QueueParams which represents the queue strategy in use. * Added option to run macro when a queue member is connected to a caller, see queues.conf.sample for details. * app_queue now has a 'loose' option which is almost exactly like 'strict' except it does not count paused queue members as unavailable. * Added min-announce-frequency option to queues.conf which allows you to control the minimum amount of time between queue announcements for use when the caller's queue position changes frequently. * Added additional information to EXITWITHTIMEOUT and EXITWITHKEY events in the queue log. * Added ability for non-realtime queues to have realtime members * Added the "linear" strategy to queues. * Added the "wrandom" strategy to queues. * Added new channel variable QUEUE_MIN_PENALTY * QUEUE_MAX_PENALTY and QUEUE_MIN_PENALTY may be adjusted in mid-call by defining rules in queuerules.conf. See configs/queuerules.conf.sample for details * Added a new parameter for member definition, called state_interface. This may be used so that a member may be called via one interface but have a different interface's device state reported. * Added new CLI and Manager commands relating to reloading queues. From the CLI, see "queue reload", "queue reset stats". Also see "manager show command QueueReload" and "manager show command QueueReset." * New configuration option: randomperiodicannounce. If a list of periodic announcements is specified by the periodic-announce option, then one will be chosen randomly when it is time to play a periodic announcment * New configuration options: announce-position now takes two more values in addition to "yes" and "no." Two new options, "limit" and "more," are allowed. These are tied to another option, announce-position-limit. By setting announce-position to "limit" callers will only have their position announced if their position is less than what is specified by announce-position-limit. If announce-position is set to "more" then callers beyond the position specified by announce-position-limit will be told that their are more than announce-position-limit callers waiting. * Two new queue log events have been added. An ADDMEMBER event will be logged when a realtime queue member is added and a REMOVEMEMBER event will be logged when a realtime queue member is removed. Since there is no calling channel associated with these events, the string "REALTIME" is placed where the channel's unique id is typically placed. * The configuration method for the "joinempty" and "leavewhenempty" options has changed to a comma-separated list of methods of determining member availability instead of vague terms such as "yes," "loose," "no," and "strict." These old four values are still accepted for backwards-compatibility, though. * The average talktime is now calculated on queues. This information is reported via the CLI commands "queue show" and "queues show"; through the AMI events AgentComplete, QueueSummary, and QueueParams; and through the channelvariable QUEUETALKTIME if setinterfacevar=yes is set for the queue. MeetMe Changes -------------- * The 'o' option to provide an optimization has been removed and its functionality has been enabled by default. * When a conference is created, the UNIQUEID of the channel that caused it to be created is stored. Then, every channel that joins the conference will have the MEETMEUNIQUEID channel variable set with this ID. This can be used to relate callers that come and go from long standing conferences. * Added a new application, MeetMeChannelAdmin, which is similar to MeetMeAdmin, except it does operations on a channel by name, instead of number in a conference. This is a very useful feature in combination with the 'X' option to ChanSpy. * Added 'C' option to Meetme which causes a caller to continue in the dialplan when kicked out. * Added new RealTime functionality to provide support for scheduled conferencing. This includes optional messages to the caller if they attempt to join before the schedule start time, or to allow the caller to join the conference early. Also included is optional support for limiting the number of callers per RealTime conference. * Added the S() and L() options to the MeetMe application. These are pretty much identical to the S() and L() options to Dial(). They let you set timeouts for the conference, as well as have warning sounds played to let the caller know how much time is left, and when it is running out. * Added the ability to do "meetme concise" with the "meetme" CLI command. This extends the concise capabilities of this CLI command to include listing all conferences, instead of an addition to the other sub commands for the "meetme" command. * Added the ability to specify the music on hold class used to play into the conference when there is only one member and the M option is used. * Added MEETME_INFO dialplan function which provides a way to query various properties of a Meetme conference. Other Dialplan Application Changes ---------------------------------- * Argument support for Gosub application * From the to-do lists: straighten out the app timeout args: Wait() app now really does 0.3 seconds- was truncating arg to an int. WaitExten() same as Wait(). Congestion() - Now takes floating pt. argument. Busy() - now takes floating pt. argument. Read() - timeout now can be floating pt. WaitForRing() now takes floating pt timeout arg. SpeechBackground() -- clarified in the docstrings that the timeout is an integer seconds. * Added 's' option to Page application. * Added an optional timeout argument to the Page application. * Added 'E', 'V', and 'P' commands to ExternalIVR. * Added 'o' and 'X' options to Chanspy. * Added a new dialplan application, Bridge, which allows you to bridge the calling channel to any other active channel on the system. * Added the ability to specify a music on hold class to play instead of ringing for the SLATrunk application. * The Read application no longer exits the dialplan on error. Instead, it sets READSTATUS to ERROR, which you can catch and handle separately. * Added 'm' option to Directory, which lists out names, 8 at a time, instead of asking for verification of each name, one at a time. * Privacy() no longer uses privacy.conf, as all options are specifyable as direct options to the app. * AMD() has a new "maximum word length" option. "show application AMD" from the CLI for more details * GotoIfTime() now may branch based on a "false" condition, like other Goto-related applications * The ChannelRedirect application no longer exits the dialplan if the given channel does not exist. It will now set the CHANNELREDIRECT_STATUS variable to SUCCESS upon success or NOCHANNEL if the given channel was not found. * The silencethreshold setting that was previously configurable in multiple applications is now settable globally via dsp.conf. Music On Hold Changes --------------------- * A new option, "digit", has been added for music on hold classes in musiconhold.conf. If this is set for a music on hold class, a caller listening to music on hold can press this digit to switch to listening to this music on hold class. * Support for realtime music on hold has been added. * In conjunction with the realtime music on hold, a general section has been added to musiconhold.conf, its sole variable is cachertclasses. If this is set, then music on hold classes found in realtime will be cached in memory. AEL Changes ----------- * AEL upgraded to use the Gosub with Arguments instead of Macro application, to hopefully reduce the problems seen with the artificially low stack ceiling that Macro bumps into. Macros can only call other Macros to a depth of 7. Tests run using gosub, show depths limited only by virtual memory. A small test demonstrated recursive call depths of 100,000 without problems. -- in addition to this, all apps that allowed a macro to be called, as in Dial, queues, etc, are now allowing a gosub call in similar fashion. * AEL now generates LOCAL(argname) declarations when it Set()'s the each arg name to the value of ${ARG1}, ${ARG2), etc. That makes the arguments local in scope. The user can define their own local variables in macros, now, by saying "local myvar=someval;" or using Set() in this fashion: Set(LOCAL(myvar)=someval); ("local" is now an AEL keyword). * utils/conf2ael introduced. Will convert an extensions.conf file into extensions.ael. Very crude and unfinished, but will be improved as time goes by. Should be useful for a first pass at conversion. * aelparse will now read extensions.conf to see if a referenced macro or context is there before issueing a warning. * AEL parser sets a local channel variable ~~EXTEN~~, to preserve the value of ${EXTEN} thru switch statements. * New operator in $[...] expressions: the ~~ operator serves as a concatenation operator. AT THE MOMENT, it is really only necessary and useful in AEL, especially in if() expressions. Operation: ${a} ~~ ${b| with force both a and b to strings, strip any enclosing double-quotes, and evaluate to the value of a concatenated with the value of b. For example if a is set to "xyz" and b has the value "abc", then ${a} ~~ ${b| would evaluate to xyzabc . Call Features (res_features) Changes ------------------------------------ * Added the parkedcalltransfers option to features.conf * Added parkedcallparking option to control one touch parking w/ parking pickup * Added parkedcallhangup option to control disconnect feature w/ parking pickup * Added parkedcallrecording option to control one-touch record w/ parking pickup * Added parkedcallparking, parkedcallhangup, parkedcallrecording, and parkedcalltransfers option support for multiple parking lots. * Added BRIDGE_FEATURES variable to set available features for a channel * The built-in method for doing attended transfers has been updated to include some new options that allow you to have the transferee sent back to the person that did the transfer if the transfer is not successful. See the options "atxferdropcall", "atxferloopdelay", and "atxfercallbackretries" in features.conf.sample. * Added support for configuring named groups of custom call features in features.conf. This means that features can be written a single time, and then mapped into groups of features for different key mappings or easier access control. * Updated the ParkedCall application to allow you to not specify a parking extension. If you don't specify a parking space to pick up, it will grab the first one available. * Added cli command 'features reload' to reload call features from features.conf * Moved into core asterisk binary. * Changed the default setting for featuredigittimeout to 2000 ms from 500 ms. Language Support Changes ------------------------ * Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR) in VM, and say.c was added * Added support for the Hungarian language for saying numbers, dates, and times. AGI Changes ----------- * Added SPEECH commands for speech recognition. A complete listing can be found using agi show. * If app_stack is loaded, GOSUB is a native AGI command that may be used to invoke subroutines in the dialplan. Note that calling EXEC with Gosub does not behave as expected; the native command needs to be used, instead. * Added the ability to perform SRV lookups on fast AGI calls. To use this feature, simply use hagi: instead of agi: as the protocol portion of the URI parameter to the AGI function call in your dial plan. Also note that specifying a port number in the AGI URI will disable SRV lookups, even if you use the hagi: protocol. Logger changes -------------- * Added rotatestrategy option to logger.conf, along with two new options: "timestamp" which will use the time to name the logger files instead of sequence number; and "rotate", which rotates the names of the log files, similar to the way syslog rotates files. * Added exec_after_rotate option to logger.conf, which allows a system command to be run after rotation. This is primarily useful with rotatestrategy=rotate, to allow a limit on the number of log files kept and to ensure that the oldest log file gets deleted. * Added realtime support for the queue log Call Detail Records ------------------- * The cdr_manager module has a [mappings] feature, like cdr_custom, to add fields to the manager event from the CDR variables. * Added cdr_adaptive_odbc, a new module that adapts to the structure of your backend database CDR table. Specifically, additional, non-standard columns are supported, merely by setting the corresponding CDR variable in your dialplan. In addition, you may alias any column to another name (for example, if you want the 'src' CDR variable to be column 'ANI' in the DB, simply "alias src => ANI" in the configuration file). Records may be posted to more than one backend, simply by specifying multiple categories in the configuration file. And finally, you may filter which CDRs get posted to each backend, by specifying a filter (which the record must match) for the particular category. Filters are additive (meaning all rules must match to post that CDR). * The Postgres CDR module now supports some features of the cdr_adaptive_odbc module. Specifically, you may add additional columns into the table and they will be set, if you set the corresponding CDR variable name. Also, if you omit columns in your database table, they will be silently skipped (but a record will still be inserted, based on what columns remain). Note that the other two features from cdr_adaptive_odbc (alias and filter) are not currently supported. * The ResetCDR application now has an 'e' option that re-enables a CDR if it has been disabled using the NoCDR application. Miscellaneous New Modules ------------------------- * Added a new CDR module, cdr_sqlite3_custom. * Added a new realtime configuration module, res_config_sqlite * Added a new codec translation module, codec_resample, which re-samples signed linear audio between 8 kHz and 16 kHz to help support wideband codecs. * Added a new module, res_phoneprov, which allows auto-provisioning of phones based on configuration templates that use Asterisk dialplan function and variable substitution. It should be possible to create phone profiles and templates that work for the majority of phones provisioned over http. It is currently only intended to provision a single user account per phone. An example profile and set of templates for Polycom phones is provided. NOTE: Polycom firmware is not included, but should be placed in AST_DATA_DIR/phoneprov/configs to match up with the included templates. * Added a new module, app_jack, which provides interfaces to JACK, the Jack Audio Connection Kit (http://www.jackaudio.org/). Two interfaces are provided; there is a JACK() application, and a JACK_HOOK() function. Both interfaces create an input and output JACK port. The application makes these ports the endpoint of the call. The audio coming from the channel goes out the output port and whatever comes back in on the input port is what gets sent to the channel. The JACK_HOOK() function turns on a JACK audiohook on the channel. This lets you run the audio coming from a channel through JACK, and whatever comes back in is what gets forwarded on as the channel's audio. This is very useful for building custom vocoders or doing recording or analysis of the channel's audio in another application. * Added a new module, res_config_curl, which permits using a HTTP POST url to retrieve, create, update, and delete realtime information from a remote web server. Note that this module requires func_curl.so to be loaded for backend functionality. * Added a new module, res_config_ldap, which permits the use of an LDAP server for realtime data access. * Added support for writing and running your dialplan in lua using the pbx_lua module. See configs/extensions.lua.sample for examples of how to do this. Miscellaneous ------------- * Ability to use libcap to set high ToS bits when non-root on Linux. If configure is unable to find libcap then you can use --with-cap to specify the path. * Added maxfiles option to options section of asterisk.conf which allows you to specify what Asterisk should set as the maximum number of open files when it loads. * Added the jittertargetextra configuration option. * Added support for setting the CoS for VLAN traffic (802.1p). See the sample configuration files for the IP channel drivers. The new option is "cos". This information is also documented in doc/qos.tex, or the IP Quality of Service section of asterisk.pdf. * When originating a call using AMI or pbx_spool that fails the reason for failure will now be available in the failed extension using the REASON dialplan variable. * Added support for reading the TOUCH_MONITOR_PREFIX channel variable. It allows you to configure a prefix for auto-monitor recordings. * A new extension pattern matching algorithm, based on a trie, is introduced here, that could noticeably speed up mid-sized to large dialplans. It is NOT used by default, as duplicating the behaviour of the old pattern matcher is still under development. A config file option, in extensions.conf, in the [general] section, called "extenpatternmatchingnew", is by default set to false; setting that to true will force the use of the new algorithm. Also, the cli commands "dialplan set extenpatternmatchingnew true/false" can be used to switch the algorithms at run time. * A new option when starting a remote asterisk (rasterisk, asterisk -r) for specifying which socket to use to connect to the running Asterisk daemon (-s) * Performance enhancements to the sched facility, which is used in the channel drivers, etc. Added hashtabs and doubly-linked lists to speed up deletion; start at the beginning or end of list to speed up insertion. * Added Doubly-linked lists after the fashion of linkedlists.h. They are in dlinkedlists.h. Doubly-linked lists feature fast deletion times. Added regression tests to the tests/ dir, also. * Added a refcount trace feature to astobj2 for those trying to balance object creation, deletion; work, play; space and time. See the notes in astobj2.h. Also, see utils/refcounter as well, as a quick way to find unbalanced refcounts in what could be a sea of objects that were balanced. * Added logging to 'make update' command. See update.log * Added strictrtp option to rtp.conf. If enabled this will drop RTP packets that do not come from the remote party. * Added the 'n' option to the SpeechBackground application to tell it to not answer the channel if it has not already been answered. * Added a compiler flag, CHANNEL_TRACE, which permits channel tracing to be turned on, via the CHANNEL(trace) dialplan function. Could be useful for dialplan debugging. * iLBC source code no longer included (see UPGRADE.txt for details) * If compiled with DETECT_DEADLOCKS enabled and if you have glibc, then if deadlock is detected, a backtrace of the stack which led to the lock calls will be output to the CLI. * If compiled with DEBUG_THREADS enabled and if you have glibc, then issuing the "core show locks" CLI command will give lock information output as well as a backtrace of the stack which led to the lock calls. * users.conf now sports an optional alternateexts property, which permits allocation of additional extensions which will reach the specified user. * A new option for the configure script, --enable-internal-poll, has been added for use with systems which may have a buggy implementation of the poll system call. If you notice odd behavior such as the CLI being unresponsive on remote consoles, you may want to try using this option. This option is enabled by default on Darwin systems since it is known that the Darwin poll() implementation has odd issues. Timer Changes -------------------- * In addition to timing from DAHDI, there is a new timing module called res_timing_timerfd. In order to use this, you must be running Linux with a kernel version 2.6.25 or newer as well as glibc 2.8 or newer. The configure script will be able to tell if you have the requirements. From menuselect, select res_timing_timerfd from the Resource Modules menu.