28 Aug 2008

Voice chat in OpenSim

Overview

If you want to set up voice chat for your grid, here is a rundown on what you will need and how it works.

OpenSim currently uses the Asterisk PBX server through a dynamic, MySQL-based configuration that is updated by a “frontend” python script. This frontend is invoked by an SLVoice replacement when a user REGISTERs to the SIP channel configured for the region.

For this, SLVoice requires two pieces of information:

• The address of the “frontend”
• The address of asterisk to register with

The region server must provide the asterisk address to the viewer, which in turns will pass it down to SLVoice. Similarly, the address of the frontend is set in OpenSim.ini and registration happens via the AsteriskVoice module in Region.Environment.Modules.Avatar.Voice

However for private chats - by limitation of the SLViewer - SLVoice always receives a hard-coded SIP URI that then needs to be changed to the real address. For flexibility this URI is queried at runtime from an HTTP server (the address of which needs to be set in slvoice.ini).

After SLVoice has registered through the frontend, it can contact the Asterisk service and start the real voice chat.

Installation

Zaptel

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/zaptel/

Zaptel is a kernel module that allows asterisk to use various telephony hardware, but for our purposes it is only needed for the MeetMe conference application that depends on a hardware timer. Because of this, the ztdummy kernel module is what we will need.

Zaptel requires that you have

bison, bison-devel newt, newt-devel ncurses, ncurses-devel

Installation is straightforward: **./configure; make; make install **

(Note: You need to be root to install zaptel)

After installation, make sure you run modprobe ztdummy; modprobe zaptel

Asterisk

http://www.asterisk.org/

Before you start, please make sure the following are installed:

mysql, mysql-connector-odbc unixODBC-devel libtool-ltdl-devel kernel-devel

The latest versions of Asterisk don’t include the sources for the codec iLBC anymore. If you want those supported, please run contrib/scripts/get_ilbc_source.sh

It is advised that you run make menuselect and configure the modules before you install asterisk. You will need res_odbc to interface properly with MySQL. Also make sure that ztdummy and app_meetme are marked for install. Then make; make install.

OpenSim

Get OpenSim and apply [Patch 1689] (http://opensimulator.org/mantis/view.php? id=1689) to get private chat working.

Asterisk Frontend

The current frontend requires Python2.5 with mysql support (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python if not included in the distribution) The frontend can be found in share/python/asterisk/

Configuration

Asterisk

In MySQL, create a database and add an ‘asterisk’ user by

CREATE DATABASE asterisk;
    GRANT ALL ON asterisk.* TO asterisk@<host> IDENTIFIED BY '<password>';

The frontend will create the schema on first start.

Set up ODBC:

/etc/odbcinst.ini

[MySQL]
  Description = MySQL For Asterisk
  Driver = /usr/lib/libmyodbc3.so
  Setup = /usr/lib/libodbcmyS.so
  FileUsage = 1

/etc/odbc.ini

[asterisk]
    Driver = MySQL
    Server =<server address>
    Database = asterisk
    Port = 3306
    User = asterisk
    Password = *********
    Socket =
    Option = 3
    Stmt =

/etc/asterisk/extconfig.conf

sipusers => odbc,asterisk,ast_sipfriends
    sippeers => odbc,asterisk,ast_sipfriends
    extensions => odbc,asterisk,extensions_table

/etc/asterisk/extensions.conf

[avatare]
    switch => Realtime/@

/etc/asterisk/modules.conf

[modules]
    autoload => yes
    noload => pbx_gtkconsole.so
    load => res_musiconhold.so
    noload => chan_alsa.so
    preload => res_odbc.so
    preload => res_config_odbc.so

/etc/asterisk/res_odbc.conf

[asterisk]
    enabled => yes
    dsn => asterisk
    username => asterisk
    password => *********
    pre_connect => yes

Frontend

In asterisk-opensim.cfg, set

[xmlrpc]
    baseurl = http://<frontendhost>:<frontendport>

  [mysql]
    server   = <mysqlhost>
    database = asterisk
    user     = asterisk
    password = ************
    debug    = true

  [mysql-templates]
    tables = create-table.sql
    user   = create-user.sql
    region = create-region.sql

OpenSim

In OpenSim.ini, add the following section:

[AsteriskVoice]
    enabled = true
    sip_domain = <asterisk address>
    conf_domain = <asterisk address>
    asterisk_frontend = http://<frontendhost>:<frontendport>/
    asterisk_password = **********
    asterisk_timeout = 3000
    asterisk_salt = paluempalum

SLVoice

Create an HTML page that has a single line stating the SIP URI to be used for private chats (same as asterisk address) Set this page’s address in slvoice.ini and connect to the region. Voice chat should be working now.

What’s next

• There is an ongoing effort to refactor the frontend code. The resulting architecture will be much cleaner with fewer connections.
• The new VoiceServer in progress already includes support for SIP proxies like OpenSER, the SLVoice replacement will be updated shortly to add proxy support as well.