Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share

scottalanmiller

A common modification to a PBX is to store call recordings someplace other than on the PBX itself. This allows the PBX to remain essentially stateless (logging needs to go elsewhere, too) and lets storage be kept at a different priority tier. Very useful.

The best approach to this is simply replacing the call recording folder with an NFS mount from a NAS or fileserver. NFS works transparently for us here and is definitely the best choice. SMB, iSCSI and other options do exist, of course, but are not as ideal. Stick with NFS when possible.

Your NFS server needs matching asterisk credentials and permissions in both places in order for the Asterisk user to be able to write to the space.

By default, Elastix is going to store call recording files in /var/spool/asterisk/monitor. So we need to move this directory out of the way before we can continue. Be sure that Asterisk is not writing into this while you do this or you can cause problems. So stop Asterisk before beginning this process.

/etc/init.d/asterisk stop
mv /var/spool/asterisk/monitor /var/spool/asterisk/monitor_old

This gets our old folder out of the way and guarantees that it is not being used. Now we just need to mount our NFS server where this folder used to be.

We need to start by adding the proper line into /etc/fstab to do this. You will need to alter the configuration file to reflect the information from your NFS share:

echo 'server:/share/name /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr' >> /etc/fstab
mkdir -p /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
mount /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
/etc/init.d/asterisk start

If all is well, you should be back up and running at this point.

scottalanmiller

Adding @poorizad to this thread.

poorizad

@scottalanmiller sorry , i got this :

[root@localhost ~]# echo '192.168.101.11:/volume1/call recordings /var/spool/ast erisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr' >> /etc/fstab
[root@localhost ~]# mount /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
[mntent]: line 8 in /etc/fstab is bad
mount: can't find /var/spool/asterisk/monitor in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost ~]# echo '192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr' >> /etc/fstab
You have new mail in /var/spool/mail/root
[root@localhost ~]# mount /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
[mntent]: line 8 in /etc/fstab is bad
[mntent]: line 9 in /etc/fstab is bad
mount: can't find /var/spool/asterisk/monitor in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

scottalanmiller

@poorizad Whoops, we forgot the mount point creation. Before running the mount command do this:

mkdir /var/spool/asterisk/monitor

poorizad

@scottalanmiller i got this error:
mount:cant find /var/spool/asterisk/monitor in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

here is my code:
/etc/init.d/asterisk stop
mv /var/spool/asterisk/monitor /var/spool/asterisk/monitor_old

echo '192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr' >> /etc/fstab
mkdir /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
mount /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
/etc/init.d/asterisk start

scottalanmiller

Let's see what got put into the file... what is the output of this...

cat /etc/fstab

poorizad

@scottalanmiller said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

cat /etc/fstab

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0
192.168.101.11:/volume1/call recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr
You have new mail in /var/spool/mail/root

scottalanmiller

You can't run that echo command more than once or you need to manually clean it up.

poorizad

@scottalanmiller how

scottalanmiller

@poorizad said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

192.168.101.11:/volume1/Call Recordings /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

Here is the problem, you put a space into a share name. Never use spaces in names, ever. Not in hostnames, file names, share names, nothing. Computers and spaces don't go together. It doesn't exactly break things... but it breaks things. Working in IT you should simply never have spaces or capitals in any kind of name, make that a habit now. It will save you countless sorrows in your career.

scottalanmiller

@poorizad said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

@scottalanmiller said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

cat /etc/fstab

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0
192.168.101.11:"/volume1/Call Recordings" /var/spool/asterisk/monitor nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

Manually edit the /etc/fstab file to look like this. Notice that there is only one line for the NAS mount and the share name is in quotes now. White space denotes different columns in configuration files so having spaces in names means you have to escape them somehow.

scottalanmiller

I only use vi to edit files, but it is pretty tough to learn for the first time. Lots of people recommend nano for new users, but I've never used it so am not very helpful.

poorizad

@scottalanmiller
ok i create another sharedfolder with nfs call: callrec
now i have to manually edit /etc/fstab ? and change the call recordings to callrec first?

scottalanmiller

@poorizad said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

@scottalanmiller
ok i create another sharedfolder with nfs call: callrec
now i have to manually edit /etc/fstab ? and change the call recordings to callrec first?

Correct

poorizad

@scottalanmiller really thx scott....sorry i bother you too much....imagine a guy with no linux background want do this :)))
now everything seems fine. and i saw the mount folder in df command.....
now how can i make sure its work? i meane how can i test the linux credential to copy files into that folder

scottalanmiller

You are not bothering me at all, we are all here to help each other. And for a Linux newbie, you are doing great. This isn't a tough task, but it isn't a trivial one either and you are flying right through it!

scottalanmiller

Easiest thing to do is to become the asterisk user and just make a file there. So try this...

su - asterisk
touch /var/spool/asterisk/monitor/mytestfile

Then you can see if it is there...

cd /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
ls

poorizad

@scottalanmiller said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

cd /var/spool/asterisk/monitor

yes its ok .
how can i copy monitor_old to monitor now ?

scottalanmiller

@poorizad said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

@scottalanmiller said in Storing Elastix 2 Call Recordings on NFS NAS Share:

cd /var/spool/asterisk/monitor

yes its ok .
how can i copy monitor_old to monitor now ?

Okay, once all good you can just do this...

cp -rp /var/spool/asterisk/monitor_old/* /var/spool/asterisk/monitor/

scottalanmiller

Depending on the size of the file and the speed of the network and the NAS, this might take a few seconds or a bit of time. This is a full copy of the data over the network.