Zaptel device configuration

Now that you've installed the drivers needed by your PRI card, you'll need to load the appropriate module's using modprobe <module>. In this case, the command is modprobe wct1xxp.

Whatever your kernel module is, you'll probably want to have it automatically loaded when your server boots. To do this in Gentoo, just append the module name to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 (if you're using the Linux kernel 2.4 series, this file is kernel-2.4).

Next, you'll need to configure the /etc/zaptel.conf with the options for Zaptel to understand how your PRI will behave. This is where you need to contact your support representative from your provider and find out a few configuration options, such as the required framing and coding (typically ESF framing and B8ZS coding). You'll also need to know what channels are your B (data) channels and which channel is your D (control) channel. Unless you're using a partial/split T1, your card will most likely be configured with 1-23 for your B channels and 24 for your control channel. For our T100P PRI card, this configuration in /etc/zaptel.conf looks like:

[/etc/zaptel.conf]

span=1,0,0,esf,b8zs

bchan=1-23

dchan=24

This defines one trunk group exists using ESF signaling and B8ZS coding. The trunk spans across B (data) channels 1-23, using channel 24 as the control (D) channel.

After setting the configuration and loading the Zaptel kernel modules, you can start the Zaptel service. The first time you start the service, you should begin with a verbose debug run to make sure everything is working. To do this, use the ztcfg -vv command. The results should list each of the channels and the status of the channel, as shown in Figure B.

Figure B

Do a test run before the final configuration.

After you have tested the configuration, you can start the Asterisk service via the Gentoo init script /etc/init.d/zaptel start. The next step is to configure Asterisk to accept the Zaptel span.