Re: [Asterisk-java-devel] AstManProxy

[Cristian T. <ct...@ro...>]

Well, AstManProxy defines itself as a "pass-through" proxy, even though it
intercepts a couple of actions (Login/Logoff). It adds few proxy-specific
extensions to the Asterisk Manager protocol but it doesn't interfere with
the rest of the data being passed through, other than changing the protocol
string :).

The only two problems I had to deal with (aside from the protocol string)
were:

1. AstManProxy doesn't seem to let the Challenge-Response communication pass
through (I have to check the source code in order to find out why).
2. The Login process is bypassed, given that the proxy is actually the only
one authenticating and talking to the Manager. AstManProxy will return a
fake Response with no actionId following a Login request - that tricks the
Asterisk-Java response handler.

(1) may be a problem if you rely on encryption, but it's not that bad
because AstManProxy has it's own authentication mechanism: it can be
configured to require a ProxyKey parameter in the first message sent to the
Manager in order to let you connect.

I can see the value of a proxy when you have to allow multiple connections
to the same server - a proxy will take the burden off of Asterisk's
shoulder's - that's why I looked into it and gave it a try. The
Asterisk-Java API changes would be minor - assuming you always expect to
talk to an Asterisk Manager interface. For that reason I don't think a new
protocol implementation is required for Asterisk-Java to work with
AstManProxy.

Maybe the best solution is to do a bit of "edge-softening" work on both
sides - I didn't get in touch with the AstManProxy team yet :)

Thanks,
Cristian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan Reuter" <sr...@re...>
To: <ast...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-java-devel] AstManProxy

Hi Christian,

I think the best solution would be to just add support for the "Asterisk
Manager Proxy" protocol. Regarding the version Asterisk-Java is already
rather forgiving, i.e. if it doesn't get what it expects it will only
log a message.
Making it fully configurable calls for problems as I suppose that a
different protocol will also behave quite different (the manager proxy
might be different in this regard).
What do you think?

=Stefan

Cristian Talle wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I tried to use the asterisk-java api to connect to Asterisk Manager via
AstManProxy and it didn't work. The code appears to deal only with "Asterisk
Call Manager" v. "1.0". AstManProxy is (currently)substituting the product
version string with "Asterisk Manager Proxy/1.12".
>
> I implemented some changes myself - just enough to get it working :) and I
was wondering: would it not be a good idea to pass the expected manager
interface name / version parameters to the
ManagerConnectionFactory.getConnection(...)?