[OpenSIPS-Users] Is opensips a front end to asterisk?

[lists at grounded.net]

> As said by some of the other members on the list, this IS a very big
> project. The fact that you are looking for an ISO to test it out, suggests
> that you don't really understand how it all works.

I have it installed and running, just wondered if someone had put out an ISO. ISO's are a great way to
see things in action, often helping to get a better view of things when first jumping in.

> much detail, let me just say that OpenSIPs won't do anything for you. You
> have to configure it from the ground up. So even if you had an ISO, it
> would give you binaries and modules that essentially wouldn't do anything
> at all. And honestly the compilation, installation bits are the easy part!

As with anyone that's new to a product, have to ask questions to get a better sense of things. It's a complex project, why would I not ask plenty of questions before spending time on it :).

> As for this whole Asterisk redundancy. This has been discussed for a long
> time and there are dozens of ways to do that. Everything from using UCARP,

What I'm really trying to get a handle on is how it ties together. I've read a lot of material, have a good sense of what it is, so trying to put the pieces together by asking. 

What I've not been able to get enough information on is something I read this in voip-info.org;

>It is flexible and highly configurable but cannot be used to provide media services as voicemail, >announcements or conferencing. For such services, Asterisk is the most suitable open source
>product. 

I have to assume that once the user is passed on to one of the asterisk servers, that there, they CAN get their media services, as if they connected directly to any other asterisk system. In other words, once they are connected to an asterisk box on the back end, they get the usual services, so what ever we have on those boxes, vm, conf, faxing, etc. Is this correct and I hope I'm explaining this correctly. 

(You've mentioned something farther in this thread that is interesting, about being better than asterisk)

>That being said, I can also say that many many people
> (myself included) have come up with methods that seem to work to provide

Right, by sharing tips, tricks and information :).

> As for pairing OpenSIPs and Asterisk. There are a dozen ways to do that as
> well.. You can do it on the front end (phones register to opensips), on the

My hope would be to simply get things up and running, become familiar and then figure out a longer term picture. Hard to pre-plan everything 100% when starting to use something like this. Like every other technology anyone ever takes on, you learn as you go and you fine tune it as you get to know it better.
Sounds like it's very flexible so that's great news of course.

> I personally try to make asterisk do as absolutely little as possible. I
> think you'll find scaling OpenSIPs much more enjoyable than Asterisk. ;)

Well, this is where I am also trying to get a better handle on what it is/does.
It's a media gateway, it's not a pbx, so it always needs to have asterisk in the mix. 
Can you expand on what you mean above then please. 

> That all being said, you're really only limited by your creativity and
> skill level with the platforms. It's best to think of them complementing
> each other. Pick the features you want to use from each.

Well, the limits will expand once I get some time with this, ask questions, learn by trying things out etc. How long that takes, hard to tell since this isn't the only thing I'll have going on and my little ol brain can only handle so much stuffing at a time.

> As for NAT. Sure you can run these platforms behind NAT, but you're asking
> for a world of pain. :) Just don't do it. That's my opinion. Far end NAT is
> tricky enough to deal with to also have Near end NAT issues as well.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle :)

Thought I saw another reply or thread on the list this morning saying that it works just fine using NAT? 
I've not run anything on a public IP cept routers and firewalls for a heck of a long time, not sure why such a mature project would not work on NAT or how this would be accomplished, safely.

Mike