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http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/index.php?page=Asterisk+config+zapata.conf

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/index.php?page=Asterisk+ZAP+channels

Dialing a Group
In the Zap Channel Module's configuration file (zapata.conf), you can define groups of Zap channels that get treated as a single channel as far as the Dial command is concerned. You specify which of four methods the Zap channel module is to use to select a non-busy channel from the channel group by prefixing the group number with one of the letters g, G, r, or R:

• g: select the lowest-numbered non-busy Zap channel (aka. ascending sequential hunt group).
• G: select the highest-numbered non-busy Zap channel (aka. descending sequential hunt group).
• r: use a round-robin search, starting at the next highest channel than last time (aka. ascending rotary hunt group).
• R: use a round-robin search, starting at the next lowest channel than last time (aka. descending rotary hunt group).

The round-robin searches make the Zap channel module start looking for an available channel from a different channel number each time. For each channel group, the Zap channel module keeps track of the last round-robin start point, and this time starts checking availability from either the next (lowercase r)) or the previous uppercase R channel in the group. Which channel it actually finds available (if any) does not affect the starting point for the next round-robin search. Calls to the Dial command using ordinary (g or G) group selections do not affect future round-robin starting points either.

For example, if you have defined channel group 2 as containing Zap channels 1, 2, 5 and 8, and the last round-robin search for this group (group 2) began searching from channel 5, this is the order of searching that the Zap channel module will use for the four possible selection methods:

• Dial(Zap/g2...): Looks in order 1, 2, 5, 8
• Dial(Zap/G2...): Looks in order 8, 5, 2, 1
• Dial(Zap/r2...): Looks in order 8, 1, 2, 5
• Dial(Zap/R2...): Looks in order 2, 1, 8, 5

Distinctive Ring Styles
The four distinctive ring styles that the Zaptel driver can generate when ringing a Zap-connected handset are:

1. Quick chirp followed by long ring
   2. British style ring
   3. Three quick chirps
   4. Short ring followed by long ring

If you do not specify any distinctive ring style, then the ring style used depends on your the country code specified by defaultzone in your Zaptel configuration file, zaptel.conf. The default ring style for a particular country setting may be one of the above four, or it may be a fifth style.

NOTE: You can also add you own custom ring styles by adding cadence= lines to your zapata.conf file.

• The format for the cadence command is ontime,offtime,ontime,offtime .... etc in ms.
• A negative number indicates where to place the Caller ID spill.
• The new ring styles will be assigned 'r' numbers from 1 and up depending on how many cadence= lines you have; they replace the default definitions. (This may only apply to 1.2.x or later.)
• Ring styles can also be hard coded in asterisk by editing chan_zap.c.

Zap ring styles are NOT defined anywhere in the Zapata source.

NOTICE: The ring styles (and also the defintion of the "dialtone", "busy", "ringing", etc tones) are defined by the Zaptel driver. You can not change the definitions without recompiling the zaptel driver (see Zaptel Installation). The settings in your indications.conf file do not have any effect on the tones and ring styles generated by the Zaptel driver.

Detecting Distinctive Ring on Incoming Calls
Your telco may let you use the one analog telephone line for several different phone numbers. Your telco will make your incoming lilne ring in different ways depending on which number the caller dialed.

The Zap channel module can be configured to detect up to three different distinctive ring styles in addition to your normal ring pattern. First of all, you must enable distinctive ring detection by setting usedistinctiveringdetection=yes in your zapata.conf file. Then you can use the dringn and dringncontext keywords to describe (a) the pattern of ring cadences your telco uses, and (b) which context a call matching that cadence should go into. Calls not matching any of your defined distinctive ring styles go to the regular context you defined for this channel.

The distinctive ring detection feature is still rather experimental. Apparently it assumes that if your telco provides distinctive ring, you must also be getting caller ID, which is of course an invalid assumption. If you are in the US, you may have more success with distinctive ring detection than the rest of us.

Note that enabling distinctive ring detection will mean that Asterisk will have to let the phone ring a two or three times to see what kind of ring style it is using. Only after it has done that will it ring your handsets. So you may think you've answered the phone after the first ring, but your callers will tell you that they heard a ringing signal maybe four times before you picked up.

You describe a distinctive ring pattern to Asterisk by giving it three integers. Apparently the only way you can find out which numbers to use is to enable distinctive ring detection and then enter the Asterisk console in verbose mode. When a call comes in, Asterisk will apparently report the three numbers it sees as representing the ring tone it heard, and you can use these numbers in a dring definition. If you discovered that the three numbers it reports are: 325, 95, 0, then you would put this into your zapata.conf:

usedistinctiveringdetection=yes
   dring1=325,95,0
   dring1context=mycontext

If you have multiple distinctive ring styles, you may add entries for dring2 and dring3.

Here are some ring patterns other people have suggested:

• 95,0,0
• 325,95,0
• 367,0,0
• 247,0,0

SBC\Wisconsin uses the following:

• 337,0,0 - Distinctive Ring 1
• 337,312,0 - Distinctive Ring 2

They may use them in other states as well, report back here and let us know!

For Australian users, who have Caller ID enabled and Distinctive Ring, you might find that asterisk cannot detect your distinctive ring. This is logged in the issue tracker as bug 1007 (and bug 3596). There is a patch available attached to bug 3596 to enable this, but cant be added to asterisk because the author of the original patch is unknown and the there isnt a disclaimer for the patch from the author. If there is somebody who could write the patch again (it may need improvement) and submit the required paper work to the asterisk developers, this would be great :)

Names of Established Zap Connections
When you have an established Zap connection, its channel name will be in this format:

Zap/channel-instance

channel is the channel number and instance is a number from 1 to 3 representing which of up to 3 logical channels associated with a single physical channel this is.

Zap/1-1  First call appearance on Zap channel 1
   Zap/3-2  Second call appearance on Zap channel 3

Note that using the ChanIsAvail command will return channel names in this format.

The Cut command can be useful for extracting the channel type from a full channel name. Let's say that the variable Foo has the value "Zap/1-2":

Cut(ChannelType=Foo,/,1)

Now variable ChannelType has the value "Zap". You could use the GotoIf command to check that a channel is a Zap channel:

GotoIf($[${ChannelType} = Zap]?10)

If you wish to extract just the channel number from a channel name, you might use two Cuts. If variable Foo has the value "Zap/1-2", then after these steps, variable Bar will have the value "1":

Cut(Bar=Foo,/,2})
   Cut(Bar=Bar,-,1)

Built-in Extension Numbers
There are some "extension numbers" that are built into the Zap channel module. You may override these in your Dialplan, i.e. these are used only if the number dialed does not match any of your Dialplan extension patterns.

Some of them will only be used if a specific configuration option in zapata.conf is enabled for the channel.

Ext. zapata.conf Action

*0         Send hook flash
*67         Disable Caller ID
*69    callreturn     Say last caller's Caller ID ("call return")
*70    callwaiting     Disable call waiting (for current call)
*72    cancallforward     Activate "call forward immediate" 
*73    cancallforward     Deactivate "call forward immediate" 
*78        Enable "Do Not Disturb" 
*79        Disable "Do Not Disturb" 
*60        Add last caller's caller ID to blacklist
*82        Enable Caller ID (only if disabled with *67)

In addition, there are other codes that are not specific to the Zap channel module:

*8# Callgroup pickup