 |
|
|
|
|
The best place to get source code for Asterisk and it's packages is directly from the http://www.asterisk.org website or FTP server.
The easiest way to obtain the most recent release is through the use of the program wget.
Release vs Trunk
The Asterisk code base is under a constant state of change. Developers use a sofware revision tool called SVN (Subversion)[46] to manage the code base. Subversion allows a communty of developers to collaborate with each other on complex programming projects.
There are two main areas where Asterisk is developed, and these are referred to as the Branch and the Trunk. In the Trunk, new features, architectural changes, and any of the brand new stuff that is going on is done. This place in the code base contains all the new toys, but at any time can be in a non-working state, and is absolutely forbidden from production use.
Just like a tree, a Trunk will have Branches. These branches have the major revision numbers such as 1.0, 1.2, and 1.4 (in the future we will likely see 1.6, 1.8, 1.8.2, 1.8.4. 1.8.6, 1.8.8. 1.8.8.2 . . . um . . . etc . . .)[47]. Within the branch there are no major architectural changes or new features -- simply bug and security fixes. In a production environment, stability is far more important than feature evolution.
Roughly every 14 months (although Asterisk does not follow a formal release timeline like many commercial software packages), a version of Asterisk is released intended for use in production environments. The first version of Asterisk was 1.0, which was released at the very first AstriCon in Atlanta in September of 2004. Asterisk 1.2 was released at IP4IT in November 2005, and Asterisk 1.4 was released December of 2006.
Note that we will be making use of the /usr/src/ directory to extract and compile the Asterisk source, although some system administrators may prefer to use /usr/local/src. Also be aware that you will need root access to write files to the /usr/src/ directory and to install Asterisk and its associated packages.
![[Note]](./stylesheet-images/note.png) |
Note |
|---|---|
See Chapter 13 for information on running Asterisk as non-root. All security professional will recommend that you run your daemons as a non-root user in case there are a security vulnerability in the software. This helps to lower the risk (but obviously does not eliminate) the risk of someone compromising the root user. |
To obtain the latest release source code via wget, enter the following commands on the command line:
|
Note |
|---|---|
The latest versions of the asterisk, libpri, and zaptel packages may not necessarily be the same version number. |
# cd /usr/src/
# wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/asterisk-1.4-current.tar.gz
# wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/libpri/libpri-1.4-current.tar.gz
# wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/zaptel/zaptel-1.4-current.tar.gz
Alternatively, during development and testing you will probably want to work with the latest branch. To check it out from SVN we run:
# svn co http://svn.digium.com/svn/asterisk/branches/1.4 asterisk-1.4
If you retrieved the source code via the release files on the Digium FTP server, then extract the files as in the next section before continuing on with compiling.
[46] Subversion is an excellent code management system, available at http://subversion.tigris.org/. It also has an as equally excellent Creative Commons released book, available online at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/.
[47] As of the release date of this book, there has been no determination that the next Asterisk release will be 1.6. It could just as easily be 2.0. Therefore, when discussing new features, you'll see us talk about what's in trunk or what will be in the next release—without mentioning the specific version.
|
|
 |
|
 |