Hello.

I was attempting to get an Asterisk PBX running on Linode. However, I ran into a problem with the "ZapTel timer interface". I get the following error message when attempting to join a "MeetMe" conference session:

"Dec 3 10:00:12 WARNING[3617]: chan_zap.c:912 zt_open: Unable to open '/dev/zap/pseudo': No such file or directory
Dec 3 10:00:12 ERROR[3617]: chan_zap.c:7364 chandup: Unable to dup channel: No such file or directory
Dec 3 10:00:12 WARNING[3617]: app_meetme.c:458 build_conf: Unable to open pseudo channel - trying device
Dec 3 10:00:12 WARNING[3617]: app_meetme.c:461 build_conf: Unable to open pseudo device"

Given that Linode does not allow external third party modules to be installed (which rules out the zaprtc and ztdummy drivers), is there any way to get this program working?

Thank you for your assistance!

MeetMe requires a timing mechanism. The asterisk software requires an external timer because it does not have one internally. There are three timing sources that asterisk can use: a Zaptel interface card, a USB UHCI-compatible root hub, or the "dummy" Zaptel interface which uses the system clock. None of these three timing sources are available on a linode. There are other asterisk features that require a timing source to work.

The timing mechanism required by several Asterisk applications is a 1KHz interrupt. It may be possible to code something that will work on a UML but I suspect it would require mucking about with Asterisk's internals. In any event, you'd want a pretty hefty Linode to run Asterisk for more than playing with. I did have Asterisk running on a Linode 64, but the machine couldn't keep up with more than two connections.