Overview:

I've read and discussed various methods to track my clients T1 status.  I don't like to reinvent the wheel but sometimes it is necessary.  Using Sangoma's T1 (A101 & A102) cards, but any card would work, I came to realize that most of the T1 outages did not stop the server or Asterisk.

This is not entirely true.  There are cases where Asterisk crashes from an oscillating T1 line, but I noticed there is a usually a lag - enough to send out warnings.  Warnings by email, txt message, beeper and phone calls using the backup phone lines and the email system.

So realizing we have a minute or two before the possible final crash, at best no T1, I wrote a few routines to notify me and the client so the proper steps can be taken.

It goes like this.  A cron job is run every minute or two checking the PRI status (I use PRI interfaces). If the PRI is down a script is run to email the customer instructions on who to contact, the account, circuit and which line to do an RCF (Remote Call Forward) on.  In addition, a call is made to my office, my cell, the clients primary operator extension and a beeper.

There is a failsafe built in to stop too many notifications by using the Asterisk database to hold variables. These variables are set and cleared as the T1 line status changes.  I do not want to be notified more than three times that the T1 is still down and I want to know when it comes back up. 


Lets continue on to the coding....