What's been happening?

Nothing much - in the HiPBX git branch. But I've been working hard on the Simple Provisioner. 

Basically, the idea is, you don't NEED to be an Asterisk expert to roll out phones. All you need is a basic configuration file and you're good to go. We've been rolling this out using a Barcode scanner, so there are a couple of handy things - you can scan any barcode on the back of the SPA504 or SPA502 phones, and the provisioner auto-detects what the barcode is. If it's the model, it'll set the model for you. If it's the MAC, it'll check the MAC to make sure it's available, and then move down to the next line, where you can enter your username.

The point behind this is if you have a HiAv system, you don't want to be manually creating user entries for 300 or 400 phones. You want it to be as simple and easy as possible. There's even an automatic dhcpd.conf script, that configures the phones, allocates them an IP address. It does require a bit of configuration though. EVERYONE knows perl, right?

"Wait.. You said username?" I hear you say? Well yes. Username. As part of the provis.conf configuration file, you can specify your Active Directory server. And as long as you have the users phone number already in AD, it'll automatically propgate the users name, extenson, and generate a voicemail PIN for them. 

Nifty. 

I'm getting close to the point where I can actually start building an ISO and say 'Install this CD. Follow the prompts. You have a HiAv system!'