Gen PC Sidecar Script

The files are stored typically inside of /var/lib/asterisk/PC-Contact-Sync and the scripts should be run every 6 hours by a cron job.

Quickstart

Config Fields

config.json has several fields. The config file needs to be next to the script in order to be read.

⚠️ Warning: Make sure the config follows proper json syntax.

target_extensions
list_filter_type
extension_filter_list
blacklisted_terms
prepend_extensions

1. Add the phones that need a config pushed out for to the target_extensions list.
2. Add the type of filter you want to use to filter out extensions from the contact list to list_filter_type.
3. Add Extensions you want either black/white listed to the extension_filter_list.
4. Add words that are in contacts you want removed to blacklisted_terms.
5. Add extra contacts you want added to the phones in prepend_extensions.

Process Walkthrough

1. Pull Contact List

Initially the script formats together a contact list to be pushed to the phones. This php script will pull every contact from asterisk database which contains a name and extension.

2. Contact List Formatting

The script will now filter the contact list before writing to the phones. It has 3 processes to format it:

1. Filter extensions by black/white list
2. Remove blacklisted terms
3. Prepend a set of configured contacts listed

The filter list will apply either a black/white list to the extension_filter_list. If it is a white list extension_filter_list is kept and anything not in it is removed. If it is a blacklist anything inside of extension_filter_list is removed.

The script will remove any contact name that has words contained inside of blacklisted_terms.

Finally contacts specified in prepend_extensions are added to the beginning of the contact list.

3. Write to phones

Polycom phones read their extension list to display on the phone from a file in /tftboot that is served by PBXact. The phone looks for settings including its contact list in /tftboot/phone_mac_address-features.cfg replacing mac_address with the actual mac of the phone without any : in the number. The default if it cant find its mac is to use the file with 0s.

Example:

/tftboot/000000000-features.cfg

The script will go down the list and read the .cfg for each phone in target_extensions and write in the contact list that was created earlier. It wites to a config file that matches the extensions mac address.

Phones might need to be told to reconfigure to pull the updated cfg.