Installation - Callbox

The purpose of this tutorial is to show you how to install a new release on the Callbox. Even with sophisticated functionality, the size of the installation package is pretty small (comparing to the package that comes with other equipment) and installation process is simple and reliable.

There are a few ways of the installation that are most commonly used as follows. In terms of the installation software (installation script), there is no differences between them. The differences come from the option parameter used with install.sh

./install.sh : Run the installation scrip without any option. If you install in this way, the script would let you to respond to questions for each step of the installation (this is mainly for you to select the which component to install).
./install.sh --default : Run the installation scrip with the option '--default'. With this, the script would install all the components defined in 'default' option and you don't need to manually specify anything during the installation. The installation script will install every components based on default configuration.

NOTE : The questions (item selection quation) during the installation would vary with the contents (components) contained in the installation tar ball. This contents is defined by the license options that you have purchased. When you download the installation package from extranet, the extranet creates the tar ball based on your license option and let you download it.

NOTE : Is there any way to change the items for the default installation ? Yes. Perform the manual installation (i.e, ./install.sh without option) and reply to all the questions during the installation process. The answer you replied in this process will be stored in /root/lte-install and the selection stored in this file will be used as your own 'default' option.

Installation - Callbox

Directory Structure of Installed Release
Download the New Release
Install
Downgrade / Switching to Different Release

Downgrading / Switching to 2022-09-16 or later
Downgrading / Switching to older than 2022-09-16

Directory Structure of Installed Release

In most cases you may have a software release already installed on your machine (callbox). If there is an existing installation, you would see the directory struction in /root directory something similar to following.

Install Callbox Directory 01

Download the New Release

You can download the installation package (Tarball) from Amarisoft Extranet account as shown below.

Install Callbox Download 01

You can place the downloaded package anywhere you like. In this tutorial, I put it in /root directory as shown below.

NOTE : you may put the file into /tmp if you like, but be aware that the contents of /tmp will be deleted when you power cycle the PC.

Install Callbox Download 02

NOTE : The contents (components) contained within the downloaded tarball varies with the license options registerred in the extranet download site.

Install

Untar the package as shown below

You will get the untared directory as shown below. You will see all the software packages for installation in this directory.

Install Callbox Install 02

Go to the untarred directory and list the files in it. You will see the installation shell program and other files required for installation (In this specific case shown above, go do the directory '2021-11-19' to get the contents as shown below.)

NOTE : The contents (components) contained within this directory would vary with the license options registerred in the extranet download site.

Install Callbox Install 03

Run the installation shell program as below.

Install Callbox Install 04

NOTE : '--default' parameter selects appropriate options prompted by the installer during the installation process. If you don't put this parameter, you need to manually select all the options being asked during the installation process. I strongly recommend you to use this option unless you know exactly what you need to select for each options during the installation or you need to select any specific installation options like using non-amarisoft sdr or install only specific components of the callbox software.

Installation Progress as below

Install Callbox Install 05

Wait until you see ‘Installation Successful’ as shown below

Install Callbox Install 06

Now if you go to /root directory, you will find following directories installed. These are the directories for Amari Callbox

Install Callbox Install 07

Once installation is done, you can check on the status of lte service and should get the result as follows

Install Callbox Install 08

NOTE : 'service lte status' just shows the status of the application layer program. Even if you see the same result as shown above, it does not guarantee that LTE 100 works properly.

NOTE : Even though you may see 'active(running)' after installation, I strongly recommend you to reboot the PC after installation because some components (e.g, FPGA upgrade on sdr card done in the process of installation) requires PC reboot.

NOTE : If you have any problem (like error message about sdr card) after the installation, the first option I want to suggest is to reboot the PC and try again. If the problem still remains after the PC reboot, try check sdr as per the tutorial : sdr checkup.

Downgrade / Switching to Different Release

Basically Downgrade or switching to other software release is same as Installation procedure explained above. We don't have any separate procedure for downlink or software switching. But there is something you need to keep in mind when you trying downgrade. Depending on situation, downgrade / firmware switching requires firmware switching. You can do it with following two ways.

Downgrading / Switching to 2022-09-16 or later

You can do the installation and firmware switching in a single step as below.

./install.sh --trx-force-upgrade

Downgrading / Switching to older than 2022-09-16

In this case, you have to do it in two steps.

Step 1 : Install the software

./install.sh --default

Step 2 : Reflash the firmware

service lte stop

cd /root/trx_sdr

./sdr_util upgrade -force