README $Id: README,v 1.2 2002/07/08 09:54:14 hasant Exp $ Trabas VoIP Billing - A browser-based Open Source Software for VoIP Operator to handle billing process from Service & Tariff Definition to Report Producing. Copyright (C) 2002 Trabas. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA * Preface * First of all, thank you for downloading Trabas VoIP Billling (voip-billing). This README file attempts to give a wide range of information, and it's not complete. Please read it carefully before sending any question. But it's not required, you can just drop me a line about anything regarding this software. * What is Trabas VoIP Billing * Trabas VoIP Billing is a proven, high quality, web-based VoIP billing management, developed by Trabas (http://www.trabas.com). It supports post-paid call, inbound-call and outbound-call, individualized and complex customer rate tables, retail and corporate account, and interconnection tariffing. It also features invoice generation and provides reports on account receivable (A/R) and A/R aging. All of these feature are designed to provide VoIP operators, ISPs, ITSPs, IP Services and corporations, comprehensive billing processes from rating to invoicing. Developers now have the freedom to use Trabas VoIP Billing technology to best suit their needs--whether to improve their own products, to build new value-added products on top of Trabas VoIP Billing, to improve existing technology in Trabas VoIP Billing, or to contribute new components for Trabas VoIP Billing to the open source community. To start using Trabas VoIP Billing, simply download the package, and follow the installation procedure in file INSTALL (part of the package). ******************************************************************* PLEASE NOTE: This software is still in ALPHA stage. We don't have any warranty of any kind as the result or effect of the usage of this application. However, we've tested it enough to make sure that it works and is usable. ******************************************************************* * Short Introduction to Developers and Administrators * Trabas VoIP Billing is developed on the Linux platform using Perl, run under Apache Web Server. Trabas VoIP Billing is an RDBMS-independent; however, this early version only provided data initiation for MySQL, one of the best among popular RDBMS. If you currently have other RDBMS running and want to try it out, you need to change some database connection parameters and SQL queries. If you have trouble with this, please drop us some lines. This application is built around the concept so-called `dataweb'. It's not new, there's a bunch of definitions and implementation of this term. To us, and hence to Trabas VoIP Billing, the concept refers to the usage of database to store information of internal operation, HTML templates to maintain consistent look and feel, a collection of modules act as object handler (callback function), and a simple framework for developing business application. Logically, Trabas VoIP Billing requires two database spaces. The first is called system database, used to store application data and to manage the core of the process. The second one is straightforward, it's used to store the business data regarding business implementation of VoIP process. By default, these databases are named `voip_system' and `voip_business', respectively. You can change them if you like. However, you need to change all definitions hardcoded in number of files across the tree. Fortunately, you don't have to do it manually. Please consult the file INSTALL for detail information. * File Structure * Some information around the file structure. . |-- AUTHORS -- List of developers involved in the project |-- COPYING -- Copy of GNU GPL copying policy |-- ChangesLog -- The change of the software is tracked here |-- INSTALL -- Detail information on installation procedure |-- MANIFEST -- Complete list of files and dirs in the package |-- README -- You're reading it, aren't you :-) |-- TODO -- What's next? |-- bin -- directory hold backend tools |-- cgi-bin -- standard CGI directory |-- data -- it holds DDL and DML definitions |-- docs -- for documentation (empty currently) |-- etc -- it's aimed to put various config files |-- lib -- the private Perl modules | `-- Object -- special modules act as object handlers |-- log -- it's reserved to store log files |-- resources -- supporting resources | |-- images -- all graphics (logo and decoration) | |-- js -- JavaScript collection for client-side tools | |-- styles -- CSS definition files located here | `-- templates -- Repository of the HTML template files `-- web -- placeholder to set DocumentRoot, it has symlinks * Requirements * Linux box (any distro, any arch) Apache Web Server MySQL (or other RDBMS server) Perl interpreter (including the standard modules) JavaScript-capable browser (text-based is not recommended) * Installation * For detail information about the installation procedure, and requirement list as well, please consult the file INSTALL. * Information and Documentation * For more information regarding Trabas VoIP Billing in general, please visit http://www.trabas.com/opensource. * Download * http://www.trabas.com/opensource/voip-billing-0.0.1.tar.gz * Can I contribute? How? * Funny you should ask that, this is open source software. Of course you can, and we encourage you to, contribute. Please take a look at the TODO file to see if there's something interesting for you. But, don't limit yourself. You may also join the mailing list: voip-billing@trabas.com. As you reach here, you might still need information not cover in this document, or need to clarify something. In this case, don't hesitate to contact me via hasant@trabas.com. Any comment, critism, and suggestion are welcome. -- Hasanuddin Tamir http://www.trabas.com/