What's new in version 18?

As of version 18, Proxying Edge Nodes may no longer need full mesh connectivity to all other Conferencing Nodes.

If a location only contains Proxying Edge Nodes, then those proxying nodes in that location only require IPsec connectivity with:

• any other proxying nodes in that location
• all nodes in the transcoding location, and the primary and secondary overflow locations that are associated with that location
• the Management Node.

This means that the proxying nodes in one location do not need to have a direct network connection to other proxying nodes in other locations.

Deployment guidelines for Proxying Edge Nodes

Network deployment options

Version 18 of Pexip Infinity introduces a new way to specify the contents and layout of your own customized themes. The new style themes are more efficient than the previous style themes, and offer more flexibility when customizing them for your own requirements. Any previous legacy-style themes that you have customized in earlier versions of Pexip Infinity can still be used and changed, and continue to work exactly as before if you have set them as the default theme or applied them to specific services.

The new style base theme, which is used by default if you have not applied any customized themes to your services, behaves in exactly the same manner as the previous legacy-style base theme, and looks almost the same (some of the PIN-entry splash screen graphics used when joining a conference have been updated). The audio prompts are the same in new and legacy style themes.

This release contains the following administrative improvements when viewing conference and participant status:

• The participant status "perceived call quality" calculation now takes jitter into account for the time window being assessed.
• Call protocol and, when applicable, the media proxying node and proxy location are displayed on the current and historic participant status summary pages.
• The conference graph now displays current and total packet loss when viewing a backplane connection.
• You can search by disconnect reason when viewing participant history.

Viewing current conference status

Viewing participant status

This release contains the following administrative improvements:

• There is a new Log summary option that generates a condensed view of the messages in the support log, showing a summary of the call signaling for the current search/filtered log messages, such as a filter on a specific call ID.
• You can upload the automatic daily backup file to an external FTP server.
• A "Hardware IO (input/output) instability detected" alarm is raised if a high level of hard disk read/write latency is detected.
• Ability to perform a packet capture to and from Conferencing Nodes in one or more locations, and the Management Node.
• If you are using LDAP authentication, there are two new sets of permissions: "May create/delete packet capture" and "May download packet capture", and "May create/delete system backup" and "May download system backup" that must be assigned to the account role to enable the administrator to run and download a packet capture, and to perform backup and restore tasks respectively.

About the support log

Backing up and restoring configuration

Viewing alarms

Performing a network packet capture

This release contains the following administrative modifications:

• When configuring a Virtual Reception, you now explicitly specify the type of Virtual Reception: either Regular (the default) or Lync / Skype for Business (when using Pexip Infinity as a gateway into SfB/Lync meetings). This has also introduced a new two_stage_dial_type field to the set of Virtual Reception service type response fields when using external or local policy.
• The "Call capacity limit reached" alarm now clears either when an existing call is disconnected or the next time a new call is successfully placed (previously it would only clear when a new call is successfully placed).
• When viewing LDAP sync template results, more information is included in any "Last sync error" messages for conference or alias clashes, such as the names of the VMRs or aliases causing the clash.
• When using jinja2 scripts, you can now use the new pex_now custom Pexip filter to obtain the current date and time, and the jinja2 range filter. There is also a new pex_url_encode filter that creates URL parameters that are safely URL-encoded.
• Two new parameters/variables are available when using external or local policy to assign the media location: proxy_node_address and proxy_node_location.
• "Participant has disconnected" messages in the administrator log now include a License-type parameter.
• "Configuration changed" messages in the administrator log now include a Fields parameter which lists the fields that have been modified.
• When using the management API you can filter on a participant ID when using the participant status and participant history resources.

Configuring Virtual Reception IVRs

Using patterns, variables and filters when provisioning VMRs and devices

On upgrade to v18, the only version of TLS enabled by default for HTTPS inbound connections is TLS1.2.

This means that client API and management API users can no longer connect with TLS1.0 or TLS1.1; they must use a higher TLS protocol version. Support for old TLS versions may be re-enabled by running the security wizard and answering the TLS prompts appropriately.

Administrators also have the ability to enable HTTP Content Security Policy on Conferencing Nodes by running the security wizard.

The Management Node security wizard contains two new settings:

• Permit TLS <1.2 for inbound HTTPS (default is No)
• Enable HTTP Content-Security-Policy for Conferencing Nodes (default is No)

If you are using version 3 of the Pexip Reverse Proxy you will not be able to connect to Conferencing Nodes. You should either:

• Upgrade to v5 of the Pexip Reverse Proxy, or

• If continuing to use v3, connect over SSH to the reverse proxy and run the following command:

  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

In either case we recommend you first take a VM snapshot of the reverse proxy.