Master Elastix

Transcript

Elastix without Tears The ICT serial following The Elastix ® IPBX Distribution Development If you find this book helpful, a PayPal donation of $10 or more (US equiv) made to [email protected] would be very highly appreciated. If you are in Australia and don’t have Paypal, you may forward a cheque made to: Ben Sharif, PO Box 70 Kingswood NSW 2747, Australia. Elastix Without Tears Page 1 of 298 Intentionally left blank. Elastix Without Tears Page 2 of 298 Without Tears http://www.elastixconnection.com/downloads/elastix_without_tears.pdf For Elastix ® v1.x-x with unembedded freePBX 2.x ® (Document Revision 1.6.2) ALWAYS A DRAFT (This is a live document and constantly under revision) by Ben Sharif ® (The same author who brought you Asterisk@Home without tears and Trixbox without tears) About the Author Photography is my passion http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensharif/ Last updated on April 3, 2010 Please send comment or suggestions to me at the address below  mailto:[email protected] First Published on 11th November 2007 This work is dedicated to my wife, who has been very patient with me, The Elastix Development Team and Rob Thomas (you can find him on facebook) and his freePBX Team whose devotions to freePBX made it all possible. My gratitude also goes to Dave Edwards and Bob Fryer of VOICEINTEGRITY who provided me with many valuable materials for this document and hardware to play with. This document is released under the Creative Commons By-Attrib Non-Commercial Share-Alike 2.1 licence.  * Stay tuned for our next episode – Elastix version X Elastix Without Tears Page 3 of 298 My heartfelt thanks to the following sites, without which I would have not been able to distribute this document. If integrity is what you want, you need VOICEINTEGRITY If you are stuck and chomping at the bits, MBIT Has the answer Elastix Without Tears Page 4 of 298 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword........................................................................................................................ 12 I Introduction ................................................................................................................13 I.I Is VoIP for you?.................................................................................................13 I.I.I What is it going to cost? ..............................................................................13 I.I.II What will the quality of the phone calls be? ...............................................13 I.II What is Elastix?................................................................................................14 I.III The IP PBX Components ................................................................................14 I.III.I The IP PBX................................................................................................15 I.III.II Phones .....................................................................................................15 I.III.III SIP Gateway ...........................................................................................15 I.III.IV Home Network ........................................................................................15 I.III.V VOIP Service Providers ...........................................................................16 1 Initial Preparation and Planning ..............................................................................17 1.1 Familiarisation .................................................................................................17 1.1.1 Default passwords....................................................................................17 1.2 Map your requirements ...................................................................................17 1.3 Plan your security............................................................................................18 1.3.1 Tim Yardley’s Securing Trixbox CE..........................................................18 1.3.2 Seven Easy Steps to Better SIP Security on Asterisk..............................18 2 A Brief Course in Network Design........................................................................... 20 2.1 IP Address.......................................................................................................21 2.2 Subnet Mask ...................................................................................................22 2.4 DNS Servers ...................................................................................................22 2.5 Primary DNS Suffix .........................................................................................23 3 Installation ................................................................................................................. 24 3.1 Initial Installation..............................................................................................24 4 Set-up ELASTIX.........................................................................................................29 4.1 Change IP address to Static instead of DHCP................................................30 4.1.1 Change using Elastix GUI ........................................................................30 4.1.2 Manual method.........................................................................................31 4.2 Change default Admin Password ....................................................................31 4.3 Hardware Detection ........................................................................................32 5 Configure Elastix PBX ..............................................................................................34 5.1 General Settings .............................................................................................34 5.1.1 Dial Command Options ............................................................................36 5.2 Extensions.......................................................................................................38 5.2.1 Create Extensions ....................................................................................38 5.2.2 ZAP Extension..........................................................................................40 5.2.3 Extensions Batch......................................................................................41 5.2.4 Enable Voicemail.......................................................................................42 5.3 Follow Me........................................................................................................44 5.4 Ring Groups ....................................................................................................46 6 Set up softphones.....................................................................................................47 6.1 CounterPath X-Lite Softphone ........................................................................47 6.2 BOL SIPPhone................................................................................................48 Profile Tab ..........................................................................................................48 Audio & Video Tab .............................................................................................49 Network Tab .......................................................................................................49 STUN Tab ..........................................................................................................49 Call Forward .......................................................................................................50 7 Elastix Endpoint Manager ........................................................................................51 8 Trunks to the outside world ..................................................................................... 53 Elastix Without Tears Page 5 of 298 8.1 What is a Dial Pattern? ...................................................................................53 8.2 What is a Trunk? .............................................................................................53 8.3 Trunks and Outbound Routes – a circle of confusion .....................................54 8.3.1 Outgoing Route Dial Pattern ....................................................................54 8.3.2 Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules .......................................................................54 8.4 Let’s Create The VoIP Trunks .........................................................................55 8.4.1 Pennytel (SIP) ..........................................................................................56 8.4.2 Oztell (SIP) ...............................................................................................57 8.4.3 Oztell (IAX) ...............................................................................................58 8.5 Create a ZAP Trunk ........................................................................................60 9 Call Handling .............................................................................................................61 9.1 Inbound Routes (Incoming Calls) ....................................................................61 9.1.1 Inbound Route from ZAP Trunk ...............................................................62 9.2 Time Conditions ..............................................................................................63 9.2.1 Simple Time Condition .............................................................................64 9.2.2 Complex Time Condition ..........................................................................65 9.3 Outbound Routes ............................................................................................66 9.3.1 What is an Outbound Route? ...................................................................66 9.3.2 How does it work? ....................................................................................66 9.3.3 International..............................................................................................67 9.3.4 Domestic ..................................................................................................67 9.3.5 MobileAust................................................................................................68 9.3.6 Oztellonly..................................................................................................68 9.4 ENUM..............................................................................................................69 9.4.1 Setting up ENUM Trunk ...........................................................................69 9.4.2 Setting up ENUM Outbound Route ..........................................................69 10 Custom Contexts Module......................................................................................71 10.1 Downloading and unpacking module. ...........................................................71 10.2 Installing Custom Context Module ................................................................71 10.3 Add and Configure New Custom Context .....................................................73 10.4 Apply a Custom Context to Extension...........................................................74 11 System Recordings................................................................................................. 75 11.1 Direct recording.............................................................................................75 11.2 Upload Pre-recorded Material .......................................................................76 12 Digital Receptionist.................................................................................................78 12.1 Setting Up Digital Receptionist......................................................................78 12.2 Multi-Language IVR ......................................................................................81 12.2.1 Create Multi Languages IVR ...................................................................81 12.2.2 Define Language Codes..........................................................................81 12.2.3 Create Language Choice IVR .................................................................82 12.2.4 Change inbound route.............................................................................82 12.3 Multi-Tenants IVR .........................................................................................83 13 Check your System Status..................................................................................... 85 14 Interfacing Asterisk to PSTN.................................................................................. 88 14.1 Detecting New Hardware ..............................................................................88 14.1.1 Changes for ZAPTEL users ...................................................................89 14.1.2 Changes for DAHDI Users .....................................................................89 chan_dahdi.conf .................................................................................................89 dahdi_channels.conf ..........................................................................................89 14.2 A100P FXO PCI Card ...................................................................................90 14.3 Create a ZAP trunk .......................................................................................91 14.3.1 zapata.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) .....................................................91 14.3.2 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only)......................................92 14.3.3 zaptel.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) ......................................................92 Elastix Without Tears Page 6 of 298 14.3.4 Changes for DAHDI users......................................................................92 14.4 OpenVox A400P FXO/FXS Card ..................................................................92 14.4.1 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only)......................................93 14.4.2 modprobe.conf .......................................................................................93 Note for TDM410 users ......................................................................................94 14.5 Is the A100P/A400P recognised by Zaptel ...................................................94 14.6 Caller ID (CID) using ZAP device..................................................................95 14.6.1 zapata.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) .....................................................95 14.6.2 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only)......................................96 14.7 Sipura SPA3000/SPA3102 as a PSTN Interface ..........................................96 14.7.1 Log in to SPA3000/SPA3102 .................................................................96 14.7.2 Change the settings............................................................................96 14.7.3 Add SIP Trunk ........................................................................................98 14.7.4 SPA3000/SPA3102 as an outbound PSTN Trunk .................................99 14.7.5 What if I use SPA3102 in Europe...........................................................99 14.8 SPA3000/SPA3102 remote management....................................................102 14.9 Use STUN Server on SPA3000/SPA3102 ..................................................102 15 Callback and DISA ................................................................................................103 15.1 Callback ......................................................................................................103 15.2 DISA............................................................................................................105 16 Operator Panel ......................................................................................................107 16.1 Flash Operator Panel (FOP) .......................................................................107 16.1.1 Setting the Admin Password ................................................................108 16.1.2 Hang-up a Call .....................................................................................108 16.1.3 Transfer a Call......................................................................................108 16.1.4 Initiate a Call.........................................................................................108 16.1.5 Barge in or Create a Conference .........................................................108 17 Reports...................................................................................................................109 17.1 CDR Report.................................................................................................109 17.2 Channels Usage..........................................................................................109 18 Call parking and transfer......................................................................................110 18.1 Call Transfer - Managed .............................................................................110 18.1.1 How is it done?.....................................................................................110 18.2 Call Transfer – Blind....................................................................................111 18.3 Put a Call On Hold ......................................................................................111 18.4 Call Pickup ..................................................................................................111 18.5 Filter Your Incoming Calls - Only Accept Known Calls................................111 19 Conference ............................................................................................................114 meetme.conf.....................................................................................................114 meetme_additional.conf ...................................................................................114 19.1 Create Meet-me Conference........................................................................114 19.2 Elastix Conference Manager.......................................................................115 19.2.1 To control Call-In voice conference......................................................116 19.2.2 Invite only voice conference .................................................................117 19.3 Controlling and moderating the conference ................................................117 19.4 Handling Multiple Call-In conference ..........................................................118 20 Voicemail ...............................................................................................................120 20.1 Enabling Email Notification of Voicemail .....................................................120 20.1.1 Method 1 ..............................................................................................120 20.1.2 Method 2 ..............................................................................................121 20.2 Customising Email Notification....................................................................121 20.3 How to Retrieve Voicemail from External Phone ........................................122 20.3.1 Method 1 ..............................................................................................122 20.3.2 Method 2 ..............................................................................................122 Elastix Without Tears Page 7 of 298 20.4 How to Change Voice Mail Greetings .........................................................123 21 Setting up Virtual Fax ...........................................................................................124 21.1 Fax for ELASTIX .........................................................................................124 21.2 Fax Visor .....................................................................................................128 21.3 Hylafax Fax Client .......................................................................................129 21.3.1 Preparing your PC to be the fax client..................................................129 21.3.2 Preparing YajHFC ................................................................................129 21.3.3 To send a Fax from your PC ................................................................130 22 Weather Reports ...................................................................................................131 22.1 Configure Weather Report – On Demand. ..................................................131 22.1.1 Create Extension script ........................................................................132 22.2 Configure Weather Report – Background Method. .....................................133 22.2.1 Create Extension codes. ......................................................................133 22.3 Now put it in your Digital Receptionist.........................................................134 22.3.1 Custom Destinations .............................................................................134 23 Remote Management ............................................................................................136 24 How to set up a Remote Extension ..................................................................... 137 24.1 Create a new extension ..............................................................................137 24.2 IAX.Conf......................................................................................................138 24.2.1 iax.conf ..................................................................................................138 24.2.2 Iax_custom.conf ...................................................................................138 24.3 Sip_Nat.Conf...............................................................................................138 24.4 Setting up an IAX Softphone .......................................................................139 24.4.1 First the general options.......................................................................139 24.4.2 Accounts options ..................................................................................139 25 Call Monitor & Recordings ...................................................................................141 25.1 Call Monitor through Elastix ........................................................................141 25.2 Record all calls by default ...........................................................................141 25.3 Record calls on demand. ............................................................................141 25.4 To listen to the recorded Calls ....................................................................142 25.5 ARI Interface ...............................................................................................142 26 STUN Servers ........................................................................................................149 27 Dialing through MS Outlook® ..............................................................................150 27.1 Download AstTapi .......................................................................................150 27.2 Install AstTapi..............................................................................................150 27.3 Configure Outlook Address Book................................................................151 28 Speed Dial..............................................................................................................153 28.1 The Dumb-Me method ................................................................................153 28.2 Unembedded freePBX’s method.................................................................154 29 How to use Window Messenger® 5.x.................................................................. 155 30 How to interconnect 2 boxes ...............................................................................157 30.1 Method 1 - With the Peer Asterisk box as Extensions ................................157 30.2 Method 2 - In a Peer/User Arrangement .....................................................158 30.3 Method 3 – Friend/Friend Arrangement ......................................................159 30.4 Thinking of more than 2 boxes? ..................................................................160 30.5 Redirect Incoming in Box A to Box B ..........................................................160 31 Customised Voice .................................................................................................163 31.1 Customising Voice Prompts ........................................................................163 31.2 Installing Other Languages .........................................................................164 31.3 Converting WAV files ..................................................................................164 31.3.1 Converting WAV to GSM......................................................................164 31.3.2 Converting WAV to SLN.......................................................................165 32 MOH (Music On Hold) ...........................................................................................166 32.1 Customising MOH .......................................................................................166 Elastix Without Tears Page 8 of 298 32.2 Streaming Music on Hold ............................................................................167 Method 1 ..........................................................................................................167 Method 2 ..........................................................................................................168 33 Backup and restore...............................................................................................173 33.1 Backup and Restore the Elastix way...........................................................173 33.1.1 Make a Backup.....................................................................................173 33.1.2 To Restore a Backup............................................................................174 33.2 Backup and Restore the FreePBX way.......................................................175 33.2.1 To Schedule a Backup .........................................................................175 33.2.2 To Restore a Backup............................................................................177 34 SugarCRM..............................................................................................................178 35 VtigerCRM..............................................................................................................180 36 IM - Openfire ..........................................................................................................181 36.1 Openfire Installation ....................................................................................181 36.2 Install Spark client. ......................................................................................195 36.2.1 Enabling Remote Client........................................................................196 37 Elastix Email System and Webmail ..................................................................... 198 37.1 Elastix Mail System – Setup & Use .............................................................198 37.2 Email Directly Via Postfix ............................................................................199 37.3 Email Directly Via Postfix with Authorisation ..............................................202 37.4 Email via your local Mail Server ..................................................................203 37.5 Email using Elastix Postfix Server and Roundcube ....................................203 38 Codec (Coder Decoder) ........................................................................................ 210 38.1 Installing G729 and G723 CODECs............................................................211 39 PSTN Trunk – Special Handling...........................................................................213 39.1 Dial 0 for Outside Line.................................................................................213 39.1.1 Using Zaptel Card Method ...................................................................213 39.1.2 Using SPA3K Method...........................................................................213 39.2 Giving Priority to Emergency Numbers (E.g. 000) ......................................214 40 Advanced Trunks Handling..................................................................................215 40.1 Balancing Trunk Usage...............................................................................215 40.2 Cascading Trunk Usage..............................................................................218 41 Port Forwarding and QOS – Routers .................................................................. 224 41.1 Port Forwarding...........................................................................................224 41.2 QOS – Routers............................................................................................224 42 Upgrading your system ........................................................................................ 226 42.1 Upgrading Elastix ........................................................................................226 42.2 Upgrading freePBX .....................................................................................227 42.3 Upgrading Asterisk......................................................................................227 43 Tools....................................................................................................................... 228 43.1 Webmin .......................................................................................................228 43.2 Putty ............................................................................................................229 43.3 WinSCP.......................................................................................................229 43.4 Nano............................................................................................................230 43.5 phpMyAdmin ...............................................................................................231 44 Get Under The Bonnet .......................................................................................... 233 44.1 Editing The .conf Files.................................................................................234 44.1.1 sip.conf .................................................................................................234 44.1.2 sip_general_additional.conf..................................................................235 44.1.3 sip_general_custom.conf .....................................................................235 44.1.4 iax_custom.conf ...................................................................................236 44.1.5 indications.conf.....................................................................................236 44.1.6 enum.conf.............................................................................................236 44.1.7 extensions_custom.conf.......................................................................237 Elastix Without Tears Page 9 of 298 44.2 Create Missing Directories ..........................................................................237 45 Trouble Shooting ..................................................................................................238 45.1 Debug Messages and Log Files are your friends........................................238 45.2 Asterisk Feature Codes not working ...........................................................238 45.3 Asterisk Drops Calls after a few seconds....................................................238 45.4 Pennytel Asterisk Problem ..........................................................................239 45.5 Unable to receive Incoming Calls................................................................239 45.6 Unable to send out Voicemail Mail notification............................................239 45.7 Sipura SPA3000 – Not hanging up after PSTN Calls .................................239 45.8 Virtual FAX list does not display existing Virtual FAX. ................................240 46 My ELASTIX® PBX Network................................................................................ 241 Appendix A ..................................................................................................................242 A.1 Asterisk Feature Codes ................................................................................242 A.1.1 Wakeup Call Feature *62 missing..........................................................243 A.2 Asterisk CLI commands................................................................................243 A.2.1 General commands................................................................................243 A.2.2 AGI Commands .....................................................................................244 A.2.3 Database Handling ................................................................................244 A.2.4 IAX Channel Commands .......................................................................244 A.2.5 SIP Channel commands ........................................................................245 A.2.6 Server management ..............................................................................245 A.3 Asterisk Special Extensions..........................................................................245 A.4 Asterisk Common Variables .........................................................................246 A.5 Indications for Various Countries ..................................................................246 Appendix B ..................................................................................................................256 B.1 – Australian VSPs (trunks).............................................................................256 B.1.1 BBPglobal ..............................................................................................256 B.1.2 Engin BYO .............................................................................................256 B.1.3 Faktortel (IAX)........................................................................................257 B.1.4 GoTalk ...................................................................................................257 B.1.5 iinet ........................................................................................................258 B.1.6 iPrimus ...................................................................................................258 B.1.7 MyNetFone ............................................................................................259 B.1.8 Nehos.....................................................................................................260 B.1.9 Nodephone ............................................................................................260 B.1.10 SipMe...................................................................................................260 B.2 – New Zealand VSPs (trunks) .......................................................................261 B.2.1 iTalk .......................................................................................................261 B.2.2 Double Zero 64 (IAX) ............................................................................261 B.3 – Other VSPs (trunks)....................................................................................262 B.3.1 Broadvoice .............................................................................................262 B.3.2 FWD aka Pulver(IAX).............................................................................262 B.3.3 SipBroker ...............................................................................................262 B.3.4 SipPhone ...............................................................................................263 B.3.5 VOIP Buster ...........................................................................................263 Appendix C ..................................................................................................................264 C.1 Voice for Asterisk Messages ........................................................................264 C.2 Australian Voice and Language Set for Asterisk ..........................................265 Appendix D (ATAs and Routers) ...............................................................................266 D.1 Alcatel SpeedTouch 510/530 ADSL Router .................................................266 D.2 Billion 7402 VL..............................................................................................266 D.3 Linksys PAP2 and Sipura SPA2000 .............................................................267 Appendix E – Hardware Specific ............................................................................... 270 E.1 Raid ..............................................................................................................270 Elastix Without Tears Page 10 of 298 SATA RAID ......................................................................................................270 IDE RAID..........................................................................................................270 E.2 How to install Elastix with Software Raid1 ....................................................270 Appendix F (Users’ Contributions)............................................................................273 F.1 Eliminating Echo Problems in SPA-3000 ......................................................273 F.2 Immediate Answer of PSTN Calls.................................................................275 F.3 Installing Fail2Ban.........................................................................................275 Appendix G (Publications and References) ............................................................ 278 G.1 DUNDI – a guide to a Simple Setup .............................................................278 G.2 The future of Telephony by O’Reilly Publishing ...........................................278 G.3 Other Asterisk Forums, Tutorials and Wikis ................................................278 G.4 Voice over IP – Per call bandwidth consumption .........................................278 G.5 USB Phone Support .....................................................................................278 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 279 Delete Call Records from CDR ............................................................................279 Deleting CDR Record from Reports GUI..........................................................279 Delete from MySQL database ..........................................................................279 Extension Numbers to avoid using.......................................................................280 How to restrict Outgoing Calls – Manual Method .................................................280 BuG Reports ................................................................................................................284 Missing Directories. ..............................................................................................284 Missing entries in zapata.conf (for zaptel users) ..................................................284 Voicemail cannot be deleted from GUI ................................................................284 Call recording not functioning...............................................................................284 Symlink Error........................................................................................................285 All phones UNUSABLE if internet connection is lost............................................285 Virtual FAX list does not display existing Virtual FAX. .........................................286 Cheat Sheet .................................................................................................................287 Some Linux commands in common use ..............................................................287 User Suggestions and contributions ........................................................................288 Advanced Firewall and Brute force Elastix Setup ................................................288 To resolve the problem on embedded freePBX 2.5.x on blank extension fields ..295 Solving misdialing using analog phones ..............................................................295 Bibliography ................................................................................................................297 Changes Made since last Update ..............................................................................298 Elastix Without Tears Page 11 of 298 FOREWORD Following the release of the Elastix Distribution of the ever-popular Asterisk based IPBX, I found it necessary to put together a simple Dumb-Me guide for those deciding to give this new distribution a test run. As always, this guide is not meant to be a detailed manual; instead it is just a quick and dirty guide and as a resource to assist you get started with minimum pain. I will outline everything I know in this document. If it is not in this document it means I do not know it, so don’t ask me Use this document as a guide, not as Gospel. It does not cover every detail and every function found in Elastix and neither will it provide you with a complete solution or spiritual guidance. Only a competent VoIP consultant such as VoiceIntegrity or MBIT can provide you with the necessary know-how for a complete solution, and as for spiritual guidance, I will leave that entirely to you. This document was compiled mainly based on Australian conditions (because Australia is where I live – those kind enough to fly me around the world are most welcome to send me an air ticket) through my experience going through the pains and gains, supplemented by inputs from dozens of participants in the various Elastix and Asterisk related forums. These people are mentioned in the bibliography at the end of the document. They have helped me whenever I get into difficulties, and I still seek guidance (the non-divine type) from them. I take no primary credit for this document (I am only the compiler of this not so divine revelation). I invite others to participate in improving this document. Please send me your feedback; so together we can make this document a valuable resource for our peers in the Elastix community, experienced and new alike. I welcome all assistance and correction for this document. It is also not my intention to violate any copyright or trademarks in preparing this document. I ask those who think that their copyright or trade marks have been violated to inform me so it can be remedied. Asterisk™ is a trademark of Digium, Inc. Digium™ is a trademark of Digium Inc. Elastix™ is a trademark of PaloSanto Solutions SugarCRM™ is a trademark of SugarCRM Inc. Vtiger CRM™ is a registered trademark of Vtiger, Plc. Freepbx™ is a registered trademark of Atengo LLC Hylafax™ is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc ® ® - Ben Sharif November 11, 2007. The usual disclaimer: (Don’t you just hate it, having to say this.) In its Basic form, all that I have outlined worked for me but it may contain many errors – typographical, omissions and even misguidance that may require a lot of extra corrections. While I have taken due care, however, it may not necessarily be 100% accurate and suitable for your individual configuration. I do not take; neither will I accept any responsibility for any losses incurred due to actions or inaction conducted as a result of methods or advice found in this document.   I am not an expert and therefore I do not have most if not all the answers. I do not provide Elastix support and neither do DIGIUM. If assistance is required, please post in the forum http://www.elastix.org/ Participants in the various forums may have a number of solutions and at the same time providing the opportunity for others with similar questions to benefit from the solutions provided. Help may also be obtained from Australian Elastix Forum at Elastix Connection Elastix Without Tears Page 12 of 298 I INTRODUCTION Asterisk is a Linux based IPBX application developed by Mark Spencer of Digium™, the company behind Asterisk. ElastixTM evolved from the core Asterisk 1.4. It is made up of several major components. These were developed under GPL supported relatively by users themselves. It consists of applications, a provisioning system, an installer, and an operating system that, together, make a complete package ready for use as an out of the box PBX. Within this document, Elastix and Asterisk will be referred to frequently and they are interchangeable as Elastix is in essence a superset of the Asterisk. TM I.I IS VOIP FOR YOU? Whether VOIP is for you or not depends on a number of or combinations of factors. Some economic and quality requirements should be considered. I.I.I What is it going to cost? Assuming that you already have a broadband service, a router, and a Windows PC to run the softphone, the cost will be minimal. If you already have a spare computer to dedicate to this task, then the cost is almost nothing, unless you need to buy an audio headset ($15.00 from your local electronic store) for the softphone. If you do not have a spare PC with the above specification as stated in I.III.I below, then you may be able to buy one from your local swap meets for under $200.00, which may include a monitor. Ensure that the PC has an Ethernet NIC for connecting to your home network. Your only other initial cost will be the $20.00 or so activation fee to Oztell (or other VSP of your choice). In fact many VSPs, the like of Pennytel, Primus etc., will register you for free if you want to restrict your calls to VoIP only within the same VSPs. If you want the ability to make to PSTN or between different VSPs, you may have to pay for the calls. All these “Major Expenses” will be recovered when you receive your monthly Telephony bill from your local Telco. I.I.II What will the quality of the phone calls be? If you are expecting the quality to be consistently as good as your existing PSTN calls, there may be room for debate, but if you will be happy with a quality that is comparable to your mobile phone, not quite but very close to your existing PSTN calls and also be prepared for the whining by the other half, the phone calls are not as good and she cant enjoy her mom’s singing on the other end, while you are leaching off the P2P, you might be in luck. VoIP transport via the Public Internet is very much dependant on a number of factors – available bandwidth not withstanding, your usage habit of the internet and LAN traffic and equipment quality, amongst others, also play very important roles. For further information please refer to the link below: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/index.cfm?a=wiki&tag=VOIP_Quality Elastix Without Tears Page 13 of 298 I.II WHAT IS ELASTIX? Elastix is a collection of “best of breed” Open Source products and tools compiled together to become an integrated IP PBX. Correctly implemented, this system will provide you with a PBX system that will rival almost any other, not just in PBX functions, but ability to integrate with other products to make the system even more powerful. The major components that make up Elastix are;               Asterisk (currently v1.4), the core PBX (Made by Digium) ® ® vTigerCRM and SugarCRM , CRM systems A2Billing – Calling Card platform and billing application for Asterisk. Flash Operator Panel, a screen-based operator’s console ® Hylafax a software based FAX System ® Openfire - Jabber Compliant Server for Instant messaging, presence management, SIP Phone Conferencing control application ® freePBX (embedded and standalone) a web User Interface tool for Elastix. A report system – the part of Elastic (and freePBX) that provides CDR reporting. A Maintenance system, also part of Elastix, which provides low level interfaces to some components and real time system information OSLEC - Software Based Echo Cancellation ® Postfix , a well known mail server. Round Cube webmail – Webmail Interface ® CentOS , a version of Linux related to a very well known Enterprise Linux (but without the branding and support). ® Each of these proven products is written and maintained by separate companies or entities, and in many cases small and large companies are using these products in production. Elastix developers have written a Web Interface that allows you to access these programs, so that they, in general, look like one complete product. Elastix have also written certain software such as reporting programs, Hardware detection, Network Configuration, Software Update Module, Backup Restore module, User Management and many more modules themselves. I.III THE IP PBX COMPONENTS Four main components needed to set up VoIP PBX:     Elastix, the Asterisk powered IP PBX The phones (or softphones) The VOIP gateway services that let you call other VOIP users and people on the PSTN. A home network with broadband access, a router and hubs/switches if needed. If you are restricting the usage to PSTN only, you will not need the broadband, but then it will defeat the whole purpose. I will attempt to describe the set-up of each of these. In most cases it does not matter if you are behind a firewall provided that you have all the appropriate ports forwarded correctly. You are not required to do anything special like running the IP PBX outside the NAT or in the DMZ. However, it is important to ensure that you have enough bandwidth (upstream and downstream) to carry voice traffic. Elastix Without Tears Page 14 of 298 I.III.I The IP PBX You will need a PC or an Elastix Appliance to run the IP PBX. If you have chosen the PC route, it is recommended that you run a dedicated PC for this purpose. The PC described below (minimum) will be sufficient to power the IP PBX in a small office or home environment. Therefore don’t throw away that old Pentium III clunker you have in the attic.       800Mhz Pentium III PC or better (P4 will give extra comfort). 312MB RAM – the more the better 8GB minimum hard disk space (dependant on your usage of MOH, announcements, voice recording etc). 10/100 NIC CD-ROM Drive 10/100 4 or 8 ports Ethernet hub/switch (not required if your router has spare ports. This is dependant on how many extensions you are planning). Naturally if you are running Elastix in a heavy environment, you will need heavier duty and better specification system. When you install Elastix on this “old” computer, it will take it over – it starts by formatting all the hard disks (if you happen to have more than one), so make sure there is nothing on the machine that you want to keep. I.III.II Phones You can buy SIP phones from Grandstream, SNOM, and Cisco etc. Or you can buy an ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) produced by Linksys, Netcomm or Sipura and a few others, which enables you to use an analogue phone (the Linksys PAP2 will allow you to hang two analogue phones to it). Register with a VSP such as Faktortel, Oztell, Pennytel and several other VOIP Service Providers (VSPs). The choice is yours. To get started, it is easiest to get a softphone and run it on another computer. See the section on installation of Softphone later in this document. I.III.III SIP Gateway It is most likely that you want to communicate with others on the PSTN network, so you need to obtain a VOIP gateway service. Since part of the call is being carried on the circuit switched network, it costs real money. This means that you will have to pay for this part of the system. Setting up gateways will be covered in the installation section below. I.III.IV Home Network The fact that you are reading this and contemplating on installing Elastix, I assume that you have a home network, a broadband service, and are set up behind a Router of some sort.  If you are using Telstra Alcatel SpeedTouch 510/530 ADSL Router, you will need to unbind port 5060. To do this, please refer to this link (or see Appendix D). http://www.sipgate.co.uk/faq/index.php?aktion=artikel&type=faq&rubrik=024&id=398&lang=de You will need to pick a static IP address for your IP PBX that is on your home network e.g. 192.168.0.100. To keep it simple, please ensure that the Asterisk box is in the same network segment of your existing LAN. Elastix Without Tears Page 15 of 298 I.III.V VOIP Service Providers If you are in Australia, the Whirlpool VOIP forum has a list of VOIP providers in Australia at the following link: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=370536 Elastix Without Tears Page 16 of 298 1 INITIAL PREPARATION AND PLANNING 1.1 FAMILIARISATION Before setting up your IP PBX, it is recommended that you familiarise yourself with the Elastix GUI and make a note of all the default passwords. 1.1.1 Default passwords Interface Elastix freePBX FOP Calling Cards (A2Billing) MySQL SugarCRM vTiger Openfire Login admin admin admin admin mysql –p (from root) admin admin admin Password palosanto admin eLaStIx.2oo7 mypassword eLaStIx.2oo7 password admin Whatever set at install All other Elastix related password can be found in /etc/amportal.conf 1.2 MAP YOUR REQUIREMENTS Map out what your home (or small office) telephony requirements are and compare the requirements with what facility you already have. You may find that you may need to provide extra facilities that you do not already have e.g. Network switches, router, ATAs or IP Phones and needless to say a suitable broadband service. For the purpose of this guide, I have determined that we will start with the following:         2 extensions with voicemail using a Linksys PAP2 ATA 1 extension using a Linksys SPA3000 ATA 2 extension using Softphone (we will use these 2 extension for initial testing) 3 extension using IP Phones 2 VoIP service providers 2 PSTN trunks – for the purpose of this exercise, I will be using a Linksys SPA3000 for one PSTN trunk and a X100P for the other PSTN trunk. IVR and MOH A number of customised voice prompts and announcements Once the above are set-up, I will customise it further with the following;      Time conditions Ring groups Follow me Conference facility DISA etc In this exercise we will cover all of the above (not necessarily in the stated sequence) and we may also look at other possibilities as we go along, if time and/or resources permit.  This is not an industrial grade installation. This installation is for training purposes only and to assist new hopeful to get started with Elastix and nothing more. Elastix Without Tears Page 17 of 298 1.3 PLAN YOUR SECURITY This part of the setting is most important and cannot be over stated. 1.3.1 Tim Yardley’s Securing Trixbox CE For starter, the document written by TimYardley is a must read. While this document refers to Trixbox CE, it applies equally to Elastix. This document on securing your box can be found here: http://engineertim.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/securing_trixbox_ce_ver1.pdf 1.3.2 Seven Easy Steps to Better SIP Security on Asterisk (by J Todd http://blogs.digium.com/2009/03/28/sip-security/) In the most part, the points below are those recommended by J. Todd but I have taken the liberty of adding a couple of additions to make it in line with the current versions of Elastix. 1) Don’t accept SIP authentication requests from all IP addresses. Use the “permit=” and “deny=” lines in sip.conf to only allow a reasonable subset of IP addresses to reach each listed extension/user in your sip.conf file. Even if you accept inbound calls from “anywhere” (via [default]) don’t let those users reach authenticated elements! 2) Set “alwaysauthreject=yes” in your sip_general_additional.conf file. This should have already been set to “yes”, if not you will need to set it to “yes”. This option has been around for a while (since 1.2?) but the default is “no”, which allows extension information leakage. Setting this to “yes” will reject bad authentication requests on valid usernames with the same rejection information as with invalid usernames, denying remote attackers the ability to detect existing extensions with brute-force guessing attacks. While you are editing sip_general_additional.conf, add the following line as well “allowguest=no” without the quote marks offcourse. 3) Use STRONG passwords for SIP entities. This is probably the most important step you can take. Don’t just concatenate two words together and suffix it with “1″ - if you’ve seen how sophisticated the tools are that guess passwords, you’d understand that trivial obfuscation like that is a minor hindrance to a modern CPU. Use symbols, numbers, and a mix of upper and lowercase letters at least 12 digits long. 4) Block your AMI manager ports. Use “permit=” and “deny=” lines in manager.conf to reduce inbound connections to known hosts only. Use strong passwords here, again at least 12 characters with a complex mix of symbols, numbers, and letters. 5) Allow only one or two calls at a time per SIP entity, where possible. At the worst, limiting your exposure to toll fraud is a wise thing to do. This also limits your exposure when legitimate password holders on your system lose control of their passphrase - writing it on the bottom of the SIP phone, for instance, which I’ve seen. 6) Make your SIP usernames different than your extensions. While it is convenient to have extension “1234″ map to SIP entry “1234″ which is also SIP user “1234″, this is an easy target for attackers to guess SIP authentication names. Use the MAC address of the device, or some sort of combination of a common phrase + extension MD5 hash (example: from a shell prompt, try “md5 s ThePassword5000″) Elastix Without Tears Page 18 of 298 7) Ensure your [default] context is secure. Don’t allow unauthenticated callers to reach any contexts that allow toll calls. Permit only a limited number of active calls through your default context (use the “GROUP” function as a counter.) Prohibit unauthenticated calls entirely (if you don’t want them) by setting “allowguest=no” in the [general] part of sip.conf. These 7 basics will protect most people, but there are certainly other steps you can take that are more complex and reactive. Here is a fail2ban recipe another method from Sunshine Networks can be found here which might allow you to ban endpoints based on volume of requests. There is discussion on the asterisk-user and asteriskdev mailing lists of incorporating this type of functionality into Asterisk - let’s hear your ideas! In summary: basic security measures will protect you against the vast majority of SIP-based brute-force attacks. Most of the SIP attackers are fools with tools - they are opportunists who see an easy way to defraud people who have not considered the costs of insecure methods. Asterisk has some methods to prevent the most obvious attacks from succeeding at the network level, but the most effective method of protection are the administrative issues of password robustness and username obscurity. Once you are clear on what you want and what you need to do, you can start the installation in earnest but before that, here is a brief course on Elastix Network design. Elastix Without Tears Page 19 of 298 2 A BRIEF COURSE IN NETWORK DESIGN (Using Elastix) One of the most common issues that appears on the forums, are issues that users are having with Asterisk based distributions, which includes Elastix. Elastix has done a great job of improving how this is setup on your system, but it still needs some thought put into the process. This chapter is by no means the “be all and end all” in Network theory, and in fact many network aficionados would probably cringe with some terminology and explanations in this chapter, but the purpose is for you to gain a basic understanding of what you are typing in as it will and does have an impact on how your system behaves, and how software interacts with your Elastix system. First of all, when your Elastix box is finally built, it comes up on the network using a DHCP Address. For 99% of users this will be true. You either have a Dedicated DHCP Server on the Network or your Router is acting as a DHCP Server. What this means is that your Elastix system is assigned a dynamic IP address on your Network, which will last about 78 Days (normally). After that time period, it will request a new address. In most cases it is allocated the same address, unless you have a busy network, where in some cases it may allocate that address to another device. So the first thing we need to do is to allocate and set a static IP address for your Elastix System. But before we can do this, we need to understand how your Network is setup, which includes your Domain Name Service (DNS) entries, the domain name of your Elastix System, whether you are going to make your Elastix system available from the Web (e.g. externally connected Phones). Let’s ignore the Elastix system for the time being and assume that you have a basic Network system. You have one or two Windows workstations connected to a router and this router connects to the Internet. This router has probably allocated IP addresses to the workstations, and it would be useful to obtain the information from one of these workstations to allow us to correctly fill in the Elastix Network Details. On one of the Windows workstations, click on the Green START button, and from the Menu select RUN. Now in the box type the letters cmd and click on OK. See the illustration below if you are not sure what it is. Next a black box will come up. Don’t worry if the directory is not the same, as long as it comes up with a prompt. Elastix Without Tears Page 20 of 298 Type ipconfig /all and press Enter. The information that we want here is: Primary DNS Suffix: IP Address: Subnet Mask: Default Gateway: DNS Servers: Write this information down, and let’s talk about each one and what impact it has when you implement them on your Elastix System. 2.1 IP ADDRESS Basically this address must be unique on your Network. If you put two devices on your Network, that have the same IP address, you are bound to have issues, some of them very hard to diagnose. One thing to note is that DHCP does not, by default, know what static addresses that you have issued, and it is possible, sometime in the future, that DHCP allocates the same address as your static address to another device, causing untold issues. For this reason, we need to understand what addresses your router is giving out. If you have Web access to your router, you can look at the DHCP Server setup and find what addresses that it allowed to give out (Usually called a Scope). Quite often, you will find most routers by default are setup to provide either 50 to 90 addresses. On some routers, you can set exact ranges, on others; it just allows you to select a number of addresses, usually starting from the first available number in the range of IP addresses. If you don’t have access to your router, then don’t panic. As a general rule of thumb, we normally choose 100 as the IP address for the Elastix System, as it normally avoids IP address clashes, and is a nice round number to remember. So based on the information that we gained from our SETUP (IPCONFIG for older Centos), we are going to set the IP address of our Elastix System to 172.22.22.100 e.g. If your address of workstation is 192.168.1.2 then you would make Elastix 192.168.1.100 Note that the first three blocks of numbers, must match the same address scheme as our workstation, otherwise (unless you know network design well), you will not be able to talk to your Elastix box from your workstation. Elastix Without Tears Page 21 of 298 2.2 SUBNET MASK Subnet masks are a complete subject on their own, and this is definitely out of the scope of this document. However, again, to talk to our Elastix System, we need to use the same Subnet Mask as our workstation, so the subnet mask for our Elastix System will be 255.255.255.0 2.3 DEFAULT GATEWAY The gateway address is important. In most cases, it will be the address of your router. Basically the Gateway address tells the device or system, where to go if it needs to go to an address or location that does not reside on your network. Your router is basically a traffic cop that knows where network traffic needs to go to get somewhere. In the example provided, it shows our Gateway address as 172.22.22.5, which is the address we would use on the Elastix system. 2.4 DNS SERVERS Generally good network design dictates that two DNS Server addresses are used. In the IPCONFIG above, you will note two separate addresses. 172.22.22.2 and 172.22.22.5. On the lab network, it contains a Microsoft Server that is running a DNS Server at 172.22.22.2, so we set that as the primary DNS address. The second address is the router (or Gateway), which is 172.22.22.5. Your system may be different and contain the addresses that have nothing to do with your normal network address range such as 203.21.20.20 & 203.10.1.9. These are external DNS Addresses and are normally supplied by your Internet ISP. Each ISP will have different addresses for their DNS Servers. If you have a workstation or device using a DHCP Address, then as part of that DHCP address, it passes these DNS Addresses down from the router. The router gets these when it gets its IP address from the ISP. Now here comes the important part, which forms good network design even for the small network: If you have an internal DNS Server (e.g. Microsoft Server) on your Network, then it should be the first DNS entry. The reason for this is speed. If a program needs to communicate with a device (even a phone), and especially if it is on the Internal Network, why should it go outside of the Network to interrogate a DNS Server that is going to respond generally 50x slower. If you don’t have a second DNS Server on the Internal Network, then set the second address to the router. Many routers can act as a DNS Proxy, meaning that they forward your DNS requests to the DNS Servers that they know about (remember the router received the DNS Server information when it made a successful connection to the ISP). Now for many of you, you will not have a DNS server on your local Network, and your first thought would be to use the ISP’s two DNS addresses. This will work, but it may still have some issues. As we are about to set some static addresses on your Elastix system, it means that we are hard coding these addresses and 99% of the time, this will be fine, except when your ISP decides to change their IP addresses of their DNS Server. In general they don’t change that often, but for a period of time, there was one very prominent ISP that changed their address several times over a period of several months. They work on the 99% rule, that everyone is using DHCP addresses from their router, and when they change the addresses of the DNS servers, then your router will get the updates and naturally filter down to the rest of your Network. If you have the two DNS addresses hard coded into your Elastix System, and your ISP changes the available DNS Server addresses, all of a sudden, your Elastix System cannot find the outside world, Elastix Without Tears Page 22 of 298 even attempting to access devices on this internal network slows down and appears to hang at times. So the normal recommended solution for a small network with no internal DNS Server is to set the first DNS Address to your router, and the second address to the Primary DNS address of your ISP. In this case, you are actually improving the redundancy on your Network as the Router interrogates two DNS Servers, and the Elastix System has one more DNS Server to try if the first two do not respond. Furthermore, if the ISP changes the DNS Server addresses, your router would know about these new addresses, keeping your system still running well even though a DNS Server change has occurred. You might also be thinking that all you need is the router address as it has access to two DNS Servers, and you don’t need to add the ISP’s Primary DNS Server address. The reason why we do this, is that many consumer based routers, are not the most reliable devices, and it has been seen on many occasions, that the DNS proxy function fails (but usually corrected by a reboot), even though the router is still connected to the Internet and everything else seems to function. By using the ISP’s Primary DNS Server address, it means that our Elastix System, can still interrogate a DNS Server, directly through the router, even though the DNS proxy capability has failed. So if we were using the IPCONFIG example above, we would set the DNS Entries in Elastix to 172.22.22.2 (Our internal DNS Server) 172.22.22.5 (Our Router/Gateway) If you are running a simple network, then you might be setup using 192.168.1.1 (your Router/Gateway) 203.21.20.20 (your ISP Primary DNS Server) It might sound like a lot of trouble, but you are talking about a Phone system, which should be reliable. Especially in a business, how hard is it to go to your manager and tell him that the Phone system failed or suffered some issues because the ISP changed their DNS Server address. 2.5 PRIMARY DNS SUFFIX This item is not absolutely critical, but again good Network design dictates that we should be using a DNS name for the Elastix System As we are already running a domain on our Lab Network, it shows up under SETUP (IPCONFIG for older Centos). This allows us to use this domain name for Elastix. If you are running a simple Network, you will probably see this entry as empty, so what it means is that you can setup a new domain name for your Internal Network. If we were to use the details as provided by SETUP (IPCONFIG for older Centos), then we would setup the Domain Name as elastix.netintegrity.local matching the domain name structure already employed on our network. Netintegrity.local is the domain name. The name before it is whatever you wish to call your Elastix system. If you have no DNS Structure, as mentioned you set your own up. An example might be elastix.myhouse.local. You might be wondering, why the use of the word local instead of .com or .net. Again this is just good practice. There is no root domain for .local and is regularly used for domain names they are mainly used for Internet networks. Microsoft Servers also use this structure for Internal Networks. Agreed, the world does not live by Microsoft’s word, but this one is simple and has no real impact. Elastix Without Tears Page 23 of 298 3 INSTALLATION A PC is a prerequisite. For stability, I will suggest that Elastix be installed on a dedicated machine. This is what we are setting out to do. 3.1 INITIAL INSTALLATION The Elastix version that we will be installing is the latest current version available today – Elastix 1.5.2.2. You will need to download the ISO from the Elastix website below. http://www.elastix.org After you have completed the download,     Burn the ISO image that you have just downloaded to a blank CD. Ensure that your PC will boot from the CD. settings to enabled this. If necessary change the BIOS **NOTE: This will erase all data on the hard drives of the PC. If you have 2 drives, both may be blown away as well - beware. Boot your Elastix box with the CD in the CD Drive and press enter. After a few seconds, the following screen will appear. You press F2 to see the various options. However, it is not really necessary. Just press [Enter] to start the installation   Press the Enter key to start the installation. After initial system detection, you will be asked to select the type of keyboard that you will be using. Use your cursor keys to navigate the keyboard types and use the Tab key to move the focus to the OK or Back option. Select the appropriate keyboard. Selected us and move the focus to OK and hit [Enter] Elastix Without Tears Page 24 of 298  After system hardware probing is completed, you will be asked to select the Time Zone you are in.  Use your cursor arrow keys to navigate to the appropriate time zone. In our case, we will select Australia/NSW. Use the TAB key to move the focus to OK and hit [Enter] to accept (see cheat sheet to set NTP time manually). Next you will be asked to enter your root password (remember this password).  Elastix Without Tears Page 25 of 298    After entering and confirming your password, installation will now commence by first formatting the Hard Disk/s. From this point it will take about 30-45 minutes for the installation to be complete and ready for the configuration stage. During this stage, you will see screens similar to the following. Linux and the required files are being installed. All you do is, wait for it to finish.    After Linux is loaded the CD will eject. Take the CD out and wait for the system to reboot. When it reboots, you will be presented with the Elastix splash screen. After a moment it will continue and you will see lots of lines of code. This process will take a while because it is building Asterisk. Elastix Without Tears Page 26 of 298   When Asterisk build is complete, it will reboot itself. Make sure that you remove the CD from the CD Drive before the PC reboots itself. Once rebooted, you will see the following screen where you can select the Elastix distribution versions. In this case we shall leave it at the default.  After going through its initial startup script, Elastix is ready for you to configure and make changes to the system default. Once Elastix has been installed, you may log in to Elastix if you need to do any command line tasks. Log in to your new Elastix (user: root, password: The one you gave earlier) Elastix Without Tears Page 27 of 298  Elastix uses embedded as well as stand-alone freePBX. To take full advantage of freePBX features, you may want to add extra modules that are not included in the embedded freepbx. Elastix Without Tears Page 28 of 298 4 SET-UP ELASTIX Using your browser, you can connect to https://ipaddress/ (e.g. https://192.168.1.100) to configure Elastix You will be presented with the Elastix initial Admin web login screen as illustrated below. Initial Admin Web Login Screen v0.90 The initial Username is admin and the default password is palosanto. You can change this password later on using that User Management facility provided by Elastix.  To log in to Elastix Web GUI, use user: admin, password: palosanto unless you have changed the user admin password, whereas the default user/password for unembedded FreePBX is admin/admin. Once logged in, the System Status screen will appear. This screen is the control centre. The Admin Dashboard – The Elastix control centre Elastix Without Tears Page 29 of 298 At a glance, the system status screen tells you the existing resources and Elastix’s activities. As it stands, Elastix need to be configured before any of the facilities offered are operable by users. In this guide, we will only be dealing with the basic essentials to get Elastix working. On the top of the screen, you will notice several tabs arranged by groups (the top most tabs) followed by the sub tabs (the line of tabs underneath). Currently we are looking at the System Info tab under the System group tab. Under the system group tab are sub-tabs that allow us to conduct system type tasks such as changing Network settings, detecting new hardware etc. The functions of the tabs are self-explanatory. 4.1 CHANGE IP ADDRESS TO STATIC INSTEAD OF DHCP We will start with the network tab because we need to change the DHCP address to a static address. The network parameters are: Host Default Gateway Primary DNS Secondary DNS Your Server name, eg: mypbx.netvoice.com IP address of your gateway – usually your router (eg. 192.168.1.1) The IP address of your Primary Domain Name Server. The IP address of your Secondary Domain Name Server. 4.1.1 Change using Elastix GUI Selecting the Network Tab will display the following screen where you should select the network interface. The following screen will appear. Elastix Without Tears Page 30 of 298 This is where you will make the necessary changes.    Change the IP address to the one you want to use Click on the Static Radio Button Click on apply changes Click yes when the “Are you sure you want to apply changes” dialog box appears and you are done. 4.1.2 Manual method However if you insist on doing it through the console you may use setup for that purpose. To change Asterisk IP address from DHCP to Static or vice versa, at the command prompt enter: setup You will be presented with the following options: Authentication configuration Firewall configuration Keyboard configuration Network configuration System services Timezone configuration X configuration Run Tool Quit In this case you will highlight and select Network configuration and start configuring your IP address. Next we will go to the User Management Tab and change the default password for the user Admin (the only user at the moment). 4.2 CHANGE DEFAULT ADMIN PASSWORD Select the User Maintenance tab as illustrated below. Click on the User Management tab and the following screen will appear. Elastix Without Tears Page 31 of 298 Click on the admin link (see illustration above) to open up the admin user detail screen below. We need to edit the Admin details by changing the default password and other relevant information. At the very least, the default password needs to be changed especially if there is more than one person having access to the system (which is very likely as anyone who knows the box address can get to the web login screen). To change the details, click on the Edit tab as illustrated above. In the ensuing screen, enter the name of the admin and change the password followed by a retype of the password in the appropriate fields. Since an extension number has not been allocated as yet, simply leave the field blank. Once done, click on Apply changes. 4.3 HARDWARE DETECTION Our next stop is hardware detection. This is important if you are using interface cards such as the A100P, X100P, A400P, A1200P, TDM400 etc. As per the illustration below, you need to click on the Hardware Detection tab. Elastix Without Tears Page 32 of 298 When the following screen appears, click on the Detect New Hardware button. In 99% of the time, your interface cards will be detected. This is the part I love most about Elastix. In my case, my A100P clone card was detected straight away. If you are using zaptel instead of DAHDI, all I have to do is add the following 2 lines at the end of zapata.conf #include zapata-channels.conf #include zapata_additional.conf (See Get Under The Bonnet to see how the config file can be edited). Restart Asterisk And the A100P is ready for use. Once done, we are now ready to configure the PBX part of Elastix. Elastix Without Tears Page 33 of 298 5 CONFIGURE ELASTIX PBX To start configuring the PBX portion of Elastix, select and click on the PBX group tab and we will be presented with the PBX Configuration screen featuring embedded freePBX. From here, those who are familiar with freePBX will have no difficulties in configuring the PBX portion of Elastix. The choice to do the task using the embedded freePBX or the unembedded version is totally yours. The functionality is similar either way. Naturally not all the modules available for freePBX are available in the embedded version but what are included are the ones that are considered essential.  To log in to the Unembedded freePBX, use user: admin, password: admin. Why we need a login and password is beyond me. All of the modules necessary to get Elastix operational are already pre-installed and ready for the individual administrator to start setting-up. However there are other optional modules that can be installed if necessary. For this installation, we will simply use the standard default modules using embedded freePBX. Comment [J1]: Without a password, if the elastix box is accessable on the web at large, one could go directly to https://servername /admin and access the unembedded freePBX – The same for people who don’t change the default password - so you better change yours. 5.1 GENERAL SETTINGS The first thing you will need to do is select General Setting. When presented with the General Setting screen, for the moment, it is wise to leave the default setting as provided except for a few of the fields that need changing to suit local conditions. Elastix Without Tears Page 34 of 298 Those fields are as illustrated below. Country Indications: Australia Allow Anonymous Inbound SIP Calls? Yes (if this is set to ‘No’, all inbound unidentified SIP calls will not be accepted). For security, you will have to change this to “no” after you have finished testing your system. It is self-explanatory so I will not try to explain, as it is quite minimal and nothing substantial that warrants explanation. Apart from what I have indicated above, you may need to customise it to your own specific needs such as: Asterisk Outbound Dial command option: “r” which generates the ring when you dial out, or “m” if you want music instead. There are other options of course – refer to the sub-chapter on Dial Command Options. However, for now I recommend that we leave them at the default values. Generally the default values are sufficient to get you started. These values can be changed later to suit your purposes. However the values I have as examples above are required to ensure that Elastix will function as expected – at the very least, during the testing stages. Naturally, help is available. Hovering your mouse on the corresponding field description with a dotted underline (e.g. Asterisk Outbound Dial Command options) will display the purpose of the fields and the various switches related to it. Elastix Without Tears Page 35 of 298 Once done, click on the Submit Change button followed by the “Apply Configuration Changes Here” red bar under the sub-tabs for the changes to take effect. 5.1.1 Dial Command Options In the Asterisk Dial command option, you may customise your preference to the way asterisk behave e.g. if you want the caller to hear music instead of the standard ringing sound, you may replace the “r” with an “m” (not particularly recommended). For further options, hover your mouse on the label and you will be informed of the other options. The following are the dial command options available to you but for now, lets leave them alone: Options: A(x) C d Play an announcement to the called party, using 'x' as the file Reset the CDR for this call Allow the calling user to dial a 1 digit extension while waiting for a call to be answered. Exit to that extension if it exists in the current context, or the context defined in the EXITCONTEXT variable, if it exists. Send the specified DTMF strings *after* the called party has answered, but before the call gets bridged. The 'called' DTMF string is sent to the called party, and the 'calling' DTMF string is sent to the calling party. Both parameters can be used alone. Force the callerid of the *calling* channel to be set as the extension associated with the channel using a dialplan 'hint'. For example, some PSTNs do not allow CallerID to be set to anything other than the number assigned to the caller. Proceed with dialplan execution at the current extension if the destination channel hangs up If the call is answered, transfer both parties to the specified priority. Optionally, an extension, or extension and context may be specified. Otherwise, the current extension is used. Allow the called party to hang up by sending the '*' DTMF digit. Allow the calling party to hang up by hitting the '*' DTMF digit. Jump to priority n+101 if all of the requested channels were busy. Limit the call to 'x' ms. Play a warning when 'y' ms are left. Repeat the warning every 'z' ms. The following special variables can be used with this option:  LIMIT_PLAYAUDIO_CALLER yes|no (default yes) - Play sounds to the caller.  LIMIT_PLAYAUDIO_CALLEE yes|no - Play sounds to the callee.  LIMIT_TIMEOUT_FILE File to play when time is up.  LIMIT_CONNECT_FILE File to play when call begins.  LIMIT_WARNING_FILE File to play as warning if 'y' is defined. The default is to say the time remaining. Provide hold music to the calling party until a requested channel answers. A specific MusicOnHold class can be specified. D([called][:calling]) f g G(context^exten^pri) h H i L(x[:y][:z]) m([class]) Elastix Without Tears Page 36 of 298 Execute the Macro for the *called* channel before connecting to the calling channel. Arguments can be specified to the Macro using '^' as a delimiter. The Macro can set the variable MACRO_RESULT to specify the following actions after the Macro is finished executing ABORT Hangup both legs of the call. CONGESTION Behave as if line congestion was encountered.  BUSY Behave as if a busy signal was encountered. This will also have the application jump to priority n+101 if the 'j' option is set.  CONTINUE Hangup the called party and allow the calling party to continue dialplan execution at the next priority.  GOTO:^^ - Transfer the call to the specified priority. Optionally, an extension, or extension and priority can be specified. This option is a modifier for the screen/privacy mode. It specifies that no introductions are to be saved in the priv-callerintros directory. This option is a modifier for the screen/privacy mode. It specifies that if callerID is present, do not screen the call. Specify that the CallerID that was present on the *calling* channel be set as the CallerID on the *called* channel. This was the behaviour of Asterisk 1.0 and earlier. This option enables screening mode. This is basically Privacy mode without memory. Enable privacy mode. Use 'x' as the family/key in the database if it is provided. The current extension is used if a database family/key is not specified. Indicate ringing to the calling party. Pass no audio to the calling party until the called channel has answered. Hang up the call after 'x' seconds *after* the called party has answered the call. Allow the called party to transfer the calling party by sending the DTMF sequence defined in features.conf. Allow the calling party to transfer the called party by sending the DTMF sequence defined in features.conf. Allow the called party to enable recording of the call by sending the DTMF sequence defined for one-touch recording in features.conf (default *1 in Asterisk v1.2) Allow the calling party to enable recording of the call by sending the DTMF sequence defined for one-touch recording in features.conf (default *1 in Asterisk v1.2)   M(x[^arg]) n N o p P([x]) r S(x) t T w W Elastix Without Tears Page 37 of 298 5.2 EXTENSIONS The number of extensions to be set up depends on you. You can have soft phones installed in 4 or 5 computers or mixture of ATAs and SIP SoftPhones. In this case, we have 8 extensions to be set up using ATA as well as softphone and IP phone as we have planned. It’s best to avoid the following extension numbers:  70-79 700-799 7777 911 999 - Reserved for calls on hold (Definable) Reserved for calls on hold (Definable) Reserved extension for incoming calls simulation Emergency number Emergency number in some countries 5.2.1 Create Extensions To create extensions, type of trunk e.g. SIP, IAX2, ZAP or Custom, is done from the Create Extension menu illustrated below: There are a number of device types for the extensions. This we need to determine prior to creating the extensions.     Generic SIP Device : SIP is the Standard protocol for VoIP handsets and ATA's. Generic IAX2 Device : IAX is 'Inter Asterisk Protocol', a newer protocol supported by a few devices (eg, PA1688 based phones, and the IAXy ATA). Generic ZAP Device : ZAP is a hardware device connected to your Asterisk machine eg, X100P TDM400, TE110P etc. Other (Custom) Device : Custom is a general term used for any non standard device, such as H323. It can also be used for "mapping" an extension to an external number (eg: to route extension 2010 to 1300151151, we can create a custom extension 2010 and in the "dial" text box enter: Local/1300151151@outbound-allroutes. We need to create a few SIP extensions. Therefore you should select Generic SIP Device from the device drop-down list then click “Submit”. The illustration below is where you create the extension. You will notice a few fields that you will need to populate. The important ones are:  User Extension: 3000 (that’s the extension number I gave for reception) Elastix Without Tears Page 38 of 298      Secret: 3000 (for simplicity, I used the exten number as the secret password) Disable the FAX extension as there will be no FAX attached to this extension. Voicemail is not required. No Privacy manager Neither do we require Dictation service. I left the rest of the fields at their default values. Add Extension Screen Submit when done and don’t forget the red bar to apply the changes. Elastix Without Tears Page 39 of 298  If you have Elastix distribution 1.3, upgrading to freepbx 2.5 will break the Extensions GUI where all the fields will be blank. To fix this problem, Saleh, an Elastix user came up with the fix. See Users’ Suggestions. Click on the Add Extension button to add more extensions. We will create 8 extensions; 3000 3001 3002 3003 3004 3005 3006 3007 Main Reception Medical Centre Manager Dr. Stan Roberts Dr. Susan Forbes Dr. Francis Wong Administration Office Lab and X-Ray Courtesy Phone. For simplicity, we will allocate passwords to be the same as the extension numbers. Where Voicemail is enabled, we will allocate the same password as well (but you don’t have to. You may also nominate an email address for Voicemail Email Notification – it’s up to you). Voicemail will be covered in more detail a little later in this document. 5.2.2 ZAP Extension Creating a ZAP extension (for those who have FXS modules) is no different from creating a SIP or IAX2 extension except that you have to choose the appropriate technology from the Device dropdown list and select Generic ZAP device. When creating a ZAP extension the following must be done otherwise you run the risk of getting one way audio. This also affects any Fax machines attached to the FXS ports; you will not receive faxes at all unless you do as below Elastix Without Tears Page 40 of 298 As illustrated above, after having created your Zap Extension, go back in and remove anything in echo training and submit Now you should have audio both ways and faxing inbound and out should work Note: Make sure if you are sending over SIP that the codec is ulaw or alaw or the fax will fail with any compression codec like g729 5.2.3 Extensions Batch (Adding a large amount of Extensions Quickly)  As at the time of writing this document, it is necessary to re-submit all extensions created this way from within Elastix/freePBX to enabled freePBX to correctly register these extensions in extensions_additional.conf, otherwise you may not be able to ring those extensions because those extensions were not properly written to the said conf file. As part of Elastix 1.x, the developers have added a new tool called Extensions Batch This tool allows you to use a spreadsheet to setup all your extensions and users and then upload them to Elastix. This will then create all the extensions in FreePBX. To start and learn how to use this tool, it is recommended that you setup two extensions in FreePBX as shown elsewhere in this guide. Set them up with all the options that you would normally set in an extension. Next, click on Extensions Batch, and click on the Download Extensions. This will download a CSV file down to your local hard drive (you normally can choose where to save it). You can now open/import it with your favourite spreadsheet. You should see a spreadsheet with headings and hopefully the two extensions that you have already setup like the following Now you have a guide, you can setup the rest of the extensions on the spreadsheet. Using the tools that are in your spreadsheet application, you can copy most of the fields that are common for all users, and with the rest, do a select and drop, and in the case of Excel (and probably others), as you drag and drop, it will increment the numbers for you. Once you are satisfied the content is correct, save the file as a CSV file. You can call it whatever you like, maybe extensions_companyname.csv or Elastix Without Tears Page 41 of 298 extensions_15042008.csv. Just make sure that when you save it, that your spreadsheet program is selected to save it as a CSV Text file (.CSV). Now we need to upload you completed CSV file back to Elastix, so click on the browse button, and the following dialog box will appear Hopefully it should default the directory where you saved your extensions to, select the Extensions file, and click on Open and you should return to the following screen. As you can see, it has filled in the file name and directory in the input box. Now click on Save. That’s it!!! Now go into Freepbx and check that your extensions are there, which they should be. On a 20 user system, your time to implement extensions, can come down from 30-40 minutes, to around 5-10 minutes, and the more extensions, the more time you will save Combined with the Endpoint Manager, this tool can literally save you hours in larger system setups. Again another great development from the Elastix Development team!! 5.2.4 Enable Voicemail To enable voicemail on an extension simply "enable" it when you create the extensions or it may be added later on when you decide that the extension requires a voicemail. If you require email notification of your voicemail, you may enter your email address in the email address field. In this case let us enable voicemail on extension 3001 (the Manager’s extension). Elastix Without Tears Page 42 of 298 Go back to the Extension Option of Elastix and click on extension 3001. In the Device Option’s Mailbox field, change the 3001@device to read 3001@default (this has since been rectified). Scroll down to the Voicemail and directory section and do the following:        Status: Enabled (use the drop down selection to select it) Voicemail password: 3001 (for simplicity we shall use the extension number) Email address: Enter an email address of the person (only if you want email notification) Email attachment: yes (mark the radio button) Play CID: yes Play envelope: yes Vm context: default Click submit when done followed by the red bar on top of the screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 43 of 298 5.3 FOLLOW ME After setting up the extensions, you need to decide if you want Elastix to call another prearranged extension, if the extensions called do not answer. This is where we will do it as per the illustration below: Select the PBX -> PBX Configuration -> Follow Me. You will be presented with the following screen: Select the extensions that you want to define (the extension selection is on the right of the screen). In this case, we will pick the Medical Centre Manager’s extension – ‘Manager <3001> add’ Elastix Without Tears Page 44 of 298 In the screen that follows (see the illustration above), enter the following information.     Ring strategy: ringallv2 (to call the main numbers then the other numbers) Extension List: 2001 (Manager’s extension) followed by Administration’s Office and the Reception (The reception will take down messages for the Manager). Ring time: 20 seconds Destination if no answer: Core – Hangup Every time the Manager’s extension is called, Asterisk will try to connect to extension 3001 and if no answer, it will call Ext. 3005 and 3000 (Reception). If still no answer, it will simply hang up. During business hours, the reception or the Admin Office will take down messages for the manager or the Doctors. Click “submit” followed by clicking the red bar on top of the screen to finalise this selection. Elastix Without Tears Page 45 of 298 5.4 RING GROUPS A ring group is a group of extensions that will ring when there is an external incoming call. You can even put your Mobile Phone number in the ring group if you want to. The 0400123456# is the Medical Centre’s Manager phone (see illustration below). For the mobile phone to work, you must have the appropriate route and trunk set up. You may not want a ring group – it’s entirely up to you. If you don’t require a ring group, you may ignore this section. When there is an incoming call to the ring group, the phones nominated in the selected group will ring. You may select different ring group for each of the incoming trunk or you may nominate the same group for all the trunks, in which case you will only need to define only one ring group. For simplicity, we will only defined 1 ring group for all incoming calls from all trunks – at this stage, let’s not get too fancy. We will create a ring group 11 for this purpose. Let’s call it AdminGroup as it rings all the phones related to the Administration of the Medical Centre. A single digit ring group is not recommended. We have included the Manager’s Mobile Phone number in as the last one in the group. If no one answers the call, Asterisk will simply hang up. Since the last number in the group is the Manager’s mobile phone, generally, the Mobile phone voicemail will take the message if the phone is not answered. The ring group screen is illustrated below: Next we will set up a couple of softphones to test what we have done. Elastix Without Tears Page 46 of 298 6 SET UP SOFTPHONES. There are a number of softphones available for use with Elastix. Some of them are free. Following are 2 examples of the free softphones. 6.1 COUNTERPATH X-LITE SOFTPHONE X-Lite Softphones can be downloaded here: http://www.counterpath.com/xlitedownload.html After installing the softphone (assuming that users can install the softphone), we need to configure the sofphone. When you start X-Lite 3 for the first time, you will see the following screen. Click the Add button. You will then get the following screen. This is where you will enter your credential At the various fields, add the following:      Display Name: Your Name - not Ben Sharif  User Name: Your extension number Password: The password of the extension when you created it in Elastix Authorization User name: The same as your User Name or extension Domain: Your Elastix IP address Put a check mark in the Register with domain and receive incoming calls Make sure the Target Domain Radio Button is marked. For this purpose, that’s all you need to do and Click apply, OK and close at the next screen. You are now ready to use the X-Lite softphone. Elastix Without Tears Page 47 of 298 Sometime it is necessary to change the Honor setting in X-Lite for it to work correctly. To do this, you would need to go to the advance setting of X-lite. Those using X-Lite having this problem may have to make the following correction in the advance setting of X-Lite. How to get to the advance setting? In X-lite: Dial ***7469 (SEND) This will bring up the advanced settings window Filter for honor Double click on the honor entry and change the value to 1 6.2 BOL SIPPHONE I have found the BOL SIPPhone extremely simple to set up for use with Asterisk and it also has a call forward facility that I use from time to time. You may obtain a copy of the BOL 2000 sipphone from the link below. http://www.bol2000.com/website_c/download /sipphone/BOL%20SIPPhone_EN.msi After downloading and set up you will see the following when it is run: To configure the softphone, click on the hammer icon and you will see the following. Profile Tab This is the only screen that is required to be filled in. These are the only information required: Account: Password: 3001 (I use the same number as password for simplicity. I use the same password when I set up the extension in Asterisk). Domain/Realm: Proxy: Your Asterisk network address e.g. 192.168.1.100 Port: 5060 Elastix Without Tears Page 48 of 298 Check the Auto Login and Keep Password. Then click OK. Audio & Video Tab Next Click on the Audio & Video Tab to ensure that audio properties set is consistent with the Audio card installed in your PC/Notebook. The illustration above depicts the sound device installed in my Notebook.    Click on the Tuning Wizard to tune your audio input and output. Check Auto Send Video (if you are using Video). I checked it anyway. Check Auto Receive Video (if you are using Video). I checked it anyway. Click OK Network Tab Ensure that your Internet Connection Type is set to LAN. You may ignore the Information of Network field. Click OK STUN Tab You may or may not need to use a STUN server. If you need to use it, click on the STUN tab and enter the STUN server you want to use. If you do, a list of publicly available STUN server is listed in the section referring to STUN Servers later in this document. In my case, I do not use STUN and therefore I left that section blank and Enable STUN check box un-ticked. Click OK to close. Elastix Without Tears Page 49 of 298 Call Forward This is pretty simple to set-up. To forward an unanswered call to this extension, all you need to do is click on the Call Forward tab and enter the telephone number you want to forward your incoming calls to. You have 3 options of call forwarding – Always, On Busy or On No Answer. However this facility is only available if your PC is on and the softphone is active. Click OK when done. You might want to set-up a couple of PCs with the softphone after which you may start testing your brand new Phone System by dialling each extension in turn. If you use one of the softphone and dial 7777, Asterisk will simulate an incoming call. Make sure that in the general setting you have allowed for anonymous sip calls and you also have an inbound route for “any DID/any CID” otherwise the 7777 will not work. Once done, you may test your softphone connection to Asterisk. If everything has been done as explained above, we should be able to make and receive calls between our internal extensions. If not, it is time to re-inspect what we have done above and make the necessary correction before attempting to go any further. Let’s take a break and test the soft phone extensions by making calls to each extension that we have created. Elastix Without Tears Page 50 of 298 7 ELASTIX ENDPOINT MANAGER One of the new features in Elastix is the Endpoint Manager. This allows you to use Elastix to configure the phone with the correct Extension and the other details needed for the phone to register with Elastix. It only covers the popular phone models, but I am sure more will be added as time goes by. Also it is dependent on the model of phone as not all models support this feature. It assumes that the phone is set as default (e.g. in the state it was when removed from the box). Before you use the Endpoint Manager, you should have setup your Extensions in Freepbx, as it will provide these as a dropdown box so that you can assign each Extension to a phone. Under the PBX tab in Elastix, click on Endpoint Configuration and the following screen will appear. You will notice the input box beside the ENDPOINT SCAN button. Here we will enter, the address of our network, however, it differs slightly from what we may have entered into Elastix. The reason for this is that the subnet mask uses a different method of describing it. If you are running a simple network, you probably have a subnet mask set as 255.255.255.0. This can also be written as /24. For most network technicians, this is common knowledge, and also know how the similar numbers for other subnets and again it requires a subject on its own, so for the time being accept that 255.255.255.0 equals /24 The reason for the change is that Elastix makes use of a product called NMAP which performs a search on your Network, and with the Elastix implementation, it requires the subnet to be entered in the /24 format. One other item, if you are not aware off, is that if we are specifying the whole subnet, we use a zero (0) at the end of the ip address, e.g. your Elastix Server might be 192.168.1.100, and your address for the entire subnet would be 192.168.1.0. So, having explained that, we have an Elastix Server at 172.22.22.100, and our subnet is 255.255.255.0, so the information we would add to that box is 172.22.22.0/24. Once you have entered that, press SCAN and if successful, and you have some compatible phones, you should see the following screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 51 of 298 These are the VoIP phones identified during the scan. We had a Grandstream GXP2000 and a Linksys on the Lab Network. We can now auto-configure these. Under the Phone type, drop down the box and it should show the models. Select the correct model. Next select the user extension that this phone will handle. If done correctly, you should end up with something similar to above. Once you are happy with the settings click on all the boxes underneath the SET button and click on the SET Button. If successful, you should end up with the screen similar to below. On occasions we have found it necessary to reboot the phones afterwards, but it appears to depend on the state of the phone before the Endpoint Discovery. If you get another phone, then just run the Endpoint Scan again, and it should show the new phone. Make the changes to the phone type, and extension and click only the box relating to that phone and press SET. As simple as that… Elastix Without Tears Page 52 of 298 8 TRUNKS TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD Making and receiving calls between internal extensions is one thing, but a telephony installation isn’t really an installation if you can’t receive and make calls to the outside worlds. To be able to do these, you will need at least one trunk to the outside world. This is a simplified guide to give the budding Elastix users some understanding in setting up Trunks. Points to keep in mind.  Beware!!! If you are using an ATA, please allow for what the ATA will be sending to asterisk when you are preparing you rules and patterns. If you want asterisk to take care of all the rules, it is best to ensure that your ATA is sending exactly what you dialled to Asterisk – just delete your dialling rule from your ATA and replace it with (**|*x.|xx.) 8.1 WHAT IS A DIAL PATTERN? Dial patterns are part of Outbound Routing. They act like a filter for matching numbers dialled with trunks. The various patterns you can enter are similar to Asterisk's definition of them:     X — Refers to any digit between 0 and 9 N — Refers to any digit between 2 and 9 Z — Any digit that is not zero. (E.g. 1 to 9) [Various] — Match only one character that matches any of the one in the square brackets. (E.g. [02-68*#] would match 0, any number between 2 and 6 inclusive, 8, * and #. Or, another way of saying this would be 'Match * or #, or a number that isn't 1,7 or 9') –Avoid using this notation in your Trunk Dial Rule as it does not seem to work. Use this only in your Outgoing Route Dial Pattern. . — Wildcard. Match any number of anything. Must match *something*. | — This lets you use a '0 to dial out' (or '9' in the US) by matching anything before the line, but not sending it to the trunk.   8.2 WHAT IS A TRUNK? A trunk is the telephony service line that you will be using to make an external call on, e.g. the Telstra telephone line that you have at home is a trunk (or it can be used as a trunk if you wish but not necessarily so). A VOIP service provider (VSP) that you have signed up with is also a trunk. If you have paid for VOIP service to enabled you to make calls out through PSTN, you can use this as a trunk for that purpose otherwise, you can only use it for making calls using VOIP between subscribers of the VSP only (unless there are peering arrangements with other VSPs). You can have several trunks if you want to. You can have Telstra and/or Optus telephone lines and use them as trunks, and you can also have a few VSPs that you subscribed to as additional trunks. Elastix Without Tears Page 53 of 298 To make external, PSTN or VOIP calls; you must have at least one trunk. The reason why asterisk users have several trunks can be explained as follows:    Trunk (a) charges the best rate for Local calls but is expensive for Mobile calls and not so great for international calls. Trunk (b) has great rate for international call. Trunk (c) has good mobile rate and will allow 1300 numbers while the other 2 do not. A properly planned route will direct the phone calls you make to the appropriate trunk that will provide you with maximum effectiveness and savings. E.g. When you make a call to a Mobile phone, asterisk will route your call via trunk (c) while it will route your call to trunk (a) if you make a local call. Similarly, when you make an international call, asterisk will route your outbound call via trunk (b). 8.3 TRUNKS AND OUTBOUND ROUTES – A CIRCLE OF CONFUSION To the uninitiated, Outbound Route Dial Patterns and Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules are 2 areas of confusion. I will try to explain this in the simplest possible terms. Each of these two work in conjunction with each other – they compliment each other when an outgoing call is being made. 8.3.1 Outgoing Route Dial Pattern This is the pattern you normally will dial when you want to make a phone call. As an example, if you are living in Brisbane, and you are calling a friend who lives in Sydney, you will normally dial a number such as 02 91234567, however if that friend is in Victoria, you will need to dial 03 91234567. Since your VOIP provider does not discriminate where you are calling from or where you are calling to, it requires a universal type number to call so your call can be directed to the correct recipient. In most cases, the VOIP provider will need to dial the universal e164 format e.g. 61291234567 for Sydney or 61391234567 for Melbourne. (61 being the code for Australia, 2 or 3 being the code for Sydney or Melbourne respectively, followed by the telephone number of your friend which is 91234567). Since you are dialling 03 91234567, asterisk only needs to send 391234567 (without the 0 prefix). Therefore in your Outbound Route Dial Pattern (lets call this Outgoing Route Domestic) you will need the following pattern: 0|NXXXXXXXX That pattern tells Asterisk to send only 9 digits out of 10 dialled by not sending the first digit 0. Thus, if you dialled 0291234567, the number that will be sent to the Trunk will be 291234567. How will this then be translated to 61291234567? This is where the Trunk Outgoing Dial Rule comes in. 8.3.2 Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules This is what the trunk is required to send to the VSP to make a successful call to the number you dialled. Elastix Without Tears Page 54 of 298 Using the above example, assuming that the VOIP service provider requires the full e164 format, Asterisk will need to add the missing Australian code 61. In your Trunk Outgoing Dial Rule, you will need the following pattern. 61+NXXXXXXXX That pattern tells Asterisk to add 61 in front of the 291234567 before dialling the number via the trunk. For variations of patterns, see What is a Dial Pattern in an earlier chapter. 8.4 LET’S CREATE THE VOIP TRUNKS To create a new trunk, select the Trunks option from the vertical menu on the left. For this example, let’s create 2 SIP trunks; Pennytel and Oztell. Pennytel will be used for all International and mobile calls Oztell will be used for all local and mobile calls. Since we are creating SIP trunks, click on the Add SIP Trunk option as illustrated below. General Setting (This applies to all the trunks): Outbound Caller ID: “Insert Your Name” (Must include the “ “ and <>) Maximum channels: Leave blank for maximum. In this example we will create Pennytel and Oztell SIP Trunks, which we will call pennytel and oztell respectively. We will also define their dialling patterns. Elastix Without Tears Page 55 of 298 8.4.1 Pennytel (SIP) In this example, we will use Pennytel for international and mobile calls only. Pennytel requires numbers dialled to follow the international format Country code + area code + phone number. To call an overseas destination you would normally dial 0011+country code + area code +phone number. E.g. to call Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia is 0011+64+3+. Since Pennytel only requires the country code and the phone number but does not require the 0011, the route (that we will create later) will not pass the 0011 to the trunk. We will require the following Outgoing Dialling Rules for this trunk, these instruct the trunk to dial whatever is sent by the appropriate route. This example is for dialling Malaysia with a country code of 60, and Australian Mobile phones. Pattern 601XXXXXXXX 60NXXXXXXX 61+4XXXXXXXX Explanation This pattern tells Pennytel to dial all Malaysian Mobile numbers starts with 601 followed by 8 more digits. This pattern dials numbers start with 60 followed by a one-digit number in the range of 2-9 followed by 7 more digits. For dialling Australian Mobile phone. The 61 is the Australian Country code that will be added to the mobile phone number. 601XXXXXXXX 60NXXXXXXX 61+4XXXXXXXX In your Outgoing Dial Rules box, we will enter the following; Next we need to create the Outgoing Setting, Incoming Settings and Registration for Pennytel. Outgoing Settings In the Trunk Name field we will enter the name of this trunk: pennytel username=8880XXXX type=peer secret= Password insecure=very host=sip.pennytel.com dtmfmode=rfc2833 disallow=all allow=alaw&ulaw&gsm canredirect=no canreinvite=no In the Peer Details enter the following; Pennytel preferred codecs are: g729, gsm and g723 but g729 and g723 are not installed as default in ELASTIX Incoming Settings In the User Context, enter the Pennytel User ID: 888XXXXX In the User Details we will have the following: canreinvite=no context=from-trunk fromuser=888XXXXX qualify=no secret= Password type=user username=888XXXXX Registration In the registration field, enter the following: 888XXXXX:[email protected]/888XXXXX Elastix Without Tears Page 56 of 298 After all these have been done, click on the Submit Changes button and click on the red bar across the top of the screen.  It seems that in some cases, Pennytel is rejecting Asterisk. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to add the following in the general section of your sip_general_custom.conf. useragent = Elastix The useragent can be any name, as long as it is NOT Asterisk. My sip_general_custom.conf looks like this; language=au videosupport=yes ;allow=g729 ;allow=g723 ;allow=h261 ;allow=h263 ;allow=h263p ;defaultexpirey=600 ; **Engin users: include this if necessary ;maxexpirey=3600 ; **Engin & BBP Global users: include this if necessary rtptimeout=60 rtpholdtimeout=120 useragent = Elastix 8.4.2 Oztell (SIP) Oztell requires the numbers dialled to follow international format Country code + area code + phone number. To call Sydney 67541234, Oztell requires it in the following format 61 267541234. To use Oztell family cheap rate you can also prefix it with 09. Therefore the dialling rule will be in this form: We need various patterns here: Pattern 899060X. 60ZXX. 06612+NXXXXXXX 0661+NXXXXXXXX 61+1300XXXXXX 61+13ZXXX 61+1800XXXXXX Explanation This pattern tells Oztell to dial the inter Oztell’s numbers This pattern dials numbers start with 60 followed by a one digit number 1-9 followed by other numbers minimum of 2 digits from 0 9. This can be an international number with a Country code of 60 followed by a number between 1 and 9 inclusive. Using the Oztell 06 rate to dial any NSW number. Using Oztell 06 rate to dial any Australian number. Dials 1300 numbers Dials 13 numbers Dials 1800 numbers 899060X. 60ZXX. 06612+NXXXXXXX 0661+NXXXXXXXX 61+1300XXXXXX 61+13ZXXX 61+1800XXXXXX In your Outgoing Dial Rules box, it will look like this: – this is simply an example based on my setting; yours will no doubt be different. Next we need to create the Outgoing Setting, Incoming Settings and Registration for Oztell. Elastix Without Tears Page 57 of 298 Outgoing Settings In the Trunk Name, enter the name of this trunk: oztellsip (as an example) In the Peer Details we will need the following; You must enable all the codecs that you want to use through Oztell’s web page. disallow=all allow=ulaw&alaw canredirect=no dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromuser=899060xxxxx host= sip2.syd.net2max.com insecure=very username=899060XXXXX secret=Password type=peer Incoming Settings In the User Context, enter the Oztell User ID: 899060XXXXX In the User Details enter the following: canreinvite=no context=from-trunk fromuser=899060XXXXX insecure=very qualify=no secret=Password type=user username=899060XXXXX Registration In the registration field, enter the following: 899060XXXXX:[email protected]/899060XXXXX After all have been done, click on the Submit Changes button and click on the red bar across the top of the screen. 8.4.3 Oztell (IAX) Since I have IAX trunk with Oztell, I might as well include my Oztell IAX trunk setting here for general information only just in case you also want to set up an IAX trunk. Note* Don’t forget to Forward UDP Port 4569 to your Asterisk IP address and edit your iax.conf file. Outgoing Settings In the Trunk Name, enter the name of this trunk: oztelliax (as an example) In the Peer Details we will need the following; Note: You must enable all the codecs that you want to use through Oztell’s web page. Incoming Settings In the User Context, enter the Oztell User ID: 899060XXXXX In the User Details enter the following: context=from-trunk secret=Password type=user disallow=all allow=ulaw&alaw host=iax2.syd.net2max.com qualify=yes username=899060XXXXX secret=Password type=peer Elastix Without Tears Page 58 of 298 Registration In the registration field, enter the following: 899060XXXXX:[email protected] After all have been done, click on the Submit Changes button and click on the red bar across the top of the screen. The SIP Trunks screen in freePBX will look like the following illustration below: I already have a few trunks setup so please ignore all the other trunks in the illustration. * For more trunk settings, please refer to APPENDIX B Now that you know what the trunk will do, you may proceed to the next chapter to create the Inbound and outbound routes. Elastix Without Tears Page 59 of 298 8.5 CREATE A ZAP TRUNK A ZAP trunk is just another trunk very similar to IAX or SIP trunk except that the telephone calls (traffic) comes and goes through your PSTN line. Normally you will only create ZAP trunks if you are using FXO cards like the TDM400/A400, A1200, X100P/A100P etc. This time when you chose to create a trunk, you will select ZAP trunk. You will then be presented with the following screen. For simplicity, simply do the following in the related fields: Maximum Channels: 1 Dial Rules: XX. ZIP Identifier (Trunk name): 1 (replace the default g0 with 1, or 2 if it is the second channel) Click Submit changes followed by the confirmation bar on top and you are done. Elastix Without Tears Page 60 of 298 9 CALL HANDLING 9.1 INBOUND ROUTES (INCOMING CALLS) This is where the behaviour of incoming calls from all trunks is being handled. When an incoming call from PSTN or VoIP trunk is received, asterisk needs to know where to direct it. It can be directed to a ring group, an extension, Digital Receptionist (IVR) or Queue. For this purpose, Inbound Routes needs to be set up. Select the Inbound Routes selection in the left bar of the screen. Initially, (since we have not created an IVR yet) we will set all incoming calls to be directed to Ring Group 600 as illustrated below (later on in this guide we will create a digital receptionist for this purpose and we will redirect all the incoming calls to the IVR).  As a matter of fact, this can be the only Inbound Route that you will need if you deploy IVR (to be discussed later on). Besides, without this inbound route created, your 7777 simulated calls will not work. You must enter your DID or your user number here if you want this route to be handled individually. This applies to SIP trunks as well. ENTER YOUR ZAP CHANNEL HERE IF YOU USE PSTN TRUNK THROUGH FXO CARDS If you are using freePBX v2.4 or later, you will not have the Zaptel Channel (see arrow in the above illustration). To handle calls coming in through the ZAP channel you will have to define the DID of the channel through the ZAP Channel DID option in freePBX as described in 9.1.1 below. For our purpose, only put in the following data. The rest are optional.      DID Number: Leave blank CID Number: Leave blank Fax Extension: Disabled (I do not require fax facility here) Privacy Manager: No In the radio button, enable Ring Group 11 (AdminGroup). We want all incoming calls to ring the phones in the Admin group (see illustration below). Elastix Without Tears Page 61 of 298 For each extra trunk, a corresponding inbound route may be created (you don’t have to). All incoming calls from all the different trunks that you may have can have their own individual characteristic by judicious deployment of the time condition facility available in FreePBX (to be discussed later on). However, at least one Inbound Route must be created for Elastix to answer incoming calls. This includes calls from PSTN trunk as well. The route that we have created above is precisely for this purpose. This route will handle the calls that come in without Trunk ID and calls from trunks that do not have an Inbound Route created (which includes all calls from PSTN and incorrectly created incoming route). We call this a “Catch-All” route, an Inbound Route with the DID Number and Calling ID Number fields left blank. As usual, you will need to click on the red bar on top of the screen after each time you submit a new Inbound Route. 9.1.1 Inbound Route from ZAP Trunk To handle inbound calls from a ZAP trunk, in freePBX 2.4 and later, is a little fiddly because you need to define your DID (incoming phone number) for each ZAP channel. If there are 4 FXO modules in a TDM400 card, the zap channels will be 1, 2, 3 and 4. Each FXO is a channel (this can be confirmed in Zapata-channels.conf file) and each channel can have a DID assigned to it. This has to be done through the unembedded freePBX (ZAP Channel DIDs option) as Elastix does not provide this facility. Elastix Without Tears Page 62 of 298 The DID that you have defined is the DID number you should use in the DID number field when defining your inbound route (upgrading from earlier version will show the zap channels as zapchan1 or zapchan2 etc. which have been depreciated). 9.2 TIME CONDITIONS You can create various time conditions and use these time conditions in conjunction with your Inbound Route to individualise each of the incoming trunk’s behaviour. From freePBX 2.5 onwards, the time condition needs to be associated with a time group. You can no longer define the time in the Time Condition screen. The initial Time Group needs to be defined in freePBX as Elastix do not have that option on the initial GUI. Alternatively you may create the time condition as illustrated above without the time group and submit the change. Once the changes have been submitted, a link will appear enabling you to go to the time group (see illustration below). Clicking on the link will take you to a screen where you will be able to create the time group that you need. While you are at it, you may as well create all the time groups that you need (see illustration below). Elastix Without Tears Page 63 of 298 You may create several Time Groups and give each of the Time Group a Short Name to identify it. These time groups can then be assigned to each individual time condition that you have created (or will create) and use for the Inbound Route if you choose to do so. 9.2.1 Simple Time Condition Unlike businesses, most private householders, ignore the time condition, instead would prefer to direct all calls to an extension or selected extensions regardless whether it is day or night. If this is the case, you may ignore time condition altogether, instead, use the inbound route to direct your incoming calls to individual extensions or to the digital receptionist. However, if you want to accept calls during the day but prefer callers to simply leave voice messages during the night, below is an example of a simple time condition that you can adopt where the time condition will send the calls to IVR during the hour of 8:00am and 8:00pm and anything outside the stipulated hours, the calls will be directed to your voicemail.        Create a Time Group: o Name the Time Group DayNight o Time to start: 08:00 o Time to finish: 20:00 o Week Day start: Monday o Week Day finish: Sunday o Submit the changes Add a new time condition by selecting PBX Configuration - > Time Condition - > Add time condition. In the Time condition name field, give it a name eg: DayNight (same as the time group for simplicity) Select DayNight for your time group Under Destination if time matches, select IVR (or Core extension or ring group) Under Destination if time does not match, select Core mailbox: eg voicemail box 2001 (if you have voicemail enabled for ext. 2001). Submit and click on the red bar on top of the page. Once the above is done, go to Inbound Route, select the appropriate inbound route and under Set Destination, select Time Condition DayNight, submit and click the red bar on top of the screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 64 of 298 9.2.2 Complex Time Condition A slightly more complex one can also be crafted e.g.: You want to accept calls only between 8:00am till 1:00pm and between 2:00pm and 5:30pm Monday to Friday and any other time you want to direct all the calls to voicemail. 1. Create an OfficeMorning time condition.  Create an OfficeMorning Time Group: o Time to start: 08:00 o Time to finish: 13:00 o Week Day start: Monday o Week Day finish: Friday  Add a new time condition by selecting PBX Configuration - > Time Condition - > Add time condition.  In the Time condition name field, give it a name eg: OfficeMorning  Under Time Group, select OfficeMorning  Under Destination if time matches, select IVR (or extension or ring group)  Under Destination if time does not match, select an extension for the moment. We will need to change this later.  Submit and click on the red bar on top of the page. 2. Add an afternoon time condition  Create an OfficeAfternoon Time Group o Time to start: 14:00 o Time to finish: 17:30 o Week Day start: Monday o Week Day finish: Friday  Add a new time condition by selecting PBX Configuration - > Time Condition - > Add time condition.  In the Time condition name field, give it a name eg: OfficeAfternoon  Under Time Group, select OfficeAfternoon  Under Destination if time matches, select IVR (or extension or ring group)  Under Destination if time does not match, select mailbox: eg voicemail box 2001 (if you have voicemail enabled for ext. 2001).  Submit and click on the red bar on top of the page. 3. Go back to time condition OfficeMorning and change the Destination if time does not match to: Time Condition OfficeAfternoon. Submit and click on the red bar on top of the screen. 4. Once the above is done, go to Inbound Route, select the appropriate inbound route and under Set Destination, select Time Condition OfficeMorning, submit and click the red bar on top of the screen. What the inbound route will do is, as soon as an incoming call is accepted, it will be forwarded to the OfficeMorning time condition. If the time condition is met, it will then be forwarded to the IVR. On the other hand, if it does not match, it will be forwarded to time condition OfficeAfternoon. If it matches the OfficeAfternoon time condition, the call will be forwarded to IVR, if not; it will be forwarded to the voicemail box that you have determined. Following the above example, time conditions can be nested to multiple levels deep allowing you to manage your time condition and make them as complex or as simple as the situation demands – imagination is the only restricting factor. Elastix Without Tears Page 65 of 298 9.3 OUTBOUND ROUTES 9.3.1 What is an Outbound Route? An outbound route works like a traffic cop giving directions to road users to use a predefined route to reach a predefined destination. 9.3.2 How does it work? Every time you dial a number, asterisk will do the following in strict order:    Examine the number you dialled. Compare the number with the pattern that you have defined in your route 1. If matches, it will initiate the call using that trunk. If it does not, it will compare the number with the pattern you have defined with route 2 and so on. Pass the number to the appropriate trunk to make the call. To make an external call (except inter extension calls), you will need at least one trunk and one route.         In this case we will create 5 routes: International Domestic MobileAust OztellOnly The International Route will be used for all international phone calls. The Domestic Route will take care of the Australian phone and mobile. The other two will do as the names suggest. To create a new route using Elastix, select PBX tab and then select the Outbound Routes option from the vertical menu on the left. Click on the Add Route in the menu on the right of the screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 66 of 298 9.3.3 International You will need the following patterns to match international dialing. Pattern 0011|60NXX. 0011|[7-9]XX. 0011|NXX. Explanation Most of our International calls are to Malaysia, I have defined the Malaysian PSTN pattern here. This pattern dials all international numbers by prefixing it with 0011 and any digit between 7 and nine inclusive. Before the number is sent to the trunk the 0011 will be stripped. If required by the trunk, the trunk will insert the 0011. This is the catchall international dialling including International Mobile (excluding USA which is a 1). In your Dial Patterns box, you will see something like this. Dial Patterns 0011|60NXX. 0011|[7-9]XX. 0011|NXX. You will then need to pick the Trunk Sequence. In this case we will use Pennytel as the trunk for this route and if it fails, we will use Oztell as a second choice/backup. Trunk Sequence 0 1 Pennytel Oztell Any number dialled with the 0011 prefix will be routed through the Astratel trunk and should it fail, it will be routed to Pennytel. 9.3.4 Domestic You need the following pattern to match the Australian Telephone numbers and the Australian Mobile numbers. Pattern 0|[23478]XXXXXXXX Explanation You will dial Australian telephone number as normal using 03, 02 prefix but the route will strip the leading 0 before it is sent to the trunk. If the trunk requires the 0, the trunk will insert it. If you dial local number and not use the STD prefix, it will send to the trunk as is and the trunk will insert the 02 if required (this is a NSW pattern. If you are in Victoria you will need to modify the trunk). This is the catchall dialling for numbers that does not start with a 0 such as 1300, 1800, 13 etc. [2-9]XXXXXXX ZXX. In your Dial Patterns box, you will see something like this. Dial Patterns 0|[2378]XXXXXXXX [4689]XXXXXXX ZXX. You will then need to pick the Trunk Sequence. In this case we need Oztell as the trunk for this route and if it fails, we want Pennytel to take over as a second choice/backup. Trunk Sequence 0 1 Oztell Pennytel Elastix Without Tears Page 67 of 298 All numbers dialled matching the above pattern will be routed through Oztell and if it failed, it will be routed via Pennytel. 9.3.5 MobileAust There is only a single pattern for calling Australian mobiles – illustrated below. Dial Patterns 0|4XXXXXXXX We want all my domestic mobile calls to be routed via Pennytel and we have not nominated a second trunk. If it fails then we will not be able to make a Mobile call, as we don’t have a second trunk nominated. Trunk Sequence 0 Pennytel 9.3.6 Oztellonly The following pattern is in the Oztellonly route. We will use Oztell for a number of call types therefore some explanation may be in order. Pattern 0011|601XX. 0|[378]NXXXXXXX 1[38]XX. 899060XX. NXXXXXXX Explanation This pattern will allow me to dial a Malaysian Mobile number. The 0011 will be stripped before the number is sent to Oztell. Oztell does not require the 0011. It only requires the Country code. You will dial Australian telephone number as normal using 03, 02 prefix but the route will strip the leading 0 before it is sent to the trunk. If the trunk requires the 0, the trunk will insert it. This is for dialling 1300, 1800 and 13 numbers. For dialling Oztell inter Oztell users Catchall for dialling a local number that doesn’t start with 1 In the dial pattern box you will see something like the illustration below. Dial Patterns 0011|601XX. 0|[378]NXXXXXXX 1[38]XX. NXXXXXXX Since the above pattern is for Oztell only, in my trunk sequence, Oztell was chosen to be the only trunk for any of these calls. Trunk Sequence 0 Oztell Elastix Without Tears Page 68 of 298 9.4 ENUM ENUM is a way for us to use VOIP to establish calls between VOIP systems without using PSTN even though the numbers called are PSTN numbers provided that the numbers called are registered with ENUM. In short, ENUM offers you the ability to call other telephones directly over the Internet without involving a third party. I will not enter into any elaborate explanation how enum works, as there are already a number of articles describing this. In essence, your phone number and server information are stored in a special DNS zone (very similar to a reverse lookup zone). When an ENUM enabled Asterisk user calls your phone number, it will first attempt to find your phone number in the ENUM DNS zone. If it finds your phone number it will use the information to setup a call directly between his Asterisk server and yours, resorting to PSTN only if your number is not found. Note: ENUM only works between ENUM enabled Asterisk (or other ENUM enabled VOIP) users. 9.4.1 Setting up ENUM Trunk 1. Click the Add Enum Trunk link. 2. In the Outbound Caller ID field enter your callerid information in the format of "Your Name" <61246123456> (Including the quotes), assuming your telephone number in Sydney is 0246123456. 3. On the outgoing Dial Rule enter 612+NXXXXXXX (for local calls without having to dial the 02) 4. On the second line enter 61+NXXXXXXXX (for dialling Australian numbers where you need to dial the prefix (eg. 03) 5. On the next line enter ZXXXXXXXX. (Including the dot) for dialling International numbers – see example below: 6. Click the Submit Changes button at the bottom of the page 7. Click the Apply Configuration Change at the top of the page. 9.4.2 Setting up ENUM Outbound Route 1. Click the Outbound Routes link on the left hand side. Elastix Without Tears Page 69 of 298 2. To create a new route, click on Add Route – the top option on the right side of the screen. 3. Name the route eNUM. 4. We will to use the prefix 164 to force dial through ENUM 5. In the Dial Pattern, on the first line, we insert 1640|[378]NXX. This will allow us to dial an STD number such as 0732123456 by dialling 1640732123456 where only the 732123456 will be sent to the ENUM trunk. 6. On the second line we insert 1640011|NXX. This will allow us to call an International number eg. To call Malaysia we will dial 16400116062861234 and only the 6062861234 will be sent to the ENUM trunk. 7. On the third line I have 164|NXX. This enables me to dial NSW local number without having to dial 02. 8. Make the ENUM trunk the first route in your Trunk Sequence. You may also add other trunks in the sequence in case ENUM failed. 9. Click the Submit Changes button at the bottom of the page. 10. Click the Apply Configuration Change at the top of the page. 11. You may try calling someone while monitoring Asterisk CLI and you should see the Enumlookup scroll by. Click here for a Step-by-Step instruction on how to set up an ENUM account. Elastix Without Tears Page 70 of 298 10 CUSTOM CONTEXTS MODULE The custom contexts module currently is a beta module that must be manually installed. First a brief description of what custom contexts does (version 0.3.3): Custom Contexts creates contexts that can be used to allow limited access to dial-plan applications. Features:       Allows for time restrictions on any dialplan access. Allows for pattern matching to allow/deny. Allows for failover destinations, and PIN protected failover. This can be very useful for multi-tenant systems. Inbound routing can be done using DID or zap channel routing, this module allows for selective outbound routing. Phones can be placed in a restricted context allowing them only internal calls. More info: http://aussievoip.com.au/wiki/freePBX-CustomContexts 10.1 DOWNLOADING AND UNPACKING MODULE. Login on the Elastix box manually as user root and do the following: : cd /var/www/html/admin/modules wget http://www.freepbx.org/trac/attachment/ticket/1447/customcontexts0.3.3.tgz?format=raw mv customcontexts-0.3.3.tgz?format=raw customcontexts-0.3.3.tgz tar -xzvf customcontexts-0.3.3.tgz rm -f customcontexts-0.3.3.tgz 10.2 INSTALLING CUSTOM CONTEXT MODULE On the Elastix web interface, click on the PBX, Unembedded freePBX. Default Login/Password is admin/admin On entering freePBX, select the following: Elastix Without Tears Page 71 of 298 Admin Tab  Module admin  Custom Contexts (as per the illustration below). At this stage, you will notice that Custom Contexts is not installed. Select Install and click on Process. Confirm you action by clicking on the confirm button Click on the orange bar to complete the installation. Elastix Without Tears Page 72 of 298 10.3 ADD AND CONFIGURE NEW CUSTOM CONTEXT Add New custom Context: Admin  Setup  Custom Context To edit the custom-context, only select: Allow or Deny each context. To control any outbound call, select the route and from this selection, select Allow or Deny. Elastix Without Tears Page 73 of 298 10.4 APPLY A CUSTOM CONTEXT TO EXTENSION. To finish, you use the custom context on Edit Extensions, Device Options. Reference http://aussievoip.com.au/wiki/freePBX-CustomContexts http://www.elastix.org/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=27&id=installation#first_time_access_to_the_w eb_interface Elastix Without Tears Page 74 of 298 11 SYSTEM RECORDINGS System recording is a facility available under freePBX to enable the recording of customised voice prompts etc. By now we should be able to navigate ourselves through the freePBX menu. To get to the system recordings, select the PBX Configuration tab and pick System Recordings as per the illustration below. Clicking on the System recording label as highlighted by the red arrow will open the following “System Recordings” screen. There are two methods that you can capture your recording:   By recording directly using your telephone Uploading pre-recorded material 11.1 DIRECT RECORDING Enter the extension number of the mouthpiece that you will be using to record your message in the appropriate field. You will be making your recording using the telephone on this extension (or the microphone of the softphone). Click Go. Follow the prompt on the screen and dial *77 on your phone to do your recording now. In my message, I have asked one of the receptionists to record the following: Elastix Without Tears Page 75 of 298 “Hi, you have reached the Family Health Centre. Press 1 for Reception, 2 for the Centre’s Manager, 3 for Dr. Roberts, 4 for Dr. Forbes, 5 for Dr. Wong, 6 for the Admin Office, 7 for Lab and X-Ray or you may simply hold and your call will be answered by one of our available receptionists. If no one answers your call, please leave a message”. Then hang up. Verify the recording by dialling *99. Go to step 1 again if you are not happy with the recording. Keep doing this till you are satisfied. Once you are happy with the recording, give the recording a descriptive name e.g. “MainMenu” so you will know what the recording is for. Click Save. 11.2 UPLOAD PRE-RECORDED MATERIAL If you have a recording that you have prepared in a .wav format you can simply upload that recording by browsing you local hard drive, locating the file that you want to upload and upload it to Elastix. Follow the prompt for the upload and once again when the upload is completed, give the file a descriptive name for you to know what that recording is for. Elastix Without Tears Page 76 of 298 The above recorded files either recorded manually or uploaded using the system recording facility will be stored in the /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom directory. Elastix Without Tears Page 77 of 298 12 DIGITAL RECEPTIONIST Like most organisation, where possible, we would like to automate the redirecting of all incoming calls. The digital receptionist is very handy for these sorts of things. Unless the calls are non-specific and will need the assistance of the receptionist (in our case also the operator), the system should allow callers to make the selection. 12.1 SETTING UP DIGITAL RECEPTIONIST In the PBX Configuration tab, click on the IVR option and you will get the following screen. Click on the Add IVR option on the top right on the screen (see arrow) and the new Unnamed IVR configuration screen will be presented to you. We will then fill in the following fields: Name (Change Name): MainOffice (that’s what we shall called the main menu) Timeout: 10 (leave it at default) Enable Directory: Tick Directory Context: Leave it at Default Enable Direct Dial: Tick Announcement: MainOfficeMenu (That’s what we called the IVR recording that was made for this purpose) (See illustration below) Elastix Without Tears Page 78 of 298 Then proceed to enter the selection options that you require for this IVR when the caller presses the appropriate option. If you need more choice options in the IVR, click on the Increase Options button at the bottom of the screen. In this IVR, we have defined our requirement as outlined below: For number 1 - 7, we select Extension, and for 8, which we have changed to the letter “t”, we also selected Extension. For 1, we will select the Reception (Extension 3000). For 2, select 3001, which is the Manager’s extension. For 3, select Dr. Roberts (Extension 3002) For 4, select Dr. Forbes For 5, select Dr. Wong For 6, select Admin Office For 7, select Lab and X-Ray For 8, (which we shall change to “t”) select extension 3000, which is the reception. The last extension (which we have changed to the letter “t”) is to capture timeout, if the caller does not press any option or, in case the DTMF tone does not register, the call will be sent to the receptionist. Once finished, click Save and also click on the Apply Configuration Changes on the top of the screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 79 of 298 Test it by dialling 7777, (Asterisk will simulate an incoming call) and you will hear your Digital receptionist in action. Elastix Without Tears Page 80 of 298 12.2 MULTI-LANGUAGE IVR (This is included in this section as an example only and is not part of this tutorial. However you can try this if you want to). Elastix allows multi languages IVR handling by simply telling Elastix what language to use. Naturally you will need to install all the language sets that you wish to use. See Installing Other Languages in the chapter referring to Customised Voice in later part of this document. 12.2.1 Create Multi Languages IVR I am assuming that you already have your MainMenu IVR in English set up for selecting various options. If you haven’t done so, lets rename this IVR to MainMenu_EN. You will also need to create an IVR called MainMenu_ES with options to be presented in Spanish. This is similar to your MainMenu_EN except that it is presented to the caller in Spanish 12.2.2 Define Language Codes Before you go any further, you will have to define the various languages that you will be using. To do this you will need to choose the following options from Elastix PBX TAB: PBX Configuration - - > Unembedded freePBX Once you are in freePBX, select the Languages option from the vertical menu on the left-hand side. You will enter the following screen. This is where you define your languages codes. The example above shows that I have defined the Spanish code where the following fields were populated: Description: Spanish Language Code: es The destination for this code will be IVR: MainMenu_ES You will need to do the same for the English language code. Description: English Language Code: en The destination for this code will be IVR: MainMenu_EN Elastix Without Tears Page 81 of 298 12.2.3 Create Language Choice IVR You will need to create another IVR for selecting the language options that you want to present to the callers. This will be the IVR that will greet all callers with Select 1 for English, 2 for Italian etc. In this example, we will have 2 language sets, Australian and Spanish. Let us name this second IVR LanguageChoice. This will be the first IVR that will greet all callers. In LanguageChoice, we will have 3 options.    Select 1 for English (presented in English) Select 2 for Spanish (preferably presented in Spanish so the Spanish speaking caller can understand it). The third option is unannounced as it will be the time out option represented by the letter “t”. This option is the option the IVR will default to if no choice is made or if the caller’s DTMF tone is not recognised by Elastix. In choice 1, select the Languages radio button and from the dropdown choice, select English. In choice 2, select the Languages radio button and from the dropdown choice, select Spanish. The third choice, instead of a number, you will enter the letter “t” in the option box, select IVR radio button and from the dropdown choice, select MainMenu_EN (if your callers are mainly English speaking or you can select MainMenu_ES if the majority of your callers are Spanish speaking). 12.2.4 Change inbound route Now you will need to change your inbound route to point to the LanguageChoice IVR. All calls will then be greeted by the LanguageChoice IVR and when the caller select 1 (or 2), the IVR will call the appropriate exten. If the caller selected 1, point it to the Language option English and the MainMenu_EN will be selected as defined in the Define Language Code section above and the language will be set to English or Spanish if you pointed to MainMenu_ES (Naturally, you must also have recorded the call options announcement in the various languages). Save it and re-read the configuration change and you are done. Elastix Without Tears Page 82 of 298 12.3 MULTI-TENANTS IVR (This is included in this section as an example only and is not part of this tutorial. However you can use this if you want to). While freePBX is a very versatile GUI front-end for Elastix it does not have the facility to configure a PBX for multi-Tenants application. However, Elastix (Asterisk) has the ability to do it with a little creative manipulation. In the chapter above we covered multi languages IVR handling by simply telling Elastix what language to use. We are going to use the same principal to handle the MultiTenants requirement. In this example, I will use a Medical Centre in Malaysia, that I have the privilege of installing the Asterisk PABX for. There are 3 tenants involved – a General Practitioner, a Dental Practitioner and a Pathology representative. Each has separate incoming telephone numbers with their own receptionist but using a common PABX. I have picked this organisation as an example because it is small enough to write about. If I choose one of my bigger installations, this book will never see the light of day  The main requirements are pretty straightforward:    Calls that come in through the different tenants should be directed to the appropriate IVR. One IVR for each tenant. 12 extensions - 4 for Dental Practitioner, 3 for Radiologist and 5 for General Practitioners. Voicemail for each receptionist. There are other requirements such as multi language prompts, after-hours ring groups, time conditions, Interlinking 2 Elastix boxes between the Medical Centre and the Pathology Main Office in Kuala Lumpur etc., but I have only listed the major requirements. In this example I will only highlight the Multi-Tenants incoming route handling and restricting outgoing calls to the appropriate telephone lines only. My first task was to install the base Elastix as per the chapter on Installation. In this installation, there is no VOIP trunk involved. All telephone communications are through PSTN lines apart from the Elastix inter-connect between the Medical Centre and the Pathology Main Office in Kuala Lumpur, which will be done via a DSL connection. PSTN Interface 2 x TDM400 were installed in the PC designated for the PBX    3 ports allocated to the General Practitioners (ports 1-3) 3 ports allocated to Dental (ports 4-6) and 2 ports allocated for Pathology (ports 7-8). IVR Prompts 3 x IVR were created, one for each of the different tenant.    MedicalIVR DentalIVR PathoIVR Each IVR will act as a traffic cop to direct calls to the appropriate extensions belonging to each tenant. Elastix Without Tears Page 83 of 298 Inbound Routings  ZAP channels 1,2 and 3 (3 PSTN numbers for GP) routed to MedicalIVR  ZAP channels 4,5 and 6 (3 PSTN numbers for Dentist) routed to DentalIVR  ZAP channel 7 and 8 (2 PSTN numbers for the Pathology representative) routed to PathoIVR Extensions 1. Extensions 2000 to 2004 allocated to GP      2000 for Receptionist/Clerk with voicemail 2001 for Doctor A 2002 for Doctor B 2003 for Surgery Room 2004 for Dispensary Change the context of these extensions, from [from-internal] to [from-internal-medical] 2. Extensions 3000 to 3003 allocated to Dental     3000 for receptionist/clerk with voicemail 3001 for Dentist A 3002 for Dentist B 3003 Spare extension Change the context of these extensions, from [from-internal] to [from-internal-dental] 3. Extensions 4000 to 4002 allocated to Pathology    4000 for receptionist/clerk with voicemail 4001 for Radiographer 4002 for Assistant Change the context of these extensions, from [from-internal] to [from-internal-pathology] Outbound Calls Handling context Create 3 different call handling contexts in the extensions_custom.conf configuration file.    [from-Internal-medical] [from-internal-dental] [from-internal-pathology] The purpose of these contexts is to restrict extensions belonging to each tenant to be confined to telephone lines belonging to that particular tenant when making external calls. See How to restrict outgoing calls in the Calls Handling Notes chapter of this document. You also install the Custom Context Module and use this module to do this. Actually it is much simpler using the custom context module. All of the basic set up requirements above are explained in the various chapters of this book and should not present any difficulty to complete. Once the basic is completed, the rest of the variations and extras can be handled as per the individual requirement. Elastix Without Tears Page 84 of 298 13 CHECK YOUR SYSTEM STATUS The following are some basic steps for you to do – at least to ensure that your installation is running correctly and is registered to the appropriate VSP before you start doing anything more adventurous. First you must ensure that asterisk is well and running or you may not be able to make or receive any call. If all processes are running then your battle is half won. We can do the initial checking through unembedded freePBX. Click on the PBX Tab then click on the Unembedded freePBX option as shown in the illustration below. . The freePBX system status screen will be displayed. The server status should all display OK and green as illustrated above. If any of the four services aren’t running, chances are something is wrong and your Elastix will not be working correctly or not working at all. A probable cause can be wrong configuration of your zaptel drivers. If you don’t have a zaptel devise, you should try to disable the related .conf files. Ensure that the minimum requirements have been met. If the minimum requirements and the right type of hardware requirements have been met, and yet it is still not working, then maybe its time to start the installation again. Next, while on the freePBX screen, Tools  Asterisk info  Full Report. Elastix Without Tears Page 85 of 298 When presented with the full report page, scroll down to the SIP (or IAX if you are using IAX) section and ensure that you are registered to your trunks. You will only be able to make and receive external calls – hopefully - if you are registered. See illustration below. If all trunks are registered, you can be almost certain that at the very least, your Elastix installation is working (although not necessarily that you can make or receive calls). In the majority of cases, if you have done everything as described in the preceding chapters, the chances of your installation working are pretty good. However there are always times when you think that the weather is going to be fine and yet you are pelted by a thunderstorm. If you are not able to make or receive calls, the most common causes are Trunk Registrations, the choice of Codec, Routings, and Dialling rules errors. Elastix Without Tears Page 86 of 298 Routings and Dialling rules are something that needs to be thought out logically with no simple way of determining, as different people has different requirements and different VSP have different dialling rules. Elastix Without Tears Page 87 of 298 14 INTERFACING ASTERISK TO PSTN Interfacing PSTN to Elastix can be done through various methods, as there are various interfaces available for this purpose depending if you are using POTS or ISDN. For most people, interfacing PSTN to Elastix mean connecting the POTS line to the box therefore in this document we will touch on this method. Generally there are 2 ways of doing this – using an ATA or using interface cards such as the OpenVox A100P and the A400P (there are other cards out there). If you are using the interface card, it has to be physically installed in the PC. 14.1 DETECTING NEW HARDWARE Once the card is installed, fire up Elastix and make sure the card is detected. To do this, select the following: System  Hardware Detection In the following screen, click on Detect New Hardware. hardware installed. Elastix will then detect the A100P card installed A400P with 2 FXO and 1 FXS modules installed Elastix Without Tears Page 88 of 298 14.1.1 Changes for ZAPTEL users A new issue has raised its ugly head since Elastix 0.9. While the Hardware Detection will detect your FXO card, asterisk will not be able to use this hardware for incoming and outgoing calls. This is due to the zapata-channels.conf was not included in the zapata.conf. (Note: Ignore this issue if you are using the latest Elastix or using DAHDI instead of ZAPTEL) To remedy this, you have to add the following lines at the end of zapata.conf if it is not already there. #include zapata-channels.conf #include zapata_additional.conf You may also need to edit another file /usr/sbin/genzaptelconf and add the following line in to overcome the ZAP channel handling difficulties that many people are experiencing (the latest version of Elastix is using DAHDI and this file is no longer relevant). # If set: no context changes are made in zapata-channels.conf #context_manual=yes context_lines=from-pstn # context into which PSTN calls go context_phones=from-internal # context for internal phones calls. context_lines=from-zaptel < ---- add this line Reboot after this is done. 14.1.2 Changes for DAHDI Users DAHDI users need to edit the .conf file etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf and if needed to add the following line to overcome the ZAP channel handling difficulties that many people are experiencing where calls that come through the PSTN line cannot be selectively directed to specific destinations. Attention should also be given to etc/asterisk/dahdi_channels.conf. chan_dahdi.conf Please take note of the following changes and suggestions for chan_dahdi.conf. [trunkgroups] [channels] ;context=from-pstn < --- comment out this line context=from-zaptel < --- add this line signalling=fxs_ks rxwink=300 ; Atlas seems to use long (250ms) winks usecallerid=yes useincommingcalleridonzaptransfer=yes < --- add this line if required hidecallerid=no callwaiting=yes usecallingpres=yes language=au ;(default is us) < -- Add this line for Australian user dahdi_channels.conf In dahdi_channels.conf, ensure that context=from-zaptel appears in all the fxo channels as illustrated below. ; Autogenerated by /usr/sbin/dahdi_genconf on Sat Apr 18 14:18:44 2009 -- do not hand edit ; Dahdi Channels Configurations (chan_dahdi.conf) ; Elastix Without Tears Page 89 of 298 ; This is not intended to be a complete chan_dahdi.conf. Rather, it is intended ; to be #include-d by /etc/chan_dahdi.conf that will include the global settings ; ; Span 1: WCTDM/4 "Wildcard TDM400P REV E/F Board 5" (MASTER) ;;; line="1 WCTDM/4/0 FXSKS (EC: OSLEC)" signalling=fxs_ks callerid=asreceived useincommingcalleridonzaptransfer=yes group=0 context=from-zaptel channel => 1 callerid= group= context=default ;;; line="2 WCTDM/4/1 FXSKS (EC: OSLEC)" signalling=fxs_ks callerid=asreceived useincommingcalleridonzaptransfer=yes group=0 context=from-zaptel channel => 2 callerid= group= context=default ;;; line="3 WCTDM/4/2 FXOKS signalling=fxo_ks callerid="Channel 3" <4003> mailbox=4003 group=5 context=from-internal channel => 3 callerid= mailbox= group= context=default (EC: OSLEC)" 14.2 A100P FXO PCI CARD Digium does not make the X100P card any longer, but there are many X100P compatible in the market – some good and some not so good. The cards I am using are the A100P from Openvox. The 3 A100Ps I use for testings and POCs (in different boxes of course) have been working flawlessly for the last 7 months; unfortunately, since Asterisk no longer will be supporting this types of card officially, Openvox has stopped its production. This card allows you to connect a POTS (plain Old Telephone System) line to your Asterisk box. OpenVox A100P Card Elastix Without Tears Page 90 of 298 14.3 CREATE A ZAP TRUNK Next, if you have an A100P, A400P or TDM400 with 1 FXO module, go into the freePBX web interface to create a trunk and you will notice that there is already a trunk called ZAP/g0. You need to edit this. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Enter the phone number for you pots line in the Caller ID field Enter 1 for Maximum channels Set a dial rule you want for this trunk Select an outbound dial prefix to select this trunk when dialling Set the Zap Identifier to 1 (replace the default g0 with 1) Once the card is configured, you must add a route for Incoming Calls or asterisk will not answer this line Click on Incoming Calls in freePBX and set up an incoming route. To make outbound calls you will need to set an outbound route as well. You may need to edit the following files zapata.conf, zapata-channels.conf, zaptel.conf and modprobe.conf. The last 2 files live in the /etc directory – use a text editor (I use nano) to edit them. 14.3.1 zapata.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) Under [channels] change the following lines to reflect the following values: [channels] context=from-zaptel < --- changed from context = from-pstn busydetect=yes busycount=6 ; This is to ensure that the line is hung up if there is no answer or busy after 6 busy tones) ;echotraining = yes <--- make sure this is commented out ;echotraining = 800 <--- make sure this is commented out At the bottom of this file ensure that the following 2 lines exist if not add the following (otherwise your ZAP will not work): #include zapata-channels.conf #include zapata_additional.conf Elastix Without Tears Page 91 of 298 For my A100P (for A400P or TDM400, you may have other values that will work well for your installation) installation to function correctly, I have also changed the following setting to obtain a good compromise on volume/echoing: rxgain=4 A400P) txgain=2 A400P) (you may have to experiment with this setting for both A100P and (you may have to experiment with this setting for both A100P and 14.3.2 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) Ensure the following exist in zapata-channels.conf. It is located at the end of the file. context=from-zaptel ; ( change context=from-pstn to context=from-zaptel) group=0 channel => 1 Check it for each channel. Leave the rest of the file as it is. 14.3.3 zaptel.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) This file is in the /etc directory. Change the loadzone and defaultzone to “au” (if you are in Australia. Other countries have different identifiers. # Global data loadzone = au ;(For Australia, yours may be different. Default is us) defaultzone = au ;(that’s for Australia, yours may be different) For DAHDI users, these changes can be made in /etc/dahdi/system.conf. 14.3.4 Changes for DAHDI users For DAHDI users, all the changes that may be required in the sub chapters above may be done in etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf. 14.4 OPENVOX A400P FXO/FXS CARD Like the Digium X100P, this card allows you to connect a POTS (plain Old Telephone System) line to your ELASTIX box. Unlike the X100P or OpenVox A100P, this card has 4 module ports that can be loaded with FXS or FXO modules. Channel 1 is the top RJ-45 on the back of the TDM400P card. The illustration below is the OpenVox A400P card and 2 fxo modules. This card is 100% compatible with the Digium TDM400 and is very reliable. Elastix Without Tears Page 92 of 298 14.4.1 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) Next, using config edit, look in the zapata-channels.conf file and you will see a list of all your channels in your A400P. Set up the trunks as trunks and the extensions as extensions in freePBX. For your information only, when you open the file, it will look something like the illustration below. For DAHDI users this information is found in etc/asterisk/dahdi_channels.conf. ; Autogenerated by /usr/local/sbin/genzaptelconf -- do not hand edit ; Zaptel Channels Configurations (zapata.conf) ; ; This is not intended to be a complete zapata.conf. Rather, it is intended ; to be #include-d by /etc/zapata.conf that will include the global settings ; ; Span 1: WCTDM/0 "Wildcard TDM400P REV E/F Board 1" (MASTER) ;;; line="1 WCTDM/0/0" signalling=fxs_ks callerid=asreceived group=0 context=from-zaptel channel => 1 context=default ;;; line="2 WCTDM/0/1" signalling=fxs_ks callerid=asreceived group=0 context=from-zaptel channel => 2 context=default ;;; line="3 WCTDM/0/2" If in the illustration it shows channel 1 is your Zap extension then add a zap extension for channel 1 in Elastix or freePBX and if it shows your Zap trunk is channel 2 you should create a zap trunk for channel 2 in Elastix or freePBX. Once this is done, reboot your PC and when Asterisk starts, use the GUI to add a route for incoming calls or asterisk will not answer your trunk. Similarly, to make outbound calls you will need an outbound route. Set them up as per setting up routes in the earlier chapters of this document. If you have this card installed, you may need to edit the following files: zapata.conf and zaptel.conf as per the A100P card in the previous section. 14.4.2 modprobe.conf You may need to edit the /etc/modprobe.conf to add the necessary option for usage in Australia (don’t bother doing it for A100P or X100P as it will have no effect). You may use nano or WinSCP3 to edit /etc/modprobe.conf. Simply add the line in red at the bottom of the file as illustrated below. alias eth0 natsemi alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0 options snd-card-0 index=0 install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0 && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || : remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0 Elastix Without Tears Page 93 of 298 alias usb-controller uhci-hcd options wctdm opermode=AUSTRALIA (If you happen to be using the newer crop of Digium TDM410P, the swich will be options wctdm24xxp opermode=AUSTRALIA). Once this is done, execute the following command. modprobe wctdm Reboot if there is no error, reboot To ensure that you have the right mode operating, do the following at the command line: grep "AUTO FXO" /var/log/messages or dmesg You should see something like this: Mar 10 13:30:09 asterisk1 kernel: Module 0: Installed -- AUTO FXO (AUSTRALIA mode) Mar 10 13:30:09 asterisk1 kernel: Module 1: Installed -- AUTO FXO (AUSTRALIA mode) Mar 10 13:30:09 asterisk1 kernel: Module 2: Installed -- AUTO FXO (AUSTRALIA mode) Mar 10 13:30:09 asterisk1 kernel: Module 3: Installed -- AUTO FXO (AUSTRALIA mode) If you see an FCC mode then you will have an impedance mismatch. Note for TDM410 users As suggested in /usr/share/doc/zaptel-1.4.12.1/README, users of TDM410 should be using the file wctdm24xxp instead of wctdm.  As of Zaptel Drivers 1.2.4, by selecting opermode=AUSTRALIA the zaptel drivers automatically add the "boostringer=1, fxshonormode=1". 14.5 IS THE A100P/A400P RECOGNISED BY ZAPTEL At the command line, run lspci and amongst others, you should see the following; 00:09.0 Communication controller: Motorola Wildcard X100P Determine if there is any conflict with other PCI hardware. If there is, you probably will need to replace or use another motherboard. If there is no conflict, then you will have to re-detect the card. Once done, run zttool on the command line to ensure the card is functioning. To confirm that zaptel is actually running, after reboot, log in to Asterisk and at the command prompt issue the following command to configure zaptel. genzaptelconf -d -s -M -F Then issue the following command; modprobe wcfxo Elastix Without Tears Page 94 of 298 If there is no error then your card has been detected. Prove it by issue the following command: dmesg You should see the following in amongst the messages; wcfxo: DAA mode is 'FCC' Found a Wildcard FXO: Wildcard X100P After that restart amportal just to be doubly sure Amportal restart. anyway) (genzaptelconf –d –s –M -F above should have restart the card Using your browser on another PC, connect to ELASTIX and using the Asterisk Info option on unembedded freePBX, check to see if zaptel or DAHDI is loaded. Chances are, Zaptel will be found. 14.6 CALLER ID (CID) USING ZAP DEVICE The illusive CID has been a talking point and hair pulling exercise for many users. It has always been the case of “I have my ZAP trunk working fine but it is not sending the CID to my Softphone or SIP Phone”. The simple answers to this:  In Australia, for you to get Caller ID is actually having to apply to your Telco to have it activated on your line – this is not activated by default by your Telco (Optus or Telstra). If caller ID is not activated on your line, you will not get CID. If you already have caller ID activated and still don’t get caller ID, it’s time to have a look at the ZAP configuration file. Typically you may have to look at zapata.conf and/or zapata-channels.conf.  Naturally if you are using an X100P clone for your FXO, the following exercise will probably be futile as the X100P, even at the best of time will probably not handle the CID properly. However if you are using a more substantial device such as the A400P or TDM400, then this may possibly help you towards getting the CID passed correctly. (caveat: This solution may not necessarily work for your installation but you have nothing to loose if you try) A participant (Shane B) in the Whirlpool Forum provided the solution below that will correctly pass the CID to Asterisk and your telephones: You may need to set the following switches in your zapata.conf and/or zapatachannels.conf. 14.6.1 zapata.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) Elastix Without Tears Page 95 of 298 usecallingpres=yes callwaitingcallerid=yes threewaycalling=yes usecallerid=yes hidecallerid=no relaxdtmf=yes adsi=yes ;echotraining = yes < --- need to be commented out ;echotraining = 800 < --- need to be commented out sendcalleridafter=2 ;you may need to add this switch – sends caller ID to fxs port (extension) hanguponpolarityswitch = yes (may have to ask your telco for the polarity reversal) 14.6.2 zapata-channels.conf (for ZAPTEL users only) The following switches may need to be added to the existing ones. useincommingcalleridonzaptransfer=yes After the above are done, restart Elastix: If you are lucky, it should work. If not, you haven’t really lost anything apart from the CID. 14.7 SIPURA SPA3000/SPA3102 AS A PSTN INTERFACE To those new to the SPA3000/SPA3102, there is a simplified installation and configuration instruction by JMG Technology. While it is directed mainly at standalone ATA users, it gives a good insight of the Sipura SPA3000/SPA3102’s capabilities. I have come across a few people in the various forums wanting to use their Sipura SPA3000s as FXO front-end to their ELASTIX boxes. To help them in their endeavours, I've put the following together, as no one single source of information that I've found so far has a config that would actually work for me. 14.7.1 Log in to SPA3000/SPA3102 Login to your SPA-3000/SPA3102 as admin/advanced. Before you change anything, I'd suggest taking a snapshot (i.e. just save the .html page) of your current SPA3000/SPA3102 configuration, just in case you ever need to refer back to your own customisations. If you're not already running the latest SPA3000/SPA3102 firmware, then upgrade it to the latest version. Take another snapshot for good measure. Nothing should have changed in your settings, except that you have a few extra options that you didn't have before. Now reset SPA-3000/SPA3102 back to factory defaults, because I'm only going to list the minimum changes required to keep things simple. Take another snapshot now too, in case you ever want to know what the defaults were. 14.7.2 Change the settings Ensure that you have set your SPA3102 in the Bridge Mode (SPA3102 users). System tab DHCP: No Static IP: something on your local subnet e.g.; 192.168.1.200 NetMask: 255.255.255.0 Elastix Without Tears Page 96 of 298 Gateway: your router's IP address e.g.; 192.168.1.254 Primary DNS: your ISP's primary DNS address e.g.; 203.12.160.35 Secondary DNS: your ISP's secondary DNS address e.g.; 203.12.160.36 Regional tab Dial Tone: 400@-19,425@-19;10(*/0/1+2) Busy Tone: 425@-10;10(.4/.4/1) Reorder Tone: 425@-10;10(.2/.2/1) Ring Back Tone: 400@-19,425@-19,450@-19;*(.4/.2/1+2+3,.4/.2/1+2+3,0/2/0) Ring 1 Cadence: 60(1.5/3.4) Ring 3 Cadence: 60(1.5/3.4,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/. 2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2,.4/.2,.4/2) CWT8 Cadence: 30(.2/.2,.2/4.4) Hook Flash Timer Min: .07 Hook Flash Timer Max: .13 FXS Port Impedance: 220+820||120nF  Line 1 tab Delete all the Vertical Service Activation Codes. Proxy: IP address of your Asterisk box e.g.; 192.168.1.100 Register Expires: 60 Display Name: Whatever User ID: Asterisk extension number e.g.; 2000 Password: password for that extension Silence Threshold: medium DTMF Tx Method: INFO Hook Flash Tx Method: INFO Dial Plan: (**|*xx|000|0011xxxxxxxx.|0[23478]xxxxxxxx|09xxxxxx|1100 |122[135]|1222xxxxxxx|12510[12]|12554|1[38]00xxxxxx|13[1-9]xxx |2xx|393xxxxxx|3xxxx.|[4689]xxxxxxx|899060xxxxx.) for example (**|*xx.|x.) will work, but I like to do a bit of sanity checking, etc. PSTN Line tab (method 1) Proxy: IP address of your Asterisk box e.g.; 192.168.1.100 Register: no Make Call Without Reg: yes Ans Call Without Reg: yes Display Name: No name User ID: PSTN Password: password Silence Supp Enable: no Echo Canc Enable: no Echo Canc Adapt Enable: no Echo Supp Enable: no FAX CED Detect Enable: yes FAX CNG Detect Enable: yes FAX Passthru Codec: G711u FAX Codec Symmetric: no FAX Passthru Method: None DTMF Tx Method: INFO FAX Process NSE: no Dial Plan 1: (S0<:0298765432>) for example - it could be your phone number VoIP Caller Default DP: none PSTN Ring Thru Line 1: no PSTN CID For VoIP CID: yes PSTN Answer Delay: 2 PSTN Ring Thru Delay: 3 Elastix Without Tears Page 97 of 298 PSTN Ring Timeout: 4 PSTN Hook Flash Len: .1 Disconnect Tone: 425@-30,425@-30;1(.375/.375/1+2) FXO Port Impedance: 220+820||120nF On-Hook Speed: 26ms (Australia) Using method 1 above, it will be necessary for you to create an inbound route using the 0298765432 (or whatever you have defined) as your inbound route DID number. As this incoming call is identified by the (S0<:0298765432>) in the dial plan 1 setting of your SPA3000, this can be directed to any extension by the inbound route. PSTN Line tab (method 2) Proxy: IP address of your Asterisk box e.g.; 192.168.1.100 Register: no Make Call Without Reg: yes Ans Call Without Reg: yes Display Name: No name User ID: PSTN Password: leave blank Silence Supp Enable: no Echo Canc Enable: no Echo Canc Adapt Enable: no Echo Supp Enable: no FAX CED Detect Enable: yes FAX CNG Detect Enable: yes FAX Passthru Codec: G711u FAX Codec Symmetric: no FAX Passthru Method: None DTMF Tx Method: INFO FAX Process NSE: no Dial Plan 1:(S0<:s@YourAsteriskIP>) e.g. (S0<:[email protected]) VoIP Caller Default DP: none PSTN Ring Thru Line 1: no PSTN CID For VoIP CID: yes PSTN Answer Delay: 2 PSTN Ring Thru Delay: 3 PSTN Ring Timeout: 4 PSTN Hook Flash Len: .1 Disconnect Tone: 425@-30,425@-30;1(.390/.390/1+2) FXO Port Impedance: 220+820||120nF On-Hook Speed: 26ms (Australia)  Disconnect Tone setting of 425@-30,425@-30;1(.375/.375/1+2) work well for Telstra, while 425@-30,425@-30;1(.390/.390/1+2) works better with Optus. Using method 2 above, you are not required to create an inbound route as the call is directed directly to asterisk and will be handled by the any DID / any CID catch all inbound route. Through this route, you can direct it to your IVR or any extension you like. This method is simpler if you only have one SPA3000/SPA3102, however if you are using multiple SPA3000/SPA3102, method 1 is the recommended method. User 1 tab Default Ring: 3 Default CWT: 8 14.7.3 Add SIP Trunk Then in freePBX, add a SIP trunk. Elastix Without Tears Page 98 of 298 General Settings: Outbound Caller ID: <0298765432> (for example) Maximum Channels: 1 Dial Rules: 0+NXXXXXXXX (for example) 0011+ZXXXXXXXXXX. Trunk Name: telstra (for example) Peer Details: canreinvite=no context=from-pstn host=the IP address of your SPA-3000/SPA3102 (for example; 192.168.1.200) insecure=very nat=no port=5061 (for example) qualify=yes type=peer username=PSTN User Context: telstra-incoming (for example) User Details: canreinvite=no context=from-pstn host=the IP address of your SPA-3000/SPA3102 (for example; 192.168.1.200) insecure=very nat=no port=5061 for example type=user username=PSTN Leave "Register String" empty 14.7.4 SPA3000/SPA3102 as an outbound PSTN Trunk To make PSTN calls using the SPA3000/SPA3102 you simply select the SPA3000/SPA3102 trunk, which you have named Telstra (see trunk name that you have given to this trunk above) as the first choice in your outbound route. Also see Eliminating echo problems in Appendix E.1 in Sipura SPA-3000/SPA3102 14.7.5 What if I use SPA3102 in Europe (Thanks George) If you have bought your SPA3102 from Europe and you are using it in Europe, these are the Basic Instructions for SPA3102 1) Add an extension for your SPA i) Go to extensions and make a new extension for SPA3102 FXS. Example configuration: -Extension number: 230 (number it yourself) -Display name: 230 (name it yourself) -Secret: 230 (put your password) Save and reload Elastix Without Tears Page 99 of 298 ii) Go to SPA3102 config (admin mode), Line1 tab and register your new extension. Example configuration Proxy and registration -Proxy: IP of your Elastix machine -Register: yes -Make calls without reg: yes -Ans calls without reg: yes Subscriber info Display name: 230 (or your name as above) User id: 230 (or your extension number as above) Password: 230 (or your password as above) Step 1 done! 2) Add a trunk of your SPA3102 i) Go to SPA3102 config (admin mode), PSTN tab and register your new trunk. Example configuration Proxy and registration -Proxy: IP of your Elastix machine -Register:yes -Make calls without reg: yes -Ans calls without reg: yes Subscriber info User id: PSTN (or your trunk name) Password: 230 (or your password) Dial plans -Dial plan1: (xx.) -Dial plan2: (S0<:1029384756> ) (replace 1029384756 by your number) Voip-to-pstn gateway setup -Voip-to-pstn enable: yes -Voip caller auth method: http digest Voip users and passwords -Voip user1 auth id: PSTN (or your trunk name as above) -Voip user1 dp: 1 -Voip user1 password: 230 (or your password as above) Pstn-to-voip gateway setup -Pstn-to-voip gateway enable: yes -Pstn ring thru line1: yes -Pstn CID for voip CID: yes -Pstn caller default dp: 2 ii) Go to trunks and make a new SIP trunk for SPA3102 FXO Example configuration Elastix Without Tears Page 100 of 298 -Outbound caller id: 1029384756 (replace 1029384756 by your number) Outgoing settings -Trunk name: PSTN Peer details -allow= ulaw -canreinvite= no -context= from-pstn -disallow= all -dtmfmode= inband -host= dynamic -nat= no -port= 5061 -secret= 230 (or your password as above) -type= peer -username= PSTN Add an inbound route for your SPA3102 -DID number: 1029384756 (replace 1029384756 by your number) Add an outbound route for your SPA3102 -add your dialplan with the wizard -Trunk sequence: SIP/PSTN Save and reload as usual Elastix Without Tears Page 101 of 298 14.8 SPA3000/SPA3102 REMOTE MANAGEMENT The SPA3000/3102 can be managed remotely. To enable remote management the following must be set as per the illustration below: Naturally you will have to use the appropriate IP addresses, port and your own password etc. The illustration above is for my system. If you are managing your SPA3000 remotely, you may encounter some difficulties displaying the pages or sometimes it just seems to hang. To solve this problem, you can try changing your TCP setting (I use TCP Optimizer) by setting the RWIN to something smaller eg. 10xMTU, i.e if your MTU is 1500, try setting your RWIN to 15000.  14.9 USE STUN SERVER ON SPA3000/SPA3102 To use a STUN server with the SPA3000, simply select the SIP tab on Admin Admanced mode and make the following changes. I use stun.xten.com, you may use any STUN server of your choice. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. Select SIP Tab Handle VIA received: no Handle VIA rport: no Insert VIA received: no Insert VIA rport: no Substitute VIA Addr: yes Send Resp To Src Port: yes STUN Enable: yes STUN Test Enable: no STUN Server: stun.xten.com (I use stun.xten.com, you may use whichever stun server you like) NAT Keep Alive: 15 Elastix Without Tears Page 102 of 298 15 CALLBACK AND DISA 15.1 CALLBACK Callback is where you make a call to your IP-PBX and when reached you will be disconnected, but it does not end there. Your PBX will in turn call your mobile and reconnect you relieving you of the cost of the lengthy Mobile phone call that you will otherwise be up for. Lets take this step by step. 1. Setup DISA a. DISA name:MyMobile b. Response Timeout:10 c. Digit Timeout:5 d. Caller ID:0400123456 (My Mobile Number) e. Context:from-internal Click Submit Changes button 2. Setup Callback Elastix Without Tears Page 103 of 298 a. Callback Description:MyMobile b. Callback Number: 0400123456 (My mobile Number) c. Delay Before Callback:10 d. Destination after Callback: IVR – Residence (or Office IVR) Click Submit Changes button 3. Inbound Routes a. Description: Callback-MyMobile b. DID Number:61247324100 (My DID number) c. Caller ID Number: 0400123456 (My mobile Number) d. Set Destination to: Callback - MyMobile Click Submit Changes button then Click on the bar at the top & follow on screen prompts Elastix Without Tears Page 104 of 298 Now enable send caller ID on your mobile and call your DID number. When connected you will get one beep and then followed by silence. Hang up your mobile and wait for approximately10 seconds and your mobile will ring. When you answer your mobile, you will hear your IVR playing with the various options. One of the silent options in my IVR is DISA. If I need to make an external call using my PBX, If I know the option and select it, I will be then get DISA where I can make an external call at no cost to my Mobile. 15.2 DISA DISA (Direct Inward System Access) allows you to dial in from outside to the Asterisk switch (PBX) to obtain an "internal" system dial tone. You can place calls from it as if they were placed from within. Normally you can do this via the Digital Receptionist and enter the unannounced option number known only to selected callers. The caller enters his/her password, followed by the pound sign (#). If the password is correct, the user is then given system dial tone on which an external call may be placed. This type of access has SERIOUS security implications, and GREAT care must be taken NOT to compromise your security. This can be achieved through Elastix as illustrated in the screenshot below. I have populated the various fields thus:     DISA name: PSTN2VoIP (This is the name I gave to this application) PIN: 1234 (or whatever you think is appropriate. This pin number will be asked when you want to use this service) Response Timeout: 10 (time needed for a response from the you in seconds) Digit Timeout: 5 The rest you can leave at the default value. When you set up your digital receptionist, in the DISA dropdown selection, simply select PSTN2VOIP as your DISA application. Elastix Without Tears Page 105 of 298 When you choose the DISA option to call a number, you will be greeted with “Please enter your password followed by the pound key” and after entering your password, you will then get a dialtone. You may start dialling the telephone number. Elastix Without Tears Page 106 of 298 16 OPERATOR PANEL Operator Panel is a switchboard type application for the Asterisk PBX. Typically, it runs on a web browser. It is able to display information about your PBX activity in real time. The Flash Operator Panel is the one that comes with ELASTIX. Apart from Flash Operator Panel, There are a number of operator panels available. One that comes to mind can be found at SOFTPEDIA and another is HUDLite from Fonality. HUD will integrate nicely with ELASTIX and the support for HUD is already integrated within ELASTIX. 16.1 FLASH OPERATOR PANEL (FOP) This is the standard Operator Panel that is already part of ELASTIX – some loved it while some hated it. The layout is configurable (button sizes and colours, icons, etc). You can have more than 100 buttons active per screen. It also supports contexts: you can have one server running and many different client displays (for hosted PBX, different departments, etc). It can integrate with CRM software, by popping up a web page (and passing the CLID) when a specified button is ringing. FOP can be activated by clicking on the PBX tab on the top of the screen and selecting Flash Operator Panel. The following information is displayed on FOP:      Which extensions are busy, ringing or available Who is talking and to whom (CLID, context, priority) SIP and IAX registration status and reachability Meetme room status (number of participants) Queue status (number of users waiting) Elastix Without Tears Page 107 of 298   Message Waiting Indicator and count Parked channels  Logged in Agents Functions you can perform on FOP:         Hang-up a channel Using drag-&-drop to transfer a call Initiate calls by drag-&-drop Barge in on a call using drag-&-drop Set the caller id when transferring or originating a call Automatically pop up web page with customer details Click-to-Dial from a web page Mute/Unmute meet-me participants For more details refer to: http://www.asternic.org/ 16.1.1 Setting the Admin Password It is recommended to change the FOP password to something easy and simple to remember such as the number 2 for example. The simple method is by logging in to your asterisk box either remotely using putty or directly on your box console. In this example, Putty is used to log in remotely to ELASTIX. Once logged in, change the directory to /etc cd /etc Using nano as the editor, open the configuration file amportal.conf nano amportal.conf Go to the line that says FOPPASSWORD=eLaStIx.2oo7 (in FOP that comes with ELASTIX, the default password is “eLaStIx.2oo7”) Replace the “eLaStIx.2oo7” with the password of your choice. FOPPASSWORD=cowscomehome Close off nano and putty. Open your web browser and go to FOP. You should now be able to click on the little lock, put in your password and you will see it lock up. Now you can begin to have some fun. 16.1.2 Hang-up a Call You can end a call by clicking the big red button. 16.1.3 Transfer a Call Simply drag the little telephone over to the new extension and it will transfer the call. 16.1.4 Initiate a Call If you are lazy, like me, not bothered to pick up the phone and dial, you can drag and drop your little telephone to another extension it will start by ringing your phone, when you pick up and then it will ring the other extension. Once the destination phone is picked up it will initiate the call. 16.1.5 Barge in or Create a Conference Say there is a call already going and you want to jump in. Well all you have to do is grab your little phone in the flash panel and drop it into the conversation and it will Elastix Without Tears Page 108 of 298 connect you. Great if you want to see if your employees are making lots of private calls. 17 REPORTS Reports are essential in the operation of a PABX. Elastix provides this facility through the Reports Tab. Under this tab the following can be addressed;    CDR Report (report regarding calls made and received) Channels Usage Billing 17.1 CDR REPORT This report is accessed under the Reports Tab. 1 2 It provides the record of all incoming and outgoing calls including the channels used and duration of calls. There is no special setup required for this facility. 17.2 CHANNELS USAGE Channels Usage report provides a graphical representation of all the channels used; Like the CDR Report, there is no special setup or configuration to be conducted for this facility as it is simply an information gathering tool. Elastix Without Tears Page 109 of 298 18 CALL PARKING AND TRANSFER Elastix provides this facility through the Parking Lot facility. If you want to allocate other extensions rather than the one pre-configured, simply change the appropriate Parking Lot extension number in the configuration screen. For this purpose we will leave it at the default extension number 70. Note: You may have to increase your digittimeout duration from the default to 2000 depending on the type of phones you use. If you have to do this, insert the following in your features_general_custom.conf file. featuredigittimeout = 2000 ; (you will need to experiment with this value) Parking lot is managed through PBX - PBX Configuration - Parking Lot. 18.1 CALL TRANSFER - MANAGED When enabled, a call that is parked will be parked at extension 70+1. Each call parked will be parked at that extension +1 e.g. if you have 3 calls that you need to park, the first call parked will be parked at ext. 71, the next call will be automatically allocated ext. 72 and the next ext. 73 and so on. This is handy if you want to manage the calls to be transferred. After parking the call, you may call the person you are transferring it to and tell him/her that there is a call on extension 71. The person can then dial 71 and get the parked call. 18.1.1 How is it done? When you answer a call and want to transfer that call, do the following: 1. Dial ##70 - the call will be transferred to a park extension and the number will be announced to you. In this case it will be 71. After the announcement, you may hang up and dial the extension of the person you wish to transfer the call to and inform him to dial 71 to accept the call. Elastix Without Tears Page 110 of 298 2. While all this is happening, the caller will be listening to the music on hold. 3. If for any reason the person refused to take the call, you then hang up and dial 71 to pick up the call and speak to the caller making the usual excuses “I am afraid Mrs. Roberts, Dr. Roberts is busy with his nurse and his office door is locked from the inside”  and the next time Dr. Roberts will always accept the calls from his wife. 18.2 CALL TRANSFER – BLIND To do a blind call transfer (where you simply transfer the call and bad luck if the extension does not answer), you simply dial ## followed by the extension that the call is meant for. E.g. to transfer to extension 2001, you simply dial ##2001 and hang up. 18.3 PUT A CALL ON HOLD Just like the managed call transfer above, you dial ##70 and after the parked extension announcement, you hang up. This is simply a work around for those that do not have the hold function on the telephone. When you are ready to take the call, dial 71 (or whatever the park extension is) and the call will be picked up again. While the call is being parked, the caller will be listening to your MOH music. 18.4 CALL PICKUP Call Pickup is the ability to pick up a call on a phone that is ringing from other than the ringing phone. E.g. you are sitting at your desk and the phone in the next office is ringing but there is no one there to answer the phone. You then use the phone on your desk to pick up the call. There are two type of call pickups: Group call pickup This allows you to pickup a call from any ringing phone that is in the same pickup group as you. However, if there were more than one phone ringing, you would have no control over which call will be transferred to you.  Directed pickup This allows you to pickup a call that was made to a specific extension, such as when you are in another office and a phone rings in the general direction of your office. You are wondering if it is your phone that is ringing. In this case you simply dial the pickup number and your extension number. If the ringing phone is your phone, the call will be transferred to you. Group call pickup is typically invoked by dialling ** from another phone in the call pickup group. You can also change to *8 or to something else if you wish. see http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+config+features.conf 18.5 FILTER YOUR INCOMING CALLS - ONLY ACCEPT KNOWN CALLS (Good for filtering Telemarketers and ex-girlfriends) For this purpose, the Privacy Manager option of the extension can be invoked, however I found that caller often get confused with the need to enter the 10 digits phone number as often they may have only 9 digits or more than 10 digits. Elastix Without Tears Page 111 of 298 I have opted for the Nerd Vittles method. There is a good article on this site http://mundy.org/blog/index.php?p=66 relating to filtering incoming calls and also some discussions here http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=418909 This feature will force callers to record their names before the calls will be parked. The extension that you nominate will ring and on answering, you will be informed that there is a call waiting for you in a parked extension e.g. 71. If after receiving the message you wish to take the call, hang up and dial 71 and you will be connected to the caller. Otherwise, just hang up and the caller will just have to leave a message in the voicemail. Real nifty  This is how I did it with my Asterisk. Since I am pretty simple myself, I just take the low road make it really simple. I add the following scripts in my extensions_custom.conf [from-internal-custom] ; I create this extension for silent Auto attendant 30-10-2005 exten => 111,1,Answer ; exten => 111,2,Goto(who-r-u,s,1) (Note: DO NOT create extension 111 in freePBX. This is only a dummy extension) At the end of the extensions_custom.conf, I added the following 2 blocks of extra codes. ; experimental as per above 30-10-2005 [who-r-u] exten => s,1,Background(privacy-unident) exten => s,2,Background(vm-rec-name) exten => s,3,Wait(2) exten => s,4,Record(/tmp/asterisk-stranger:gsm|5|15) exten => s,5,Background(pls-hold-while-try) exten => s,6,Goto(parkedcalls,70,1) exten => s,7,VoiceMail(2001@default) exten => s,8,Playback(Goodbye) exten => s,9,Hangup [parkedcalls] exten => 70,1,Answer exten => 70,2,SetMusicOnHold(default) exten => 70,3,ParkAndAnnounce(asterisk-friend:/tmp/asterisk-stranger:vmisonphone:at-following-number:PARKED|40|local/2001@from-internal|who-ru,s,7) exten => 70,4,Hangup (*The codes in red must be in one continuous line) I forward all calls that were parked to my existing extension 2001 (in bold type) and direct voicemail for unanswered calls to the same extension as well. Next I create a new extension using freePBX e.g. 222. Using a softphone, I connect to extension 222 and unconditionally forward all calls to extension 222 to extension 111 by dialling *72111 I then direct all my incoming calls from my PSTN trunk to extension 222. Elastix Without Tears Page 112 of 298 The result is, when there is an oncoming call from PSTN, the call will be sent to extension 222 and in turn, the call will be forwarded to extension 111. When the call gets to extension 111, the caller will hear a message saying that, “unrecognised calls are not accepted and asking the caller to record his/her name after the tone” (or something to that effect). After the caller has complied and press the # key, the call will be parked. Extension 2001 will be called by Asterisk. When you answer the call, Asterisk will announce that there is a call by on extension 71 (or 72 depending on how many calls are being parked). If you recognize the name recorded, or if you want to take the call, simply hang up and dial 71. You will be connected to the caller. While this is all happening, the caller will be put on hold listening to your MOH. If however you do not wish to accept the call, you simply hang up and do not dial 71. The caller will be asked to leave a message instead. Elastix Without Tears Page 113 of 298 19 CONFERENCE There are 2 type of conference facilities in Elastix, the Meet-Me Conference and another one managed by Conference Manager. Both conference methods can be configured individually. The Meet-Me conference can be configured using FreePBX and Elastix Conference option. However the more controllable Conference Manager option can only be configured through Elastix. The Meet-me Conference is pretty easy to set up, as there is very little to do. However, to set up Conference, a Zaptel card may be required (at least in my case as I don’t seem to be able to get it working without a Zaptel card installed). In the latest Elastix 1.0, this seems to have been resolved. The Meet-me Conference function of Asterisk is similar to a Tele-conference call where multiple callers can call in and participate in a two-way conference like in a party room where everyone can talk and listen to one another or just to listen to a Tele-presentation. In Elastix, there are 2 .conf files that relates to the meet-me conferencing. They are: meetme.conf meetme_additional.conf meetme.conf Ensure that you have the following 2 lines (only 2 lines in the file): [rooms] #include meetme_additional.conf All these lines do is point to the meetme_additional.conf where the conference room extensions are being created when you create a conference room through freePBX conference setup option. meetme_additional.conf This is where the extensions for the meeting rooms are created. One line per room. You may have just one extension for your meeting room or you may have several meeting rooms. In my case, I have 1 meeting room and therefore my meetme_additional.conf contains the following extension: ; Extensions for my meeting rooms conf => 8200| 19.1 CREATE MEET-ME CONFERENCE Elastix allows you to create one or more conference room through the PBX -> PBX Configuration  Conference screen. All you have to do is fill in the appropriate fields on the screen and you are on your way to a voice conference. Naturally there are some options that you may wish to have for the conference room. They are entirely up to you. The main important things are for you to create the conference room number and the conference name for you to know what that conference room is for. The rest of the fields are optional. Below is what my conference configuration page looks like: Elastix Without Tears Page 114 of 298          This conference room number is 8000 I call this conference room General Users are not required to enter a PIN number to join the conference. Admin PIN number is not required for the conference to wait for the leader to conduct the conference. I don’t have a joining message greeting when someone joins the conference. I have No in the leader wait option for the conference to wait for the conference chairman. I require a user count so I have Yes in the user count field. I need to be informed when a user joins or leaves the conference. I have Yes here. The music on hold is also flagged as Yes as I want music on while waiting. Once these are done, from one of your phones dial, 8000 and you will be able to join the conference. You are now in the conference room and every time someone joins or leaves the conference, it will also be announced. To test this, go to another phone and also dial 8000. You should hear an announcement (if you are listening on the first phone), indicating that someone has joined the conference. You may include ext: 8000 in your IVR choice for external callers to join in the conference. If there are 2 (or more) of you, you will be able to talk to each other. If one of you hangs up, you will know about it. 19.2 ELASTIX CONFERENCE MANAGER This method can only be setup through Elastix. The Elastix developers has included a conference control facility that enables the conference moderator to control the conference where people can be invited into the conference and participants can be silenced or kicked off the conference. If you have ever moderated a teleconferencing you would have realised how handy this facility is. Elastix Without Tears Page 115 of 298 To set up this facility, under the PBX tab, you will notice the sub-tab “Conference”. Click on the conference sub-tab and you will be presented with the screen as illustrated. To activate this module, it is necessary to click on the “click here” link. Once fully installed and activated, you will be presented with a new screen where you can start populating the conference you want to control. Click on the new conference button to create a new conference. 19.2.1 To control Call-In voice conference The following screen will appear. In this case we want to control the general conference 8000 that we created earlier on. In the fields, we enter the following: Conference Name: Conference Owner: Conference Number: Moderator PIN: Moderator Option: User PIN: General Conference Replace the pre assigned number to 8000 If you require one, enter it here e.g. 123 You may put check marks on the option that you choose If you require a valid PIN to join the conference Elastix Without Tears Page 116 of 298 User Option: Start Time (PST/PDT): Duration (HH:MM): Max Participation: Select the user option you want. From the Calender icon you can choose the date and time. You can enter the duration of this conference. The maximum participation of this conference. Participants of this conference can call Extension 8000 and join the conference. 19.2.2 Invite only voice conference Similar screen to the above example will appear. In this case the conference will be an internal conference by invitation only. You will need to populate the fields as per the example above except that you may not have a pre-created conference number. The conference will be nominated by the system and you do not change this number to any pre-created conference that was done using freePBX. Since the conference is by invitation, we only need to fill in a few fields. Conference Name: Conference Owner: Conference Number: Moderator Option: User Option: Start Time (PST/PDT): Duration (HH:MM): Max Participation: Marketing Leave it as it is. You may put check marks on the option that you choose Select the user option you want. From the Calender icon you can choose the date and time. You can enter the duration of this conference. The maximum participation of this conference When you click save, you will have created a controllable conference. 19.3 CONTROLLING AND MODERATING THE CONFERENCE Once the above tasks is completed, you may start moderating the conference. Elastix Without Tears Page 117 of 298 The Elastix team has taken all the hard work away so you can control and moderate the conference with relative ease Click on the participant as shown in the illustration above to start administering the conference (see arrow). Here you can do the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. Inviting people to join the conference through the drop-down list. You may mute any participant by clicking the mute button Eject any participant using the kick button Terminate the conference by using the Kick All button. The conference will automatically reset and terminate at the end of the period you have determined at the time of setting up. . 19.4 HANDLING MULTIPLE CALL-IN CONFERENCE Using the conference manager, a number of conferences can be handles by creating various conference rooms. Do not use the meet-me conference GUI of freePBX instead use the Elastix conference Tab to do this. The process of creating conference room is similar to the previous chapters on Conference Manager. The conference rooms can be identified by the conference numbers allocated by the conference manager or define our own conference number. Once all the rooms have been created, internal users can be either invited to the conference or can ring in to join the various conferences identified by the room numbers. Participants must be informed of the conference number so they can choose which conference to join. Elastix Without Tears Page 118 of 298 For internal users, they can dial 5555 (a pre-defined extension in extensions_custom.conf) and will be prompted to select the conference number to join. Since external users will not be able to dial custom extension 5555, an IVR selection can be created for this purpose to direct the callers to the conference selection prompt. To do this we have to first create a Custom Destination through freePBX. You should select unembedded freepbx >> Admin >> Tools. Select Add Custom Destination and add the custom application as illustrated below in the form of: Custom Destination: conferences,5555,1 Click Submit Change when done. Conferences will now appear in the dropdown list of Custom Application selection of the IVR and you can include a selection for Conference in your IVR. If the situation requires, you may also direct incoming calls straight to this option. Elastix Without Tears Page 119 of 298 20 VOICEMAIL  If you have enabled voice mail when setting up your extension, and you hear a stutter tone (not the normal dial tone) when you initially pick up your phone, it is indicating to you that you have a voice mail waiting. To enable voicemail on an extension simply "enable" it when you create the extensions from the Elastix GUI. If you require email notification of your voicemail, you may enter your email address in the email address field. Click submit when done followed by the red bar on top of the screen. 20.1 ENABLING EMAIL NOTIFICATION OF VOICEMAIL Asterisk can send email to you informing you that you have voicemail waiting in your mailbox. In fact it can even send you the voicemail itself in the form of a .wav file if you so desire. I was having a lot of fun trying to get email notification going without having to resort to SASL. Finally I was able to get it to work after a few trial and errors. MY SMTP Relay host is expecting mail from a valid DNS before it will accept the mail, but Postfix is sending the email from Asterisk@localhost therefore it was rejected. To overcome this, I have to edit the /etc/postfix/main.cf file to include the following; relayhost = mail.optusnet.com.au  being my ISP smtp server * Optus blocks outgoing port 25 on cable to stop people running their own mail servers. They force relaying through their server After having done that, you may do one of the following methods: 20.1.1 Method 1 This is a desperate method (not recommended – do only on desperation) where I have to change my Elastix hostname from elastix.local default to a fully qualified DynDNS name using the GUI as per the illustration below. Select System Tab -- > Select Network Option Click on Edit Network Parameter Change your host name to Elastix.. In my case, my DynDNS address is netvoice.dyndns.org therefore in this field I entered elastix.netvoice.dyndns.org. Elastix Without Tears Page 120 of 298 20.1.2 Method 2 This method does not require you to change your Elastix host name like I did above. Instead locate the “myorigin = $myhostname” in /etc/postfix/main.cf and change it as I have done below then save it and restart postfix. # For the sake of consistency between sender and recipient addresses, # myorigin also specifies the default domain name that is appended # to recipient addresses that have no @domain part. # #myorigin = $myhostname myorigin = netvoice.dyndns.org < --- Change this to reflect your DynDNS address # RECEIVING MAIL # The inet_interfaces parameter specifies the network interface When Postfix send the mail to your Relay Host, it will show that the mail is from [email protected] which is a valid address and not Asterisk@localhost which is, as far as the Relay Host is concerned is an invalid address. If things go wrong with your email notification, you can look at the maillog file in the /var/log directory. The above methods are just two quick and dirty ways of getting your email out. In the Elastix Mail System and Webmail, we will touch a little deeper. 20.2 CUSTOMISING EMAIL NOTIFICATION Next, if you wish, you will need to customize your email notification message in /etc/asterisk/vm_email.inc file and to include the actual IP address of your asterisk PC. I have found that this is best done through a text editor (e.g. Nano) as AMP tends loose the formatting character. In the later versions of Elastix, this can be done through Tools  File Editor. ; Change the email body, variables: VM_NAME, VM_DUR, VM_MSGNUM, VM_MAILBOX, VM_CALLERID, VM_DATE emailbody=${VM_NAME},\n\nThere is a new voicemail in mailbox ${VM_MAILBOX}:\n\n\tFrom:\t${VM_CALLERID}\n\tLength:\t${VM_DUR} seconds\n\tDate:\t${VM_DATE}\n\nDial *98 to access your voicemail by phone.\nVisit http://pbx.myhome.com:8080/cgi-bin/vmail.cgi?action=login&mailbox=${VM_MAILBOX} to check your voicemail with a web browser.\n You can be aggressive and change /etc/asterisk/vm_general.inc as well. ; 1st listed format gets emailed format=wav49|wav attach=yes pbxskip=yes ; Don't put [PBX]: in the subject line serveremail=vm@asterisk ; Who the e-mail notification should appear to come from fromstring=Voicemail System ; Real name of email sender maxmessage=180 ; max length of vm message minmessage=3 ; Minimum length of a voicemail message in seconds maxsilence=5 ; Wait for 5 silent seconds and end the voicemail silencethreshold=128 ; What do we consider to be silence skipms=3000 ; How many millisecs to skip forward/back when rew/ff in message ; playback review=yes ; Allow sender to review/rerecord their message before saving it operator=yes ; Allow caller to press 0 nextaftercmd=yes ; Automagically play next message when current message is Elastix Without Tears Page 121 of 298 ; deleted or saved Change the entries in red to reflect your requirement e.g you may change vm@asterisk to FHC PBX and change Voice mail System to read Family Health Centre Voicemail. Once these are done, you will receive email notification of voicemail left in your voicemail box. You may start testing it and your email received will look something like this: From: Family Health Centre Voicemail Subject: New Message 1 in mailbox 201 Ben Sharif, There is a new voicemail in mailbox 201: From: "Mary" <321> Length: 0:20 seconds Date: Friday, July 29, 2005 at 11:16:38 PM Dial *98 to access your voicemail by phone. Visit http://pbx.familyhealth.com:8080/cgibin/vmail.cgi?action=login&mailbox=201 to check your voicemail with a web browser. To: Ben Sharif 20.3 HOW TO RETRIEVE VOICEMAIL FROM EXTERNAL PHONE To call in and retrieve your voicemail from external phone is as easy as simply calling your number and retrieve your voice mail. This can be done easily if you have IVR enabled in your new ELASTIX system. This is how I do it (you may have been told of other different methods). 20.3.1 Method 1 1. Call my number and when the Digital Receptionist answers, I will dial my extension number prefixing it with an *. E.g. My extension number is 2001, so when the DR answers me, I will dial *2001 2. I will then be ask to leave a voicemail, but instead, I will dial * again. 3. DR will ask for a password to be followed by the # key. 4. I enter my password followed by # 5. DR will then give me my voice mail if there is any. 20.3.2 Method 2 1. From freePBX Setup Screen, create a Misc Destination and give it a name of e.g. “Check VM” 2. Select Feature Code Dial Voicemail (*98) from the dropdown menu. 3. Submit the changes. Next modify your IVR 1. Increase option. If you already have 7 options, this will be the 8th. 2. Create an unannounced IVR selection e.g. selection no: 8 3. For this option, select Misc Destination and from the drop down, select “Check VM” 4. Save and don’t forget to click on the red bar. Elastix Without Tears Page 122 of 298 5. When you call your PBX from an external phone, DR will naturally ask you to make a selection. Selection 8 will not be announced, however you should select 8. 6. DR will ask for a mailbox number 7. Enter your extension number (which is also your mailbox number) 8. Dr will then ask for your password 9. And you will get your mailbox IVR prompt. As I said, it is indeed simple. 20.4 HOW TO CHANGE VOICE MAIL GREETINGS The default Voicemail greeting is fine but it is rather bland and quite boring. No doubt some user would like to change the standard greeting to something more personal and meaningful.  1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Ensure that you have changed your Direct Dial to Voicemail message type, in General Setting, from Default to something else e.g. Unavailable. Otherwise when you use follow-me and the like, your custom recorded message will not be played back. The Asterisk default message will be played back instead. To do so is pretty simple. Here are the steps: Use your existing extension and dial *97 You will be asked for your password (if you have entered one) When the Voicemail IVR starts, press 0 You will then be given the choice what type of message you want to record. Choose the appropriate message you want to record. Record your message “Thank you for calling, I am either busy elsewhere or on the phone. Please leave me your message and I will call you back as soon as I can”. 7. Review your message 8. Re-record if you want to or if you are happy with the message, choose the option to save. That’s all – you are done. Elastix Without Tears Page 123 of 298 21 SETTING UP VIRTUAL FAX Before setting up Fax over IP, I suggest that we should read this: http://www.softswitch.org/foip.html and : http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+fax While sending and/or receiving Faxes are the available functions in ELASTIX, there have been reports of various degree of success if you are sending or receiving Faxes via IP. However it has been proven that receiving and sending faxes via Elastix through ISDN or PSTN have been consistently reliable and of commercial grade. This was achieved by utilising Hylafax which is a mature product (instead of the more commonly used mechanism by some other iPBX distributions). One of the difficulties experience by many users are the inability to have the Fax (or voice mail notification) sent out by email. One of the possible reason is that postfix need a valid relay host address which you will need to add to etc/postfix/main.cf relayhost = optusnet.com.au (or whatever your service provider is) Once this is done, changes are it may work (but then again it may not). 21.1 FAX FOR ELASTIX Developers of Elastix have included this capability by using Hylafax, which allows incoming faxes to be received over SIP, IAX & ZAP channel (though it is recommended that ISDN or PSTN are more reliable). Faxing through IP is achievable however it is variable due to several factors which include hardware and bandwidth considerations and VSP support of T38. For commercial usage, it is not highly recommended. Elastix does not utilise the standard Asterisk Fax handler for Faxing, instead utilising a separate module to handle fax traffic, which we will be discussing here. As already stipulated, Elastix is using Hylafax. As such all tools and applications that interface to Hylafax can be used (you may even have 10 virtual fax machines). It is recommended that dedicated Fax lines be used for incoming and sending faxes although the same lines can be used for outgoing calls (not incoming calls) – caveat: this assumption is made on the result of our testing. Configuring Elastix Fax Module Click on the FAX tab and the following screen will appear. Next is to Click on the New Virtual Fax selection – see arrow. Elastix Without Tears Page 124 of 298 In this example we have populated the virtual fax field as the illustrated below.         Virtual Fax Name: Sydney Office (or whatever you wish) Destination Email: I have used my email address but you should be using yours or a group email address. Caller ID Name: This should be your organization name. Caller ID Number: Your Fax number Fax Destination (IAX): Your extension which we will setup for receiving fax. Secret(IAX): This is the password of your extension. Country Code: In my case it is 61 for Australia, 60 for Malaysia etc. Area Code: 2 for NSW, 3 for Victoria etc. Click on Save. You will then notice the following screen with “Running and idle on ttyIAX1”. That’s a virtual FAX machine setup and ready to go as soon as we create an extension. Create a Fax extension By now we should already know how to set up an extension. This extension that we will be setting up is an IAX extension, which differs slightly from the SIP extensions that you are used to. Select “Generic IAX device” at the “Create new extension” screen. You will be presented with the usual create new extension screen as illustrated below: Elastix Without Tears Page 125 of 298 We have populated the various fields:      User Extension: 1100 (same user extension when you setup your virtual fax) Display Name: Sydney Fax (or whatever you want to call it) Secret: 1234 (make sure this is the same secret you use when you setup your virtual fax) Fax Extension: Disabled Incoming/outgoing recording: Disabled Press submit when done. We have now created a complete working virtual fax machine. Directing Fax to the correct extension (Dedicated Line) If you have dedicated line for the Virtual Fax, under freePBX, all you do is set the incoming route of your Fax DID to go directly to extension 1100. Directing Fax to Fax extension on Non-dedicated Fax line (Auto Detect) This is where you wish to share one PSTN line for Voice and Fax. Your Elastix system will discriminate between Fax call and a voice call and send it to the appropriate extension for fax or pass it through to your normal handler if it is a voice call. The following is what need to be done to achieve this: In the freePBX General setting, ensure that the Extension of fax machine field is disabled (see below). Elastix Without Tears Page 126 of 298 In the incoming route set your fax extension number to 1100 (the one we have set up) and set Fax Detect to Zaptel leaving your final destination to the voice call if it is not a fax call. . The last thing that you need to do is make a little change in zapata.conf or if you are using DAHDI, you will have to make this change in etc/asterisk/chan_dahdi.conf. 1. Use nano to edit zapata .conf (or chan_dahdi.conf) 2. Ensure that the line faxdetect=incoming (see illustration below) is not commented out. Elastix Without Tears Page 127 of 298 3. If the line is not there then add faxdetect=incoming” to your zapata.conf or chan_dahdi.conf file Even though we have only set 1 virtual fax, you can set several if needed using the same procedure as outlined above except you need to use separate fax extension numbers e.g. 1100, 1101, 1102 etc Reboot, and enjoy your new virtual fax. 21.2 FAX VISOR The Fax Visor is used to check how many faxes have been received and to check their contents.. 1. Click on the Fax Visor Sub-Tab. The Fax visor screen will be displayed listing the Faxes that you have received. 2. Click on the blue link will open the fax. See Illustration below. Elastix Without Tears Page 128 of 298 21.3 HYLAFAX FAX CLIENT Using your windows PC to send fax is possible if you have the Hylafax Fax client installed on your PC. For my purpose, I am using “Yet Another Java HylaFAX Client”, YajHFC in short *thanks to Dave Edwards for pointing out this extremely useful client to me, which can be downloaded from here http://prdownload.berlios.de/yajhfc/yajhfc-0_4_0-FOPPlugin-0_1_3-setup.exe After downloading, it is just a matter of installing the client on a Windows PC that is on your LAN. Ideally this PC would have a fixed Local IP address (in my case it is 192.168.1.20) as this address will be required by the Elastix fax module. 21.3.1 Preparing your PC to be the fax client Before you can operate YajHFC on your PC, you will have to ensure that Elastix knows about your PC so it can communicate with each other. Under the Elastix GUI Fax -- > Fax Client Tab, add the IP address of your PC (in my case it is 192.168.1.20 as illustrated below) and apply the change. 21.3.2 Preparing YajHFC Once installed, it will be recognised by your PC as a YajHFC Fax/printer. Click on the YajHFC icon to start the client and you will get the following screen: All you need to do to get started is to fill in the three fields as illustrated above: Host name: Username: Password: 192.168.1.100 (my Elastix Box IP address – yours may be different) 1100 (My fax extension – yours may be different) The password for the fax extension Elastix Without Tears Page 129 of 298 You may leave the rest of the settings at default. You can always explore once you are comfortable that the client is working correctly. Once that is done, the client will initialise and you will get the following screen. If you have already received some faxes prior to installing this client, they will be shown (as above) otherwise the screen will be blank. Your fax client is now ready to receive a fax transmission. 21.3.3 To send a Fax from your PC To send a word document from your PC, all you have to do is open the Word document and print it to the Fax printer (see illustration below). You will then be required to enter the fax phone number you wish to send the fax to. Once done click on send (see illustration below) Elastix Without Tears Page 130 of 298 22 WEATHER REPORTS ELASTIX can be configured to allow the automatic downloading of Australian weather forecast information, convert it to a .wav file and play the announcement. The announcement will be a simulated announcement (ala Dr. Who’s Dalek). However it will provide you with the weather report of your region of choice. The Australia weather report reference file can be obtained from the following site: http://www.bom.gov.au/ You may choose the reference file (text file) for the area that you are interested in. You do not need to manually download the file, instead only the file name is required to be noted and can be incorporated within the Elastix’s extensions_custom.conf file later. The script will download the file for you in the background. The following are examples of available weather report files that you can reference in your script. Forecast Area NSW Sydney Metro All NSW ACT Snowy Mountain Brisbane Metro All Queensland Melbourne Metro All Victoria Adelaide Metro All SA Perth Metro All WA Darwin and Rural Area (All NT) Tasmanian Cities All Tasmania File reference IDN10064 IDN10031 IDN10035 IDN10103 IDQ10090 IDQ10700 IDV10450 IDV10310 IDS10034 IDS10033 IDW12300 IDW12000 IDD10110 IDT13400 IDT13100 For a complete list, refer to the link below: http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/cosb/stcm/idcodes/tables/current/vic_products.shtml The following step-by-step instruction will guide you through. 22.1 CONFIGURE WEATHER REPORT – ON DEMAND. Since flite is not installed in Elastix, you will have to download flite and install it. Flite can be downloaded at http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/doc/index.html. After downloading copy the downloaded file into your root directory (the file I downloaded was flite-1.3-release.tar.gz) and install it thus: tar zxvf flite-1.3-release.tar.gz cd flite-XXX ./configure make Some preparations need to be manually conducted through Linux Command Line, or if you prefer, you may use Webmin. I used Putty to log on to the Asterisk box remotely and used Nano to create a text file called “convert2wav” in the /usr/bin directory containing the following: /flite-1.3-release/bin/flite /tmp/weather.txt /tmp/weather.wav Elastix Without Tears Page 131 of 298 (This command is used to convert the weather text file to a .wav sound file). Once this is done, the permission for the “convert2wav” text file need to be appropriately set to allow it to be executed. To do this you need to run the following command from Command Line. chmod 755 /usr/bin/convert2wav Now you have completed all the necessary preparations – for me anyway. 22.1.1 Create Extension script The next step is to include the following in the extensions_custom.conf through the File Editor option of ELASTIX Tools Tab. Select an unused extension code e.g. *61, *63, *64 etc. Add the following example (*Note: The third line in each section (bold) should read as a complete single line- change the file reference in red to suit.). ; ################################## ; Forecast for Sydney Metro ; ################################### exten => *61,1,Answer exten => *61,2,Playback(national-weather-service) exten => *61,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) exten => *61,4,System(/usr/bin/wget -O weather.txt ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/fwo/IDN10064.txt) exten => *61,5,Wait(1) exten => *61,6,System(/usr/bin/convert2wav) exten => *61,7,Playback(/tmp/weather) exten => *61,8,System(rm /tmp/weather.* -f) exten => *61,9,Hangup ; ###################################### ; Forecast for the whole of NSW ; ###################################### exten => *63,1,Answer exten => *63,2,Playback(national-weather-service) exten => *63,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) exten => *63,4,System(/usr/bin/wget -O weather.txt ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/fwo/IDN10031.txt) exten => *63,5,Wait(1) exten => *63,6,System(/usr/bin/convert2wav) exten => *63,7,Playback(/tmp/weather) exten => *63,8,System(rm /tmp/weather.* -f) exten => *63,9,Hangup Restart asterisk and test. You will be presented with the weather report of the areas you have chosen. (Source Reference: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=364420&p=1) This method is very slow and therefore is only suitable for a very fast PC. Depending on the speed of your computer during the .wav conversion, there may be about 1 minute or more delay between dialling the extension and the weather announcement. Therefore I have included step 3 telling the caller to hold while trying to connect. Therefore, there has to be a better method – so read on. Elastix Without Tears Page 132 of 298 22.2 CONFIGURE WEATHER REPORT – BACKGROUND METHOD. After giving it a bit of thought, I have decided to let Asterisk do the task of getting the weather text files and converting them to the necessary sound files in the background every 4 hours. This will cut down the waiting period when a caller chooses to listen to the weather report. First we will use putty to make a batch text file called “convert2wav” in the /usr/bin directory containing the following: /usr/bin/wget -O /tmp/weather1.txt ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/fwo/IDN10064.txt /usr/bin/flite /tmp/weather1.txt /tmp/weather1.wav /usr/bin/wget -O /tmp/weather2.txt ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/fwo/IDN10031.txt /usr/bin/flite /tmp/weather2.txt /tmp/weather2.wav (Change IDN10064.txt and IDN10031.txt to suit the areas you require) If you want to get rid of a couple of nasty characters, you can always add the following line or lines in the appropriate places and changing the characters that you want to discard or change, # sed 's/\[/ /g' /tmp/weather1.txt > temp.txt # sed 's/\]/ /g' /tmp/weather1.txt > temp.txt # sed 's/\_/ /g' /tmp/weather1.txt > temp.txt as an example - but we are not going there. It may get too confusing. For the moment we will just stick with the batch file example above. Once this is done, change the permission for “convert2wav” thus: chmod 755 /usr/bin/convert2wav Use Webmin to schedule a Cron job to run this batch file every 4 hours (or schedule it to suit your purpose). This will run the batch job at the scheduled time avoiding having to download the weather file and converting them to sound files when a caller chooses the weather report option. The sound files will always be available when a caller requires them without having to wait for them to be downloaded and converted. 22.2.1 Create Extension codes. Next include the following in extensions_custom.conf. Select an unused extension code e.g. *61, *63, *64 etc. Add the following example ; ################################## ; Forecast for Sydney Metro ; ################################### exten exten exten exten exten => => => => => *61,1,Answer *61,2,Playback(national-weather-service) *61,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) *61,4,Playback(/tmp/weather1) *61,5,Hangup ; ###################################### ; Forecast for the whole of NSW Elastix Without Tears Page 133 of 298 ; ###################################### exten exten exten exten exten => => => => => *63,1,Answer *63,2,Playback(national-weather-service) *63,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) *63,4,Playback(/tmp/weather2) *63,5,Hangup Restart asterisk and test. You will be presented with the weather report of the areas you have chosen without any delay whatsoever. 22.3 NOW PUT IT IN YOUR DIGITAL RECEPTIONIST If you want the 2 procedures to be incorporated in your Digital receptionist, simply duplicate them in your extensions_custom.conf with some minor changes. You will want the digital receptionist to know which weather report you are referring to when you make the choice. Give it a label – see example below (the changes made are in bold). ; ################################## ; Forecast for Sydney Metro ; ################################### [custom-weathermetro] exten => s,1,Answer exten => s,2,Playback(national-weather-service) exten => s,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) exten => s,4,Playback(/tmp/weather1) exten => s,5,Hangup ; ###################################### ; Forecast for the whole of NSW ; ###################################### [custom-weathernsw] exten => s,1,Answer exten => s,2,Playback(national-weather-service) exten => s,3,Playback(pls-hold-while-try) exten => s,4,Playback(/tmp/weather2) exten => s,5,Hangup In the older versions of freePBXs, when you create your menu option in Digital receptionist, e.g. “Press 6 for Sydney weather report, press 7 for the whole of NSW weather report”, select the custom app: and enter the appropriate custom procedures above. See example below: Custom App Custom App custom-weathermetro,s,1 custom-weathernsw,s,1 This option (Custom App) is no longer available instead freePBX has a different option under tools, called Custom Destinations. This is where you define the 2 custom applications above. Once defined, these custom applications will appear as a destination choice radio button called Custom Applications when you create your IVR choices. Using the dropdown selection, you can select the custom application that you have defined above. 22.3.1 Custom Destinations To create this custom destination (assuming that you already added the [customweathermetro] and [custom-weathernsw] in the extensions_custom.conf file as illustrated above), you should select unembedded freepbx >> Admin >> Tools. Elastix Without Tears Page 134 of 298 Select Add Custom Destination and add the custom application as illustrated below in the form of: Custom Destination: custom-weathermetro,s,1 You can create another one for custom-weathernsw using similar format. Once these are done. Your new custom application will appear in your IVR selection under Custom Applications. Elastix Without Tears Page 135 of 298 23 REMOTE MANAGEMENT Some may want to manage their Elastix Box remotely. If you are thinking about doing this, I highly recommend you register with Dyndns to get yourself a dynamic DNS unless you have a fixed public IP address. You should also forward port 443 on your router to point to the local IP address of your Elastix box. To log on to your Elastix box remotely using your browser, use https://your_Dyndns_name or https://your_public_ip_address To log on locally you simply log on to https://192.168.1.101 (or whatever your local IP is). Elastix Without Tears Page 136 of 298 24 HOW TO SET UP A REMOTE EXTENSION If you carry your laptop/notebook everywhere you go, you may want to consider setting up a remote extension on your Notebook. Basically its set up is similar to the softphone that you set up on your other computers except that you should have a fixed IP address for your Asterisk server or use DynDNS to register a Domain ID for your Asterisk box. Since I am on Optusnet cable, I only have the privilege of a dynamic IP hence I registered for a Domain ID with DynDNS pointing to my Dynamic IP address. Every time my dynamic IP changes, DynDNS will point to the new IP address. This way I don’t have to keep changing IP addresses. I simply use the same DNS ID eg: myasterisk.freedns.com 24.1 CREATE A NEW EXTENSION Create a new IAX2 extension in Elastix – just like the other extension that you created before. This time instead of creating a SIP extension, create an IAX extension (you can use SIP as well but since you don’t have any control of the external router that you may be connected to when you are away from your own environment, IAX will avoid any NAT issue that you may encounter). In your router, you will need to forward port 4569 to your Asterisk Box. As mentioned above, you may create a SIP extension instead, if you so wish but you must ensure that you set “nat” field to “yes” ( in the device option) instead of “never” as illustrated in the screen below - see red arrow. Once you have done this, you will need to ensure a couple of things in your .conf files are set correctly. Elastix Without Tears Page 137 of 298 24.2 IAX.CONF Changes made in iax.conf will be rewritten over every time asterisk initializes itself and therefore any changes that you may need to make should be done in one of the cusom files. In this case the changes I needed was done in iax_custom.conf. The following is the content of my iax.conf and iax_custom.conf file. 24.2.1 iax.conf ;----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ;Do NOT edit this file as it is auto-generated by FreePBX. All modifications to ; ;this file must be done via the web gui. There are alternative files to make ; ;custom modifications, details at: http://freepbx.org/configuration_files ; ;----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ; [general] ; These will all be included in the [general] context #include iax_general_additional.conf #include iax_general_custom.conf #include iax_registrations_custom.conf #include iax_registrations.conf ; These should all be expected to come after the [general] context ; ;iax_custom.conf is the proper place to start creating new contexts that you ;might have a need for. Dundi IAX trunks is one example of when this file is needed. ; #include iax_custom.conf #include iax_additional.conf ; ;iax_custom_post.conf will allow you to modify FreePBX generated IAX setups so ;that you can add additional parameters to a auto-generated setup. ;if you have a auto-generated context of [foobar] and need to add a parameter ;to it then create this line [foobar](+) and place your additions on the next line ; #include iax_custom_post.conf 24.2.2 Iax_custom.conf bindport = 4569 ; Port to bind to (IAX is 4569. Forward this port to your Asterisk box) externhost = netvoice.selfip.com ; ;externip = 122.107.29.48 localnet = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 bindaddr = 0.0.0.0 ; Address to bind to (all addresses on machine) language=au delayreject = yes jitterbuffer = yes mailboxdetail = yes 24.3 SIP_NAT.CONF (Note: Users of the later versions of Elastix should include the content of sip_nat.conf in sip_general_custom.conf amd should ignore sip_nat.conf altogether) The only other .conf file that requires attention is the sip_nat.conf in case you are upgrading from older version of Elastix and you want to use SIP. If you do, ensure that you have forward ports 5004 – 5082/udp as well (strictly speaking you only require port Elastix Without Tears Page 138 of 298 5060 as most if not all incoming SIP traffic will be coming in on this port). My file is as per the example below. This file may have to be created as it may not exist. sip_nat.conf nat = yes externip = or externhost = < myasterisk.freedns.com> ; < -- Do not use this for Pennytel – leave it out localnet=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 externrefresh = 10 Those are the only 2 .conf files that require changing if needed. 24.4 SETTING UP AN IAX SOFTPHONE I use an IAX softphone called IDEFISK. You can get IDEFISK from here: http://www.asteriskguru.com/tools/idefisk_beta.php You can also use Virbiage softphone as it will handle IAX. Setting up IDEFISK is very simple. All you have to do is download the file, extract it and save it in its own directory. Click on the idefisk.exe and just configure it like the example below. Once the softphone is active, to start configuring, simply place your curser anywhere in the middle if the image and right click. The configuration option window will be displayed. 24.4.1 First the general options In the general options, checked the “Check for update” and “Automatic popup on incoming call” options. The next option to take care of is the Account option. Apart from that, there is nothing else critical to be done for you to use IDEFISK. 24.4.2 Accounts options Next click on the Account Options and set up your account as per the image below. Elastix Without Tears Page 139 of 298 The rest of the options are there for you to set up your sound preference and customize your look and feel. They are pretty straightforward. Now you are ready to go on the road with an Asterisk extension under your arm. Elastix Without Tears Page 140 of 298 25 CALL MONITOR & RECORDINGS There have been numerous discussions on the legality of recording telephone conversations. Some say its OK while others say it is illegal. If you are recording conversation without the consent of all parties, you may be breaking the law – so be warned. It is also a good idea to indicate when the call is being recorded. To do this insert the following line in /etc/asterisk/features_general_custom.conf. Courtesytone = beep 25.1 CALL MONITOR THROUGH ELASTIX As of version 1.0, monitoring does not work as expected. This is due to bugs that were not resolved. However after installing v1.0 from the ISO, updating it to 1.0-16 will resolve the problem somewhat. To upgrade Elastix to the latest version, you simply log on to the console (or ssh using putty) and issue the following command at the root ptompt: yum update elastix. When completed, restart Elastix. 25.2 RECORD ALL CALLS BY DEFAULT To record all calls, on a specific extensions or all extensions, this function has to be enabled on the extension or extensions involved. This is done through the Extension Options Record Incoming and Record Outgoing field by selecting “Always” from the dropdown box for both fields. 25.3 RECORD CALLS ON DEMAND. To record on demand, the caller or the receiver have to dial *1 when he/she need the recording to start (Asterisk v1.2). This function will only work if the feature is enabled. To enabled this feature, the following Dial Command Option must be enabled in freePBX General settings Asterisk Dial command option and Asterisk Outbound Dial command option fields by adding the following flag in the fields. w: Allow the called user to start recording after pressing *1 (Asterisk v1.2) W: Allow the calling user to start recording after pressing *1 (Asterisk v1.2) Some users have noticed that the *1 need to be pressed very quickly for this feature to work. This can be remedied by adding the following line in the features,conf file under the general section. featuredigittimeout = 2000 ;(the default is 500 which is too fast for an old guy like me Elastix Without Tears Page 141 of 298 25.4 TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDED CALLS After logging on to Elastix, select PBX Tab then the Monitoring Tab and you will get the following screen where your calls recording will be displayed. You have the option of listening to the recordings or download the recordings. 3 1 2 25.5 ARI INTERFACE Another way of monitoring the calls is by installing the ARI interface. After installation, the ARI interface can be access from the unembedded freePBX GUI. However it must first be installed manually as it is not included in the older Elastix distribution (download here) – it is however installed in the latest distribution. If you want to listen to all the calls, you will need to log in as admin with the default password of ari_password (or password), otherwise you can only listen to your recordings only. To monitor the calls for any individual extension, log in using the extension number and the extension password. To play the recording, simply click on the Play link related to the extension that you want to listen to, in the screen that follows. Elastix Without Tears Page 142 of 298 The configuration file for ARI is /var/www/html/recordings/includes/main.conf.php For those who do record conversations through the ARI interface of unembedded freePBX, the recording are kept in the /var/spool/asterisk/monitor directory. If you get the following error chances are main.conf.php is missing. “ARI does not appear to have access to the Asterisk Manager. () Check the ARI 'main.conf.php' configuration file to set the Asterisk Manager Account.Check /etc/asterisk/manager.conf for a proper Asterisk Manager Accountmake sure [general] enabled = yes and a 'permit=' line for localhost or the webserver”. To overcome this you may create main.conf.php and place the following in the file. Hopefully this will fix the problem. You will never know if you don’t try. Elastix Without Tears Page 148 of 298 26 STUN SERVERS STUN (Simple Traversal of UDP through NAT - Network Address Translation) is a protocol for assisting devices behind a NAT firewall or router with their packet routing operates on TCP and UDP port 3478. I never have the need to use STUN. The list below is provided for those who have the need to use public STUN Servers. These are the servers that I am aware off - there may be others. stun.xten.com stun.fwd.org stun01.sipphone.com stun1.noc.ams-ix.net stun.voipbuster.com stun.voxgratia.org Elastix Without Tears Page 149 of 298 27 DIALING THROUGH MS OUTLOOK® One way of keeping a little black book for all your telephone contacts is through Microsoft™ Outlook® (for the windows users) address book. We can also use Outlook to dial the phone numbers in the address book as Outlook® has a click-to-dial facility. I was alerted of this facility in Outlook® and Asterisk® and asked to prove the application and publish a simplified instruction in this guide. 27.1 DOWNLOAD ASTTAPI Before you get started, you will need to download AstTapi, which is a Microsoft TAPI to Asterisk Bridge. This little gem (still under further development at the moment but functional) will make it possible to do click-to-dial from Microsoft™ Outlook and for that matter from other TAPI compliant applications. Download AstTapi from http://sourceforge.net/projects/asttapi/ To get started, you will need to edit manager_custom.conf file. The easiest is to use Elastix’s File Editor (the easiest way!) Tools -> File Editor -> manager_custom.conf On opening the manager_custom.conf file, you will notice the following, which you will need to do a tiny weeny edit: [phpconfig] secret = php[onfig deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 permit=127.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 read = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user write = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user [phpagi] secret = phpagi deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 permit=127.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 read = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user write = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user [AstTapi] secret = AstTapi deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 #permit=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 read = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user write = system,call,log,verbose,command,agent,user Under the [AstTapi] User context, remove the # from the permit line and change the 192.168.1.0 to the network address of your network. In my case I left it as it is because my network is under 192.168.1.0 (see red highlight). Once this is done, click Update and restart Asterisk. 27.2 INSTALL ASTTAPI Install AstTapi on your PC – the one that you have Microsoft Outlook installed. Follow the prompt and once completed you will need to restart your PC for the new driver to take effect. Elastix Without Tears Page 150 of 298 27.3 CONFIGURE OUTLOOK ADDRESS BOOK Fire up Outlook®. Click on Contacts from your folder list. Select a contact that you want to call (provided that a telephone number has been recorded). Click on the phone icon. Click on the Telephone icon. The New Call dialog box will be displayed: Select Dialling Options. The Dialling Option box will be displayed. In the "connect using line" drop down box, select Asterisk. Then click on Line properties. In the Host field, enter the address of your asterisk server: e.g. 192.168.1.100 In the Port Field: 5038 User Field: AstTapi Password: AstTapi Elastix Without Tears Page 151 of 298 User Channel: (your extension – the extension you want Asterisk to ring before connecting you the number you are calling) e.g. sip/2001 Select dial by context radio button. Enter outbound-allroutes in the context box When done, click Apply and you are done. You can now start making calls from Outlook using the click-to-dial facility. Now… that was quite painless. Elastix Without Tears Page 152 of 298 28 SPEED DIAL Sometime you may just need to call someone quickly without having to look up his/her phone number. Well, you can by simply defining a shortcut number. There are 2 ways you can do this - my way and Elastix’s way. 28.1 THE DUMB-ME METHOD Since I am very bad at remembering phone numbers – I cant remember my own phone number (or my car registration number), I have defined some shortcut numbers for my family using the first 3 characters of their first names e.g. Adam is ADA which translate to 232 on the telephone keypad. Make sure the numbers have not been allocated to your local extension. To do this, you will need to edit extensions_custom.conf by adding the lines below containing the relevant exten expressions. You can do this through Tools -> File Editor ; ############################################################# ; Speed Dial to some predefined numbers (added by Ben 2/12/2005) ; ############################################################# exten => 236,1,playback(pls-wait-connect-call) exten => 236,n,Dial(SIP/6140036xxxx@pennytelsip,60,m) ; Ben’s Mobile exten => 236,n,Hangup exten => 764,1,playback(pls-wait-connect-call) exten => 764,n,Dial(SIP/6141242xxxx@pennytelsip,60,m) ; Rohani’s Mobile exten => 764,n,Hangup exten => 667,1,playback(pls-wait-connect-call) exten => 667,n,Dial(SIP/6140470xxxx@pennytelsip,60,m) ; Nor’s Mobile exten => 667,n,Hangup exten => 767,1,playback(pls-wait-connect-call) exten => 767,n,Dial(SIP/6140512xxxx@pennytelsip,60,m) ; Ros’s Mobile exten => 767,n,Hangup exten => 232,1,playback(pls-wait-connect-call) exten => 232,n,Dial(SIP/6140936xxxx@pennytelsip,60,m) ; Adam’s Mobile exten => 232,n,Hangup You will need to substitute the example phone numbers above such as 6140036xxxx with the real phone numbers. When 236 (which is BEN) is dialled, you will hear a voice prompt saying “Please wait while I connect your call” followed by Asterisk calling Ben’s Mobile number which is 61400336510 using the Pennytel SIP trunk. Pennytel SIP trunk was called Pennytelsip when it was initially set up. The call will be tried for 60 seconds (,60) and while the call is being attempted, the caller will be listening to a MOH tune (,m) instead of the ringing tone. You may however change it to a ringing tone by substituting the “m” with a “r” or remove “,m” altogether Once you have done that, click on Update and re-read the config. That’s all there is to it. Elastix Without Tears Page 153 of 298 28.2 UNEMBEDDED FREEPBX’S METHOD Elastix v1.x, does not provide this facility. To set up the Speed Dial, you need to use the unembedded freePBX under the TOOLS Tab. Here you simply enter the Phone number of the party you wish to call, the name and the Speed Dial Code in the appropriate fields as per the example below. Submit change when done. To call the Speed dial, e.g. you want to call Ben Sharif, simply dial *069 (the *0 tells Elastix that you want to use the Speed Dial and the 69 is the Speed Dial Code for Ben Sharif). The Speed Dial Prefix *0 can be found under Feature Codes. Naturally if you have a big list of Names and Phone Numbers that you want to enter in your Elastix Phone Book, you have the option of uploading the list. You have to scroll down the page to get to the “Import from CSV” section of the Phone Book (see illustration below) . The “Import from CSV” is a misnomer because, if you have created a list using EXCEL and are trying to import the list, it will not work since EXCEL CSV file is a comma delimited one where as freePBX is expecting a semi-colon delimited file. Mousing over the word file will give you the format it is expecting; “Name”;Number;Speeddial code Ensure that “Name” must be enclosed in quotation marks. Any speeddial code that already exists in the phone book cannot be reused. If you want to use an existing speeddial code in your so called “CSV” file, the existing entry in the phone book must first be removed. Elastix Without Tears Page 154 of 298 29 HOW TO USE WINDOW MESSENGER® 5.X    Windows Messenger is NOT MSN Messenger. You may need to download Windows Messenger from Microsoft. Set up Windows Messenger 5.x as a SIP client on your PC: 1. Start Windows Messenger from your PC. From the Windows Messenger dialog box, go to Tools -> Options ->Accounts: Check the [My contacts include users of a SIP Communications Service] checkbox. Enter "sip:@" (e.g.."sip:[email protected]") in the [Sign-in name] field 2. Click on the [Advanced] button next to the Sign-in name.     Check the [Configure settings] button Enter Asterisk IP address (e.g.192.168.1.101) in the [Server name of IP address] field Check the [UDP] button Click [OK] and [OK] again. In order for Windows Messenger to work as a voice communication device, you must have a microphone and speaker(s) connected to your PC. Elastix Without Tears Page 155 of 298  This setting means the Windows Messenger has a user/phone number of 206 known to the SIP server (your Asterisk box) of 192.168.1.101. Verify that Windows Messenger has successfully registered with Asterisk by logging in to Asterisk. UnembeddedfreePBX -> Tools -> Asterisk Info. You should see under SIP Registry that the Windows Messenger is registered as a user/phone number of 206, with a contact URL of your local PC IP Address e.g. 192.168.0.11, among other registration information. Note: Windows Messenger 5.0 or later has support for VoIP communications but it seems that it may create problems with chat or other features. For this purpose, please focus your testing on VoIP only. Elastix Without Tears Page 156 of 298 30 HOW TO INTERCONNECT 2 BOXES There may be a time when you want to interconnect 2 Asterisks boxes (def.com.au and xyz.com.au) together and if you are like me, you will probably be spending a good part of 3 hours trying to get them to talk to one another. I have 2 different locations, the Main Office (def.com.au) with about 11 extensions and another office in a different location (xyz.com.au) about 20 km away with 9 extensions. The main office is the only box that will have accounts with different VSPs and all external communications are through the main office Elastix box. I settled for the simplest solution and after some fiddling around I managed to get them to work the way I wanted it but not happy with it, I solicited some advise from a friend (thanks to Mark Brooker) who provided further assistance. Instead of being verbose in my explanation, I will just create a few tables outlining what I did. I hope this will help those in the same position as I am, to set 2 very basic systems together (you can refer to DUNDi for a more complete solution). A little tutorial on DUNDi can be found here. 30.1 METHOD 1 - WITH THE PEER ASTERISK BOX AS EXTENSIONS For the purpose of registering the peers to each other, I created 1 extension on each box eg: 90000 on System 1 and 91000 on System 2– using extension numbers that I am not likely to use as local extensions (while some users have had success using common extension, but I prefer 2 separate extensions as I have them working). For simplicity, I gave a common password xxxyyy to both boxes. System 1 def.com.au IAX Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules: Trunk Name System 2 xyz.com.au XX. XX. Parramatta MainOffice host=xyz.com.au (or System host=def.com.au (or System 1 Peer Details 2 IP) IP) qualify=yes qualify=yes secret=xxxyyy secret=xxxyyy type=peer type=peer username=90000 username=91000 User Context Leave blank Leave blank User Details Leave blank Leave blank Register String 91000:[email protected] 90000:[email protected] Note: Registration isn’t really necessary. It will still work without it unless you use Dynamic IP. System 1 Extensions Phone Protocol Extension Number Extension Password Fullname Voicemail & Directory IAX 90000 xxxyyy Parramatta Disabled System 2 IAX 91000 xxxyyy Main Office Disabled Elastix Without Tears Page 157 of 298 System 1 Outbound Routing Route Name Route Password Dial Patterns Parramatta Leave Blank 6XXX (6001 to 6009 are Parramatta Office extensions) IAX2/Parramatta System 2 MainOffice Leave Blank XX. (Apart from Local extensions, all others go via Main Office) IAX2/MainOffice Trunk Sequence The above Outbound Routing rule assumes that you do not wish to use a dialling prefix. If you want to use a prefix to dial the remote extensions and to use the remote routing rules, you may place a prefix e.g. 9|6XXX and 9|XX. for system 1 and system 2 respectively instead of just 6XXX and XX.  While this method will provide some rudimentary security (though pretty weak), as it requires an extension to be created for the peer Asterisk box, it will not pass the calling party extension number to the remote Asterisk box. Instead, it will pass the Trunk ID only and all calls will seem to come from the same trunk and not individual extension – I did say that this is a simple solution. 30.2 METHOD 2 - IN A PEER/USER ARRANGEMENT Another method that I use is described below. This method treats both the Asterisk box as internal to each other as peer and user. I am using IAX2 for this purpose, however I believe, you may be able to do this with SIP as well if you are trying to connect the older Asterisk with the newer incarnations (I have not proved it yet). This method does not require registration either and does not require you to create extensions for the peers. In many ways, this is simpler to set up. Unlike the first method, this second method will pass the Caller ID to the receiving party. The receiving party will actually get the callers’ extension number/ID instead of the extension number of the peer Asterisk box. Rather than being verbose, I will illustrate this method using tables as follows: System 1 def.com.au IAX2 Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules: Trunk Name Peer Details XX. InterOffice host=xyz.com.au (or System 2 IP) qualify=yes type=peer InterOffice-In context=from-internal host=xyz.com.au (or IP) type=user System 2 xyz.com.au XX. InterOffice host=def.com.au (or System 1 IP) qualify=yes type=peer InterOffice-In context=from-internal host=def.com.au (or IP) type=user User Context User Details Elastix Without Tears Page 158 of 298 System 1 Outbound Routing Route Name Route Password Dial Patterns System 2 InterOffice Leave Blank 6XXX (6001 to 6009 are Parramatta Office extensions) 9|XX. (To call external number via Main Office) IAX2/InterOffice InterOffice Leave Blank XX. (Apart from Local extensions, all others go via Main Office) Trunk Sequence IAX2/InterOffice 30.3 METHOD 3 – FRIEND/FRIEND ARRANGEMENT (By far the simplest method) This method is by far the simplest method where the boxes are treated as friend to each other. Like Method 2, registration is not required and this method will also pass the Caller ID to the receiving party. This method will not work for calling external numbers through the remote server. System 1 def.com.au IAX2 Trunk Outgoing Dial Rules: Trunk Name Peer Details XX. InterOffice host=xyz.com.au (or System 2 IP) qualify=yes type=friend System 2 xyz.com.au XX. InterOffice host=def.com.au (or System 1 IP) qualify=yes type=friend User Context User Details System 1 Outbound Routing Route Name Route Password Dial Patterns System 2 InterOffice Leave Blank 6XXX (6001 to 6009 are Parramatta Office extensions) IAX2/InterOffice InterOffice Leave Blank XX. (To handle all Local and remote office extensions) IAX2/InterOffice Trunk Sequence All the above examples assume that both Asterisk boxes have Public Fix IP address. If you have Dynamic IP addresses, you will need to register both the boxes with DynDns to obtain a valid DNS ID. If you are a part of a Corporate LAN, then you will have no need to worry about DynDns and what not.  This is important – Please read If two or more boxes are connected together and you only need to call extensions that belong to those boxes and vice versa, all the 3 methods above will work fine. However if you wish to be able to call external number via any of the other boxes, you must adopt method 1 and method 2. Method 3 – Friend/Friend arrangement will not work. Elastix Without Tears Page 159 of 298 Warning: You must provide for security, as this is pretty wide open. Like all installation, you must provide for security. As different installation resorts to different types of security arrangement, I will leave that to the individual implementer to deal with the security issues. 30.4 THINKING OF MORE THAN 2 BOXES? Just as a matter of interest, you can connect several boxes using this method. While I have connected 3 boxes successfully, I believe, the same principle can be applied to more boxes.  In my implementation I have box A, B and C (System 1, 2 and 3) in a star configuration. Box A is the master box. All the other boxes use box A as the main exchange. A peers with B and C - B peers with A - And C peers with A. Except for local traffic, all external and inter-office (inter-branch) traffic goes via Box A. – with the appropriate dial plan of course. Both the above methods, while useable for a basic configuration, will not provide you with a complete solution. To provide a complete solution is beyond the scope of this document. The following link will provide further reference for connecting two Asterisk boxes together http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+-+dual+servers If you require a complete solution tailored to your exact requirement, my advice to you is to hire a VOIP consultant. 30.5 REDIRECT INCOMING IN BOX A TO BOX B There will be times when you will want to redirect certain calls made to one Elastix box to another Elastix box in another location. This can happen in a scenario where you are moving your mail office from your existing location to another location (or moving your sales office to another location away from your main office). Personally I really wouldn’t do this as it is simpler to get a redirection to the new number from the exchange. In this example, let’s say that all calls coming to your head office Elastix PBX made on phone number 12345678 need to be sent to your Elastix PBX in a different location. Let us call your Head Office PBX Box-A and your remote PBX Box-B and calls coming in to Box-A to be sent to Box-B. There are a number of ways that this can be achieved but most involved editing conf files and adding extra codes in the conf files. Unless you are quite comfortable with doing this, it can be quite daunting to the uninitiated. The example I am illustrating here does not involve editing any conf file. All can be done through freePBX. It is a little long winded but you don’t have to touch any of the conf files. Elastix Without Tears Page 160 of 298 Step 1 – (Do this in Box-A) i. Create an IAX Trunk You will only need the following in the Outgoing Setting and leave everything else blank. Let us call this trunk TransferTrunk. host=BoxB.com.au (your qualified DNS or the IP address) type=peer username=6000 (this number will be used later) ii. Create and Outbound Route After you have created the trunk, you will need to create an outbound route. Let us call this outbound route TransferRoute. In the dial pattern, you will only require one entry: 6000 The trunk sequence will be TransferTrunk only. iii. Create a new extension Next create a new extension e.g. 500. You will be using this extension to unconditionally forward all calls made to this extension, to extension 6000 in BoxB which we will create later. To unconditionally forward calls made to this extension to extension 6000, you need to connect to extension 500 using a softphone and dial *726000. Any calls to this extension will be unconditionally forwarded to extension 9000. iv. Create and inbound route DID number is 12345678. This is your phone number of calls come in to Box-A from, assuming that all calls that come on this number are to be transferred to Box-B. Set Destination to 500. That’s all need to be done in Box-A Step 2 – (Do this in Box B) i. Create a Trunk Trunk name: TransferTrunk. Leave the peer details blank. User context: Transfer-In You will only need the following in the Incoming Setting and leave everything else blank. context=from-trunk ii. Create a new IAX extension Create a new IAX extension 6000 (this is the username defined in the outgoing setting in Step 1 above). Display name: CallTransfers. Edit this extension context to read from-trunk (instead of from-internal). iii. Direct all calls to IVR Ensure that incoming route direct calls to the appropriate extension. In my case, all calls go to IVR. Elastix Without Tears Page 161 of 298 That is all we need to do and from now on, calls that come in to Box-A on your phone number 12345678 will be directed to extension 500 of Box-A. However, since all calls to extension 500 has been unconditionally redirected to extension 6000, asterisk will forward the call to extension 6000 which your outbound route will pick up and send to Box-B. When it gets to Box-B, it will be answered by the IVR in Box-B. Elastix Without Tears Page 162 of 298 31 CUSTOMISED VOICE The default pre-recorded voice prompts and announcements in ELASTIX are suitable for almost every situation, however there will be times when customised voice prompts or announcements will be required, e.g. to mix English and other language on a single announcement. Although there are separate voice sets that can be used, sometimes we only require a few prompts and not the entire voice set. 31.1 CUSTOMISING VOICE PROMPTS To satisfy this requirement, custom voice prompts can be recorded individually by using the System Recording facility of Elastix/freePBX as covered in the chapter referring to System Recording earlier in this document. However, if you want to manually cut the script, you can do the following (personally I wouldn’t bother – why re-invent the wheel?). Under the [from-internal-custom] context of extensions_custom.conf, add the following codes. [from-internal-custom] ; For custom recording exten => 5678,1,Wait(2) exten => 5678,2,Record(/tmp/my-recording:gsm) exten => 5678,3,Hangup ; for playback of custom recording exten => 5679,1,Playback(/tmp/my-recording) exten => 5679,2,Hangup To start recording, use one of the phone extension and dial 5678. At the beep, start recording the voice prompt. The voice prompt will be saved as my-recording.gsm (gsm format) in the /tmp directory. When completed, hang up and dial 5679. The voice prompt will be played back. If you are not satisfied, repeat the above process. Once you are satisfied, rename the file to something related and recognisable e.g. my_office_business_hours.gsm. The file should then be moved to the /var/lib/asterisk/sound directory. The file can be played through your custom applications or prompts using the Playback or Background function of Asterisk. A good information on Asterisk sound files and how to create them can be found here http://voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+sound+files Elastix Without Tears Page 163 of 298 31.2 INSTALLING OTHER LANGUAGES If you wish to use a different language other that the default American English that comes with Asterisk, there are a couple of ways that you can do but as this guide is for beginners, I will go the easiest method. Create a subdirectory for the particular language (eg: ‘au’ for Australian English, ‘fr’ for French, ‘it’ for Italian etc.) in the /var/lib/asterisk/sounds directory, e.g. /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/au and send all your prompts sound files there. Also create the language directories in the digits, letters etc directories, and send the entire prompt files there. Add the following line in the iax.conf and sip.conf configuration file under [general]. In zapata.conf configuration file the line should be added under [channels]. language=au ; (or fr, it or whichever language is installed)  You may use the Edit Configuration facility of ELASTIX, otherwise you can use nano at the command prompt of your Asterisk box (or SSH to your Asterisk box) to edit the files that resides in the etc/asterisk directory. 31.3 CONVERTING WAV FILES For those who wish to record their own sound prompts, the following may be of some assistance. Elastix will be able to play virtually any sound that it has the codec for e.g. wav(pcm), wav49, gsm, g711, g729 etc. However, the gsm format seems to be the common format used for the default voice prompts. 31.3.1 Converting WAV to GSM Since the WAV format is the most common format that is being adopted when recording with a windows based PC, and most times, the windows based WAV format does not play well with asterisk, below is a method of converting the windows recorded WAV format to GSM using SOX. Your result will be better if you record your sound files in mono, 16 bit, 8000 Hz. After recording the WAV sound files, transfer the sound files to the TEMP directory of the Elastix PC. In this example, let,s call one of the sound files hello.wav.  Login as root and change directory to the directory where you have transferred the sound files to e.g. cd /tmp At the prompt issue the following commands.  If your sound files were recorded in mono, 16 bit, 8000 Hz sox hello.wav hello.gsm  If your sound files were recorded in mono but NOT 16 bit, 8000 Hz sox hello.wav -r 8000 hello.gsm resample -ql  Elastix Without Tears Page 164 of 298  If your sound files were recorded in stereo, you will need the –cl switch. sox hello.wav -r 8000 –cl hello.gsm resample –ql  if your sound files were recorded in ADPCM wav files, to convert to standard wav file; sox hello.wav -r 8000 -c1 -s -w hello-out.wav resample -ql  Next, move the sound file to the sound directory where all your prompts are stored and you are done. You may also convert a number of WAV files at once using the following command. In this example, lets assume that the files were all recorded in stereo; for a in *.wav; do sox "$a" -r 8000 -c1 "`echo $a|sed e s/wav//`gsm" resample –ql 31.3.2 Converting WAV to SLN Starting from Asterisk version 1.2.0, the .sln (SLINEAR) format seems to be the format that is being adopted (the GSM format is still commonly being used), so don’t worry about converting your existing prompts. To convert wav file to sln, use the following command: sox hello.wav -t raw -r 8000 -s -w -c1 hello.sln Further reference for converting wav sound files can be found here at voip-info.org. Elastix Without Tears Page 165 of 298 32 MOH (MUSIC ON HOLD) Elastix comes with a number of preinstalled music on hold selections, however you may want to add your own music to the existing selection or remove the default selection altogether, and only use your own selection instead. 32.1 CUSTOMISING MOH ELASTIX supports native MP3. To change or add to your music on hold collections, simply upload all your MP3 to ELASTIX through the Onhold Music screen of freePBX. You may also need to add the following, under [channels] in your zapata.conf file: musiconhold=default Pretty much any mp3 will work with Elastix. Prior to that, it's better to convert it to a standard format. When converting my MP3 music, I use FreeRip and convert the music as per the following: Bit Rate: 128 Mono Constant Bit Rate (CBR) Make sure that there is no ID3 Tagging. I found that this conversion gives me the most satisfactory result. To customise your music to your favourite, you may need to create a new music category directory to hold your favourite music. Do this through the freePBX “On Hold Music” GUI interface. I call my category favourites. Upload your favourite music to this directory. Again, do this through the freePBX GUI. Once finished uploading, click the “Enable Random Play” button and the red bar. Make a little change to your musiconhold.conf file like the example below (this way you don’t have to delete the music in your default directory). You will now have to get used to the newer approach (it no longer uses the [classes] tag): The musiconhold.conf files in 1.2 is now set out differently as per the example of my file below: musiconhold.conf ; ; Music on hold class definitions ; This is using the new 1.2 config file format, and will not work with 1.0 ; based Asterisk systems ; [default] mode=files ; ; valid mode options: ; quietmp3 -- default ; mp3 -- loud ; mp3nb -- unbuffered ; quietmp3nb -- quiet unbuffered ; custom -- run a custom application ; files -- read files from a directory in any Asterisk supported format ; Elastix Without Tears Page 166 of 298 directory=/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/favourite ;<- I pointed this to my favourite random=yes #include musiconhold_additional.conf The corresponding entries can be found in musiconhold_additional.conf – see below: musiconhold_additional.conf [acc_1] mode=files directory=/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/acc_1/ random=yes 32.2 STREAMING MUSIC ON HOLD Streaming music on hold is not directly supported using the GUI of ELASTIX or freePBX, however if you are prepared to do a little editing of the musiconhold.conf file and downloading some external files, you will be able to get it working somehow. There are 2 ways of doing this and I will outline them both below: Method 1 (old method of doing things but pretty straight forward and it works) Below is what I have to do to get Streaming On Hold for my system. I realised that it is not the best method, but for the sole purpose of getting Music on Hold, it got me working. From command line, find out if you have mpg123 installed using the following command. mpg123 –v You will find out if you have mpg123 installed or not and its version number. The version that we want is mpg123-0.59r. Since I do not have mpg123 installed, first I have to download and install mpg123 - it is not included in Elastix implementation of Asterisk. To get mpg123 I have to log on as root and at the command prompt I did the following: cd /usr/bin wget http://www.mpg123.de/mpg123/mpg123-0.59r.tar.gz tar –zxvf mpg123-0.59r.tar.gz cd mpg123-0.59r make linux make install ln -s /usr/local/bin/mpg123 /usr/bin/mpg123 I have to make a directory for the streaming music. You can do this though the freePBX GUI or manually. In this example, I have shown the manual method. su asterisk cd /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/ mkdir stream Next I need to create a zero length dummy MP3 file for this purpose in the /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/stream directory (this can be done manually). cd stream touch stream.mp3 Elastix Without Tears Page 167 of 298 exit Now I have to do some editing of my musiconhold.conf file. Open the musiconhold.conf file using the Config edit option on your Elastix and add the following lines on top of the file; [classes] default => quietmp3:/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/stream,http://128.177.3.80:4064/ and leave everything else out (or commented out) like my example below. The http://128.177.3.80:4064/ (SKY.FM – Country) is where I get my streaming music from. This is what my musiconhold.conf looks like. [classes] default => quietmp3:/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/stream,http://128.177.3.80:4064/ ; The lines in BOLD are the lines that was added to the musiconhold.conf file. After having done that you may reboot your system. The above is not necessarily being the best way to approach it but that is the simplest way that I know of. Method 2 (as suggested by Bob Fryer) For complete instruction, please refer to: http://www.elastixconnection.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=83 STREAMING MUSIC ON HOLD FOR FREEPBX 2.4 & EARLIER First of all lets download the latest mpg123 application. via the Linux Console or via SSH, at he Linux prompt type the following commands cd /usr/src wget ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/RPMForge/dag/redhat/el3/en/i386/RPMS.dag mpg123-1.6.2-1.el3.rf.i386.rpm rpm -ivh mpg123-1.6.2-1.el3.rf.i386.rpm (the line in italic red is one line with no break in the line) There is a slightly newer version (1.6.2-8) but the only rpms that are available are from ATRPMS, and either they have built them incorrectly, or mpg123 in that version requires further dependencies, which are not readily available without loading further rpms with further dependencies. So stick with this version for now. add the following lines to /etc/asterisk/musiconhold_custom.conf (if other lines are in this file, just add those lines) [uptemposmoothjazz] mode=custom application = /usr/bin/mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -f 8192 -b 0 http://208.122.59.30:7716 Elastix Without Tears Page 168 of 298 [bestofeighties] mode=custom application = /usr/bin/mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -f 8192 -b 0 http://160.79.128.62:6618 [Classical] mode=custom application = /usr/bin/mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -f 8192 -b 0 http://208.122.59.30:7064 [ClassicalGuitar] mode=custom application = /usr/bin/mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -f 8192 -b 0 http://208.122.59.30:7070 (the line in italic red is one line with no break in the line) When you have selected your list of classes you need to create directories, otherwise Freepbx will not automatically add the classes to the list of Music On Hold. So for the above classes we perform the following: mkdir mkdir mkdir mkdir /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/uptemposmoothjazz /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/bestofeighties /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/Classical /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/ClassicalGuitar Now we make those directories accessible to asterisk. chown chown chown chown asterisk:asterisk asterisk:asterisk asterisk:asterisk asterisk:asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/uptemposmoothjazz /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/bestofeighties /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/Classical /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/ClassicalGuitar Now that is completed, go back into Freepbx to your Music On Hold Menu and you should now see the new music categories that you have Thats it, you will now find under your inbound routes, ringgroups, queues, the MusicOnHold options now include your new music classes. STREAMING MUSIC ON HOLD FOR FREEPBX 2.5 AND FURTHER As of Freepbx 2.5, they have now made it even easier to using Internet Streams by including a Streaming Category option in the Music on Hold Menu. However we still need to add mpg123 to the system to allow it to play streams, so at the Linux console or via SSH, perform the following commands cd /usr/src wget ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/RPMForge/dag/redhat/el3/en/i386/RPMS.dag/mpg123 Elastix Without Tears Page 169 of 298 -1.6.2-1.el3.rf.i386.rpm rpm -ivh mpg123-1.6.2-1.el3.rf.i386.rpm (the line in italic red is one line with no break in the line) Now let’s go to the Music On Hold section in the Unembedded Freepbx All you do is select Add Streaming Category and you will see a screen like the above. Fill in the details similar to the example below The Category name is like the one in the Freepbx 2.4 version, where we selected a category name of uptemposmoothjazz, and the line is /usr/bin/mpg123 -q -s --mono -r 8000 -f 8192 -b 0 http://208.122.59.30:7716, which is the Internet feed that we used in the Freepbx 2.4 version. Submit your changes and that’s it. You will end up with a new Music Category to choose from similar to below. You can set up many more as you please. WHERE CAN I GET INTERNET STREAMS This is where a lot of people are coming undone, or becoming confused. They read a Elastix Without Tears Page 170 of 298 few tutorials about how to use Internet Streams, they go to their favourite Radio Station, find a feed and try to run it on Elastix. Many of the links now provided by the Internet radio stations download a file called something.pls. The PLS extension being most common which is a play list. This is not suitable for the command line players that are used with Linux, so you hit a stop right there.... Quite often I start off with www.shoutcast.com which has heaps of Internet feeds all at a click of a mouse. Generally I do not click on "click here to listen" but use the actual link to the radio station. Once I reach the radio stations site, I look for their links. As a guide, I am going to pick one as they have a good selection of music types, as well as a range of feeds based on Bandwidth. For your interest, these feeds were used in the actual code for Elastix/Freepbx that were listed previously in this article. The site I visited was http://www.sky.fm/ So on the site, I found the "Listen Now" menu, then found a Genre of music that I wanted and then selected MP3 Streams (to make life simple, the MP3 are the feeds we want), and then I found a further choice of Bandwidth. Remember we going to use it with Telephony here, not a fantastic sound system, so actually smaller is better as long as you are happy with the sound quality. So in this case I selected 24k Modems which I find are ok on Asterisk based systems such as Elastix If you select this, you will find that it will try and download a file with an extension called PLS. (Note: if you already have player on your Workstation system that accepts the PLS such as Winamp, you will need to save it as a file and use a file view to look at the contents. Basically the file contents will look like the following: [playlist] NumberOfEntries=3 File1=http://212.23.5.99:8002 Title1=S K Y . F M - Best of the 80s - hear your classic favorites and relive those retro 80s! Length1=-1 File2=http://shoutcast01.edpnet.net:8766 Title2=S K Y . F M - Best of the 80s - hear your classic favorites and relive those retro 80s! Elastix Without Tears Page 171 of 298 Length2=-1 File3=http://160.79.128.62:6618 Title3=S K Y . F M - Best of the 80s - hear your classic favorites and relive those retro 80s! Length3=-1 Version=2 (the line in italic red is one line with no break in the line) All we are after out of this file is one of the entries. I recommend that you try each one in the list in your favourite Media Player (e.g. Windows you might use the Windows Media Player). As you might find a server that has gone offline, or reacts very slow which is not what you want. In fact this one was a very good example, and on testing found the first one didn't seem to respond at all (possibly offline) and the second was slower to start than the third. So for this example I chose the third one. So after testing, if we take the third one in the list, it would mean our feed address for an MP3 stream for this type of music is http://160.79.128.62:6618 The above are just examples, you can add more, or change the ones above. You may want to find some low bandwidth streams that are closer to your Country to eliminate any dropouts etc. The following are addresses where you may find some streaming music for your MOH. 181.kickin’ country http://64.236.34.106:80/stream/1075/ Classical 96.3 FM http://216.126.84.50:8000/ SMOOTHJAZZ.COM http://scfire-chi0l-2.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1005/ Sky FM – Modern Jazz http://205.188.215.227:8008/ Energy 98 – Dance Hit http://193.138.205.194:8014/ Life FM – Adelaide Australia http://203.16.214.174:8040/ Groove Mix http://63.249.3.194:8010/ The 80s channel http://64.236.34.106:80/stream/1040/ Elastix Without Tears Page 172 of 298 33 BACKUP AND RESTORE Backup and Restore are two of the mandatory functions of any application. Elastix is no exception. With this in mind, the developer of Elastix has incorporated this facility in under the System section. There are 2 ways you can do this. One is through Elastix or if you wish you can do it through the Unembedded FreePBX. 33.1 BACKUP AND RESTORE THE ELASTIX WAY. First let us look at doing a backup and restore the Elastix way through the Elastix GUI. 33.1.1 Make a Backup To schedule a backup, from Elastix choose System Tab -> Backup & Restore You will then be presented with the following screen: Next select Backup as per the illustration above. The screen that follows is where you define your backup requirement. Elastix Without Tears Page 173 of 298 I have chosen to select ALL option as per the illustration above: 1. Place a check mark in the All Options (which will tick everything) 2. Click Process Once the backup process is completed, you will see a screen with the backup filename displayed as per illustration below. Once done you may exit the screen. Naturally you can do as many backups as you want. It is up to you to decide. If you are wondering where it is being stored, it is here /var/www/html/backup. The backup files are identified by the backup names. Depending on how big your content is the backup can take quite some time.  If this is your first installation, it is advisable to do the backup right away by because should anything happens you can always restore it to its original condition. After this is done, you may start doing your regular backup by following the above procedure. . 33.1.2 To Restore a Backup Backup itself is not useful if it cannot be restored. thought of this too. The freePBX developer has This is a very simple procedure. All you need to do is click on the appropriate options and the rest are all a matter of choosing what it is that you want to restore (see illustration below). Elastix Without Tears Page 174 of 298 1. 2. 3. 4. Select System Tab Select Backup/Restore option Select the backup file you wish to restore and click on the restore button As per the illustration below: a. Select whatever components that you want to restore b. Click on the Process button Whatever components you have selected will now be restored. Once done you may leave the screen and check the system to make sure that all those that need to be restored have been restored. 33.2 BACKUP AND RESTORE THE FREEPBX WAY. To use this facility you must first insure that the directory /var/lib/asterisk/backups exist as is might not. You may have to create it by user asterisk if it did not exist. 33.2.1 To Schedule a Backup To schedule a backup, from freePBX choose Tools -> Backup & Restore You will then be presented with the following screen: Elastix Without Tears Page 175 of 298 Next select Add Backup Schedule The screen that follows is where you define your backup requirement. I have chosen to schedule a Weekly (on Sundayst) backup as per the illustration above:     In the Schedule Name, I have given it a name Weekly (to signify that it is a weekly job) I have also selected all the items to be backed up – VoiceMail, System Recordings, System Configurations and CDR only. Next from the Run Backup drop down choice, I have chosen Weekly (on Sundays) Once I have done these, I click on Submit Changes. Naturally you can schedule numerous backups. It is up to you to decide. If you are wondering where it is being stored, it is here /var/lib/asterisk/backups. The backup files are identified by the backup names. Elastix Without Tears Page 176 of 298 33.2.2 To Restore a Backup Backup itself is not useful if it cannot be restored. thought of this too. The freePBX developer has This is a very simple procedure. All you need to do is click on the Restore option. Select the backup schedule you want to restore from. Select the backup set. Determine which of the various items in the list you want to restore and click on it and your restore will be executed. Elastix Without Tears Page 177 of 298 34 SUGARCRM SugarCRM is a contact management software that comes bundled with Elastix it needs to be activated. To activate it, do the following: 1. Select Extra Tab 2. Select SugarCRM option 3. Complete the installation by clicking on the click here link. (see illustration below) To set up SugarCRM, first, you need to open the SugarCRM application http:///crm using the default username of Admin and the password of password. For security reason you should change the Admin password. To do this, click on 'My Account' in the upper right-hand corner, then click on the 'Change Password' button underneath 'Users: Administrator (Admin) in the center-left of the screen. Change it to a new password and confirm your new password and click 'Save.' Now it's time to set up your contacts. I will start off setting up a couple of my internal extensions. Click on 'My Account' again and then click the 'Edit' button. Change 'Asterisk Phone Extension' to your Asterisk extension. My extension is 2001. While you are at it, change your time zone and date format as well. Click 'Save' to save that information. Let's add another one. Click on the contacts tab and then select 'Create Contact' from the left hand Shortcuts menu. Add another extension, in my case I chose my daughter’s extension 2002: Firstname: Norsurya Last name: Sharif Home: 2002 Click 'Save' to save that information. Add another and another if you want to, using the method above. At this point, you may find that you are unable to make a phone call through SugarCRM. This is due to a little bug in the popup_picker.php (this bug may have been fixed by the time you read this, but at the time of writing, this bug exists). Elastix Without Tears Page 178 of 298 To fix this bug, you need to edit popup_picker.php by doing the following: From your Linux CLI, log in as root. cd /var/www/html/crm/modules/Contacts nano popup_picker.php Browse down to line 121 and change it from: $number = To $number = preg_replace ( "/[^\d\*]/", "", $display_number ); preg_replace ( "/[^\d\*]/", "", $number ); You should now be able to dial from SugarCRM to your other internal extensions and to the outside world.  You can add multiple users who will each have their own settings/contacts etc. Elastix Without Tears Page 179 of 298 35 VTIGERCRM VtigerCRM is another contact management software that comes bundled with Elastix it needs to be activated. To activate it, do the following: (PLACE HOLDER FOR VTIGERCRM) Elastix Without Tears Page 180 of 298 36 IM - OPENFIRE Under the IM Tab in Elastix, you will find a product called Openfire. In simple terms, Openfire is a very popular Messaging (Chat) and Presence Server, that uses the Jabber/XMPP protocol. You will find that the actual protocol is correctly referred to as XMPP (Extensible Messaging & Presence Protocol). You might be thinking, what do I want with a Openfire server, what use do I have for it. You actually may be using products that already use the Jabber/XMPP protocol right now such as Google Talk or similar. Jabber/XMPP is not just one product. It is the base for a range of products that use XMPP and as it says, it is Extensible, which means that its capabilities can be increased, especially with Plugins. One of those Plugins is the Asterisk IM (Instant Messaging) which joins the Openfire server to the Asterisk Server and allows them to talk. Naturally with any server product, you need a client before some functionality is realized. There are literally heaps of clients that support the XMPP protocol, but in particular, the one developed by the same developers that designed Openfire, is called Spark. It doesn’t mean that it is the best and will suit everyone, but it is able to showcase some of the capabilities of the Openfire server. So what can we do with Openfire and the Asterisk IM Plug-in and a suitable desktop client such as SPARK?    Instant Messaging between people on your Network, even Networks joined by a Wide Area Network. Instant messaging to external people, using the Openfire Gateway plug-in which allows connection to other messaging systems such as (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc). Presence monitoring. The system can monitor whether you are away from the keyboard, offline, on the phone. This makes it easier for people to see whether to call you or chat to you (if you are on the phone and it is urgent that they reach you). Furthermore, with another additional Plug-in, you can publish this presence information to a Web Page. On paper it does not seem like a lot, but there are many more applications and Plug-ins that work with Openfire, and it is up to you to decide whether they are suitable to you and make it the product that you want. Even with those items alone, once implemented and integrated into a Business, it makes a huge difference in the efficiency of a business. So let’s get started. 36.1 OPENFIRE INSTALLATION Login in to your Elastix Web GUI and click on the IM Tab and you should be in the following screen. Click on the CLICK HERE hyperlink and the following screen will appear after a short wait (it is setting up the application for use). Elastix Without Tears Page 181 of 298 Select the language that you want to use and click on Continue and the next screen will appear This screen lets you setup your domain name for your system and must match the domain name of your Elastix System. If you haven’t setup a domain name correctly on your Elastix system, then drop out of this installation program and do it now. In this guide, you will find a Brief Guide to Networking with Elastix, which explains in reasonable detail how to setup Networking. If you change the way your system is setup in terms of domain, at a later date, it will break your Openfire application, and while it is possible to recover from this issue, it could take you hours. Elastix Without Tears Page 182 of 298 With the ports, leave them as they are. They are the default ports. Click on Continue and the next screen will appear In this screen, you have two choices. The first one is a standard Database connection, which unless you have done a large amount of database set-ups, including Java nomenclature, then avoid this. The second is the favourite, where you press a button and it does it all for you and allows you to bring the product online with a minimal effort. So the recommendation is select the Embedded Database, and click on Continue. This screen allows you to choose where to store your users and groups. For most you will select default, using the database to store your users and groups, which is fine for most set-ups. Elastix Without Tears Page 183 of 298 The other option is to use the LDAP protocol using and LDAP compliant system to store the users and groups such as Microsoft Active Directory, or another Linux System, where the users, passwords and groups are already implemented. Unless you are very familiar with LDAP, leave it at default. Click on Continue Enter your normal accessible email address as the admin email address. Now the confusing part is that it asks for a password and password confirmation. It has nothing to do with the email address. It is the admin password that you will use for the Openfire system. - For a new user it would have made it easier to understand if they had separated it (still keeping it on the same page as it is to do with the Admin Account), and gave a separate explanation. Make sure that you use a password that you know well, or at least write it down. You lose it, and it is not a simple measure to recover it. Click on continue Elastix Without Tears Page 184 of 298 That’s the first part. You now have functional Openfire Server, which you can login in to and setup further. Click on LOGIN TO THE ADMIN CONSOLE and you will get the following screen, which will allow you to login. Login with the username admin and the password is the one that you selected back at the admin account. Remember, that was one which you were told to write it down and don’t lose it. The next screen will confirm that you indeed have a functional Openfire Server running. Don’t panic, there is a lot on this screen, but we will take you through the few basics that you need. Don’t upgrade Openfire yourself; these updates will come from Elastix. Remember that they have integrated it into the Elastix system, and there may be minor tweaks to allow this to happen. These minor tweaks however, may be the difference between your Openfire Server working or not working. Elastix Without Tears Page 185 of 298 We are now going to add some Plugins into the system to make it functional. So in the Openfire Console, click on the Plugins Tab, and the following screen will come up This screen shows that there is only one Plugin installed by default. We are now going to quickly add a few more. So click on Available Plugins from the side menu and the following screen will appear. What you see in this list is a list of all Plug-ins that have been registered with Openfire. You may find this list increase, allowing you to add another new plug-in that might be Elastix Without Tears Page 186 of 298 suitable for your system. You can click on the UPDATE NOW hyperlink, if you want to confirm if there are any more available. You can also manually upload Plugins, e.g. ones that are not part of the registered Plugins, but we don’t require that at this stage. Now to install the Registered Plugins, all we need to do is click on he Green + Plus sign, under the heading install. So the first one we are going to install is the Asterisk-IMOpenfire-Plugin, so click the Green Plus Sign on that line and the following screen will appear. You will note that the Green Plus sign turns into a little “Loading Timer”, and may take a short while to install. Once completed, it will automatically remove itself from the screen, as it has now ended up in the Plugins Do the same for, IM gateway, Presence Service and SIP Phone Plugin if they exist in the list. If you now click on the Plugins on the left menu, you will see the Plugins that you have installed. Elastix Without Tears Page 187 of 298 You can also delete the Plugins from this screen or restart them if you need to. You will also notice that we now have a new tab at the top called ASTERISK-IM, which is the result of installing the ASTERISK-IM plugin. Click on that ASTERISK-IM Tab and the following screen will appear. Click on the Asterisk-IM Enablled Radio Button, click on the Asterisk Queue Presence Radio Button and add the word default to Asterisk Context input Box similar to the following screen Once you have done this, then click SAVE Now before we can go any further, we have to correct a bug in the Asterisk-IM Plugin, otherwise we cannot connect the Openfire Server to the Asterisk system. This means either using the Elastix System Console or using SSH to login to the Linux system. Elastix Without Tears Page 188 of 298 Once you are logged in, we need to edit a file, only a small change, but it needs to be done. If you are well ahead and have already installed your favourite editor onto your Elastix system, then use your favourite editor, but if not you can download and install NANO, our favourite editor (see TOOLS section of this document on how to install NANO). Next we need to edit the file. So issue the following commands cd /opt cd openfire cd Plugins cd asterisk-im cd database nano asterisk-im_hsqldb.sql (if you are using nano) Similar to the picture below You will get a screen very similar to the following Basically we have to remove the word unique from the third line as shown in the picture above, which is causing the bug we spoke about previously. Elastix Without Tears Page 189 of 298 Using arrow keys, just move along and use the delete keys so that your screen now looks like the following Now hit CTRL-X, which will allow us to exit Nano, and also prompt us to save the file. Once you hit CTRL X, you will get the following screen Elastix Without Tears Page 190 of 298 Enter Y for yes, which means that we are going to save the changes and the following screen will appear. You will note that it has used the original name of the file, so all we need to do here is press the ENTER key and Nano will save the file and exit the program. You have now completed the changes which will allows us to complete the Asterisk-IM implementation. Reboot your Elastix!!! – It is important that you do this so that it picks up the changes. Now go back to your Elastix Web GUI, click on the IM tab to bring up OPENFIRE and then click on the ASTERISK-IM Tab and then click on Add Server hyperlink which will take us to the following screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 191 of 298 Add the following items into the input boxes Server Name: Server Address: Port: Username: Password: elastix.yourdomain.local 127.0.0.1 5038 admin elastix456 (Same as your Elastix box domain) (Always this for this install) (This is the Asterisk AMI Port number) (this is a user in manager.conf ) (this is the default password) So you screen when filled in, should look this Click on Create Server and if everything is successful, you should see the following screen Take special note of the green dot next to the name of our Elastix box. If it is green then the Openfire server has a working connection to our Elastix Server. If the server address is missing altogether, then you either did not reboot the Elastix Server (which meant the bug fixes are not applied), or you have not edited the file correctly. Elastix Without Tears Page 192 of 298 If the green dot is actually grey, then you have correctly edited the file, but it appears that for some reason you have not correctly connected to the Elastix Server. This may be the result of the user and password not being set correctly for the Asterisk Management Interface. The ones that we have provided in this chapter are ones that are setup by default by Elastix. If you have changed manager.conf under /etc/asterisk, you will need to correct the login and password to suit. So if you have the green dot, you now have a working Openfire Server connected to your Elastix Server. All we need to do now is add users and install the client on the desktops. Click on users and groups tab at the top and the following screen will appear Only the admin user will appear. We now need to create users for your system. Click on create new user on your system. And the following screen will appear. Fill in the details for each user you want to connect to Openfire. Keep the usernames in lower case (makes it easier), fill in their proper name, their current email address, and provide them with a password. This password does not have to match anything, it will be used by the client that resides on their desktop to connect to the Openfire server. You should now have a screen like the illustration below: Elastix Without Tears Page 193 of 298 Click on CREATE USER (or Create and Create Another if you want to keep adding more). After you have done this, you should see the screen (we have only done one user) like this We have now setup one user on the system. For the system to recognise when we are on the phone, we need to map the user to an extension We do this by clicking again on the Asterisk-IM Plugin Tab and then clicking on Phone Mappings on the left menu. You should see a screen like so: Elastix Without Tears Page 194 of 298 We are now going to setup a phone mapping for the user that we just setup under Users and Groups. Username is the username you setup, in this case it was bob (remember I said to setup in lowercase, it just makes it easier, as the system will not recognise if you use an uppercase char, it sees it has a different login). The device is the actual phone, and you should be able to drop down the box and it will show extensions that you have in your Elastix System. If it doesn’t show, then you can enter it manually (e.g. for our one user we would add SIP/301). Then add the extension number which is the same, without the SIP/, so we would enter 301 in here, and then a caller ID. I normally enter 301 in here as well. You can click on the primary field as well if you like, but it is not crucial. This does have a purpose, but it is for more complex systems, which are beyond the scope of this document. After you have pressed the add button, you should see the following user setup You have now successfully mapped a user and phone together. 36.2 INSTALL SPARK CLIENT. As mentioned the SPARK Client from the same people that developed Openfire, is a good starting point. You can always change the client later, whenever you want, and by then, you will know what you are looking for in a client. Elastix Without Tears Page 195 of 298 So for now we are going to use SPARK. http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp You can download it from Install it as per default install instructions. And you should end up with the following screen Now we enter in the details that we setup as a user Username: Password: Server: bob (remember the lower case user name) Whatever (the password that you setup for that user) The IP address of your server (not the 127.0.0.1) address - in our case 172.22.22.100 36.2.1 Enabling Remote Client To enable remote client, do the following: Username: bob Password: (the password you setup for that user) Server: Your server DNS (or DynDNS) In my case, my DynDNS name is: pcnovation.homelinux.org You must open your Router port 5222 and direct it to your Elastix IP address. Click on Save Password and click on Auto Login. And then click on Login. If all is successful, you will end up with the following screen Elastix Without Tears Page 196 of 298 Our client has now successfully connected to the Openfire server. If we had more users installed, we would see the users listed, showing their presence status, whether they are offline, on the phone, away from keyboard etc. Note. In the mode that we have shown, you will have to accept users and they you, before they will show up on your list (very much like ICQ and similar). If this is not what you want, and you want all the people that are on your local Network to be immediately available to each SPARK user, then you can set them into Groups (a subject we did not broach). If you go back to Openfire Users and Groups Tab, create a Group Name and add the selected users to the Group and they will be immediately available to communicate with if they are members of that group. There are many more features, and functions within Openfire. It deserves a book all by itself, which again is not the purpose of this document. We hopefully have provided enough to get you started, so that you can explore Elastix and the integrated Openfire server. Elastix Without Tears Page 197 of 298 37 ELASTIX EMAIL SYSTEM AND WEBMAIL The following step will prepare your Elastix webmail. 37.1 ELASTIX MAIL SYSTEM – SETUP & USE Elastix developers have included the following products within the Elastix System:   PostFix – Well known and tested Mail Server software RoundCube Webmail – Generally regarded as one of the best Webmail Clients Again like most items included in Elastix, they have designed an interface, to reduce the amount of “manual” changes to configuration files. However, having said that, the topic of setup of email is never easy, as everyone’s Network and Mail host/design, and even ISP are different, so it is impossible to describe a step by step setup that will suit all, and some manual changes may be required. To this end, we are going to discuss the setup of four types of Email setup. These are: 1. Email Directly Via Postfix – using your Elastix Postfix to send out mail direct using Postfix as a SMTP Server (including relaying via your ISP/Webhost) 2. Email Directly Via Postfix with Authorisation - Setup of Elastix postfix to relay mail via your external mail server which requires SMTP-Auth 3. Email via your local Mail Server - Using your local Network Mail server. This is typical of most business networks where they have a proper Network infrastructure, with Internal DNS Server, Mail Server (Microsoft Exchange or other completely configured mail server e.g. Postfix, Sendmail, QMail etc) 4. Email using your Elastix Postfix Server and Roundcube – This works on the basis that you have a domain name and you choose to make the Postfix Server the actual mail server for that domain. Before we start, I just want to cover a small bit of concept, which may make it easier as you read the following sections. One of the biggest misconceptions, especially from people new to the area of mail servers is the use of the domain names. I have seen network systems setup to use the external domain name that their company owns, as they believe that is the one that they are supposed to use. You will note that this guide talked about the .local domain. It is a “dummy” domain basically. It still meets all the needs of a domain name and DNS internally, but it is not routable, in other words it does not have a root name server in the Internet, unlike the .com, .com.au, .net, .org etc. The .local is a domain name that we can use locally on our network, very similar to the private IP address ranges that we use, that are generally not routable on the internet. Just because we have used the .local domain name, does not mean it cannot handle parts of the .com domain name as well. As you will see from this guide, our .com Website, can reside on a Webserver somewhere on this Internet, while our mail server can reside on our Elastix Server, in a different location. Elastix Without Tears Page 198 of 298 Not the best of diagrams I must admit, but hopefully it will give you a slightly more conceptual idea of what we are discussing. It is important that we get that piece understood, as I have seen so many incorrect or very flawed installations, based on the misunderstanding of this concept, which eventually lead to kludges and fixes, that finally breakdown and leave the person feeling like the system is unreliable. Getting your wires crossed on the domain name issue can cause you untold internal strife. 37.2 EMAIL DIRECTLY VIA POSTFIX By default, this is the first one everyone tries, because the minute that you configure faxes to go to an email address or you setup Voicemail to Email, it tries to use the Postfix Server to send out the email. For many, this is also where it fails. It can fail for the following reasons: 1. The ISP Blocks port 25 for sending email directly in an effort to force you send the email to route through their SMTP Server. What they do is block port 25 to all addresses except their own mail server. 2. You ISP mail host rejects your mail, because it is leaving your system with your local domain name as the sender. It rejects it as it is not a valid domain. 3. Even after you make some configuration changes, your ISP rejects the email because they want you to authenticate, in other words use SMTP-Auth. 4. Another peculiar one, which people get confused with, as only some of their mail is rejected and other emails get through is the ISP/Webhost use of the POP before SMTP. What this means is that instead of putting on SMTP Auth, they work on the basis that your normal Mail client that you run on your workstation, normally performs a receive and then performs a send straight after. Basically they use the POP3 receive mail (which usually involves your mail client providing your login and password to receive email), and as long as an SMTP send is performed with 30 seconds of the POP3 receive, from the same IP address, they will let the SMTP mail out, without Authentication. The issue arises in that with your Postfix server, you are not performing a receive at anytime using POP3, so this method will normally fail. What becomes confusing is that sometimes it will go Elastix Without Tears Page 199 of 298 through, and this is usually, especially in the case of a network that uses external mail servers, the users on the network are performing POP3 receives on a regular basis, all through the External IP address of their Internet connection, so to the ISP/Webhost it is seeing someone authenticate using POP3 every few minutes, and providing your Postfix server is sending out mail with 30 secs of one of these POP3 receives, your mail will go out and be accepted, miss a window and your mail fails. At night it is worse, as the mail users have gone home, turned off the PC, and no one is doing any POP3 receives, so all your mail from Elastix system fails. You get back in the morning and it is working again. You might wonder why all the hassle with trying to send email via your own server, but over the last few years it has become necessary as ISP/Webhosts have tried to stem the spread of SPAM email. In some cases, it is a legal requirement. If they do not try to limit the SPAM coming out of their system, or IP addresses that they have control over, they can be seen as promoting SPAM, which in turn can lead to possible legal ramifications. If on your initial installation of Elastix, your emails work then great, you are probably one of the lucky ones that can send out email direct, but they are generally not the rule. So that we don’t go off on the wrong track, it is necessary to look at the mail log to see why your email failed. In most cases it will tell you what went wrong. You will need to SSH into your system and get to the Linux Operating System or use your Console screen after you have logged in. The file you want to look for is /var/log/maillog. So at the prompt type less /var/log/maillog, and scroll up and down until you find the error close to the time and date that the system tried to send an email. You will usually identify easily as it will also have the email address in it, where the email was supported to go. An example of a log file from a system that cannot send an email is as follows: Apr 24 12:15:12 elastix postfix/smtp[30137]: 3D2EBCC5908: to=, relay=myrealdomain.com.au[74.12.87.146]:25, delay=1.9, delays=0.02/0.01/1.5/0.36, dsn=5.0.0, status=bounced (host mywebsite.com.au[74.12.87.146] said: 550-Verification failed for [email protected] What it tried to do here is send an email to [email protected]. As we have told it nothing of how to send the email, it has made a smart choice and tried to use the myrealdomain.com.au mail server. Of which it has promptly replied Verification failed (that’s because we have not setup any authentication). So now we know it is not going to work in a default mode, so we have to make some changes to the Postfix config file. We are now going to tell Postfix to route the mail via our ISP’s mail server. Your ISP is going to be whomever you have an Internet connection through e.g. Verizon might be mail.verizon.com, Westnet might be mail.westnet.com.au (which is the one that we are using). So the changes in the next part include a relay host (in other words a place that we route mail through), and the correct setup of the domain names for the mail. The file is found in the /etc/postfix directory and is called main.cf. So issue the following commands cd /etc/postfix nano main.cf Change #myhostname = host.domain.tld #myhostname = virtual.domain.tld to Elastix Without Tears Page 200 of 298 myhostname = elastix1.myrealdomain.local #myhostname = virtual.domain.tld and a few lines further down change #mydomain = domain.tld to mydomain = myrealdomain.com.au and quite a bit further down #relayhost #relayhost #relayhost #relayhost #relayhost change to #relayhost = $mydomain #relayhost = [gateway.my.domain] relayhost = mail.westnet.com.au (remember to take the # out and make it your ISP) = = = = = $mydomain [gateway.my.domain] [mailserver.isp.tld] uucphost [an.ip.add.ress] #relayhost = uucphost #relayhost = [an.ip.add.ress] After you have completed the config changes, then issue the following command. postfix reload After this, it was expected that we should be working, but upon looking at the logs we got the following: Apr 25 14:56:59 elastix postfix/smtp[7959]: C3797CC5911: to=, relay=mail.westnet.com.au[202.72.128.70]:25, delay=1.3, delays=0.12/0.05/0.68/0.48, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (host mail.westnet.com.au[202.72.128.70] said: 450 : Sender address rejected: Domain not found (in reply to RCPT TO command)) The issue was the sender address, our ISP rejected it on the grounds that it recognises that the sender address is not a valid domain. We finally found the issue was down at the bottom of the main.cf file. The developers in their wisdom have written these entries down the bottom of the file, not where I normally expect them, so basically they were overwriting the ones we had set above. From what I can read, they have been included for Webadmin?? So you need to change the main.cf file again and also add them to the bottom. ################################ #Ingresado por yb-webadmin mydomain =myrealdomain.com.au myhostname = elastix.myrealdomain.local Save it and do a postfix reload again, and lets look at the mail log again after leaving a voicemail to email or fax to email, and see what a proper one looks like. Apr 25 16:45:31 elastix postfix/qmgr[8516]: EF5C9CC5921: from=, size=6382, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Elastix Without Tears Page 201 of 298 Apr 25 16:45:33 elastix postfix/smtp[8547]: EF5C9CC5921: to=, relay=mail.westnet.com.au[202.72.128.70]:25, delay=1.5, delays=0.02/0.01/0.28/1.2, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Ok: queued as 8E7453B913D) So you are probably asking why did I include the mistake in there as well, when I could just tell you to go to the bottom of the file and change the domain entries. I left it in there to show you basic fault finding with the Email system. Even someone who has done it many times before, can still forget the basics, and needs to fault find the issue. That’s it for the first method of implementing the mail system using the Direct From Postfix method. Test your fax to email and also your voice to email. It uses the same method and should function well. 37.3 EMAIL DIRECTLY VIA POSTFIX WITH AUTHORISATION As mentioned, sometimes there is a requirement to provide authorization to your External SMTP server. Some occasions where this is needed is that you have an ISP that under all circumstances requires authorization to send mail out through the External SMTP Server. Another time this is required, is when you cannot use your ISP’s SMTP server (due to ongoing issues with your ISP SMTP Server or similar (e.g. timeouts etc), and you wish to use the Webhosts mail server, where your POP accounts currently reside. Understandably, almost every Webhost requires you to use SMTP-Auth to move your mail through their SMTP Server (or they use the method previously spoken about which is POP before SMTP). So to start with, you would have performed almost everything in the previous section on using email via PostFix directly, and you have use the following line in main.cf. relayhost = mail.mywebhost.com.au web address). (naturally you would be using your hosted instead of pointing it to your ISP Mail Server, and now you are up to the point where your mail log file is showing the following or similar, but the important line is 550 - Verification Failed. Apr 24 12:15:12 elastix postfix/smtp[30137]: 3D2EBCC5908: to=, relay=myrealdomain.com.au[74.12.87.146]:25, delay=1.9, delays=0.02/0.01/1.5/0.36, dsn=5.0.0, status=bounced (host mywebsite.com.au[74.12.87.146] said: 550-Verification failed for [email protected] So, we now have to setup Postfix for SMTP-Auth which we will describe in this section. Right now we are going to create a password file in /etc/postfix directory by doing the following: nano /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd and in this file add the following mail.mywebhost.com.au loginname:password save the file, that’s the first part. Now we are going to convert this to a database for Postfix to read by the following command postmap hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd Elastix Without Tears Page 202 of 298 Now to add the final bit of information for the process to work, so edit the main.cf in the postfix directory, by the following command nano /etc/postfix/main.cf Add the following lines smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd smtp_sasl_security_options = and save the file. Now to reload Postfix and try your SMTP-Auth mechanism, so reload by the command postfix reload and test it out, remembering to check the /var/log/maillog after each send to confirm what is actually happening. If indeed you needed to authenticate this, should get you up and running, but just in case, there are plenty of resources on the Web about this process, so have a look. 37.4 EMAIL VIA YOUR LOCAL MAIL SERVER This is probably the easiest section to write. If you have a network in place that follows industry standards, which includes an Internal DNS Server and Internal Mail server, then you have already realized that Elastix, via Postfix already is sending mail via your mailserver. Postfix will try and determine the MX address, which if the DNS Server is configured correctly, it will respond with the Internal Mail Server in your organisation. As a guide, anyone running Microsoft Server Suite, especially Small Business Server, is probably setup in this way by default. So as soon as Postfix gets a reply, it sends mail out via that Server. As it is an internal server, you will probably find it is a little more forgiving on Senders email addresses, but that it purely dependent on the version, and how strict the IT administrator is and whether he has really locked it down. If this is the case, you may find that you may have to utilise a couple of methods in the previous chapters. As an example, Microsoft Exchange server can be configured to allow unauthenticated SMTP mail to pass through as long as it is from their local range of LAN IP addresses. Others say that you must authenticate, and have removed the ability to send mail without authentication. This means that you need to get a mail user (or an existing user) setup on the mail server, and use the SMTP –Auth method described in the previous section. There is not much else, other than performing faultfinding with the logs, as described previously. 37.5 EMAIL USING ELASTIX POSTFIX SERVER AND ROUNDCUBE Now we come to the option that many want to use, but are unsure how to configure it. To be honest, for the user that has not had much to do with mail servers and DNS MX records, it might be a little bit daunting, but if you have setup the SMTP and that is all working, then you have done most of the job. Elastix Without Tears Page 203 of 298 There are a few prerequisites for this implementation to be successful, these are 1. Ability to send email by SMTP (if you have managed to get one of the Email Direct or Email by SMTP Auth methods functioning, then you have it covered. 2. You need a real domain name and you need someone to host your DNS. Now many of the Domain registrars offer this service, and usually include enough space for a Small Website in the package as well. There are other DNS hosting sites such as DynDNS and ZoneEdit, which also do the job. 3. With these Webhost/DNS providers, you need the ability to redirect the MX record to your Elastix box. Some have it in the form of a management page for your domain name, whereas some others can perform the change on request. So lets start, go to the Elastix GUI and click on the Email tab and then the domain tab 2 1 You should see an empty domain list, which is correct. Click on the Create Domain button. You will now see the next screen asking for the domain name. 2 1 Now, you should have a domain name registered by now, and for this example, we are going to use elastixconnection.com as the domain name that we have just registered. Naturally you replace this with the one that you hopefully have registered. So in the box, we are going to type elastixconnection.com and click on SAVE and the following screen will appear Elastix Without Tears Page 204 of 298 This shows the domain name and the number of email accounts against this domain name. This mail server can handle multiple domains, but for this guide we will stick to one. Click on the Accounts tab, and select the new domain you setup from the drop down box next to the word Domain as per the following screen. 1 2 Now click on Create Account button, which will provide you with the following screen. Fill in the details, which are fairly straightforward. First is the email address that you want to setup, set a password, and then set a quota, which be aware, is in Kb, hence the 20000 that has been entered above will provide a quota of 20Mb. Click on Save and the following screen will appear showing your email address setup. Naturally, if you have more users, then, keep setting them up, there is basically no limit except space and I suppose CPU cycles used. Take note of the account name. As an example the one in the screen above is bob.elastixconnection.com, which is a slightly different to what I have been used to over the years. You will also need to determine the relay server for your network. In this case normally your local server and therefore we will accept the default that was provided. If you have other relay servers, this is where you defined them. Click Apply changes to confirm as per the illustration below. Elastix Without Tears Page 205 of 298 Now click on the Webmail Tab and the following screen will appear. Enter in the login name that you previously setup in the email account list and the password and click on the Login button. The following screen will appear. You are now looking at your Webmail screen. Before you get too excited and start sending emails, we still have a little work to do. Up in the right hand top corner of the Webmail screen, you will see the Personal Settings link, click on this and the following screen will appear. Elastix Without Tears Page 206 of 298 Correct the Time Zone information for area and click save. Now click on the Identities Tab and the following screen will appear. You will note that an email account is setup, bob.elastixconnection.com@localhost instead of [email protected], - this is not what you expected. This is best referred to as the internal domain email address. You can use it to send an email internally to another user (as long as they are on the Elastix Postfix Mail server that you are registered on). What we need to do now, is associate another account, one with the correct details for external email use. To do this click on the New Identity Button and the following screen will appear. Elastix Without Tears Page 207 of 298 Now the details we will fill in here are: Display Name: Email: Organisation: Reply to: Bob [email protected] ElastixConnection [email protected] Set Default: make sure this is ticked!! So you should have similar to the following screen filled in. Now click save, and you will see the additional identity come up in your list, and as we have ticked it as the default, it is the one that the system will use. In terms of setup of the Webmail system, that’s it, unless you have more users to setup which will be setup identical to the one we have run through as an example. At this point, you will not receive any mail, as all the Mail servers throughout the world, don’t know anything about your mail server at the moment. This is where the DNS MX records come into play. We now need to either set a MX record to point to your Elastix Server. As mentioned, a Control Panel of your Webhost facilities or DNS Registrar can sometimes do this. As an example, some o f the Webhosts running the latest CPanel software, now have MX record editing capabilities built in. Everyone’s system is different, and definitely not within the scope of this document, but speaks to your Webhost or registrar and in almost all cases they will understand what you are after. Elastix Without Tears Page 208 of 298 Correct DNS implementation dictates that DNS MX records must point to a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), not directly to an IP address. What this means is that you could point your MX record to a dynamic DNS name. Also I have not tested it, but it is understood that Dyndns and ZoneEdit amongst many others, have the ability to manage your MX records, for either a small fee or in the case of ZoneEdit, a few domain names for free. If you are using a dynamic IP address, I recommend doing a bit of research as I have not used these services for many years, but based on knowledge, it is all feasible. One last thing, make sure that you have port 25 (SMTP) on your Internet router forwarded to your Elastix Mail server to allow the mail server to receive the mail. Elastix Without Tears Page 209 of 298 38 CODEC (CODER DECODER) When making a call over the net, the software (soft-phone) or hardware needs to use a codec so as to send/receive information in a certain format and convert it to what you hear. What this means to you and me is that codecs compress data, allow you to transmit the compressed data which is then uncompressed at the receiving end. If you compress something with G729 and you don't have that installed, then you will not be able to decompress it and vice versa.  g729 does not come preinstalled with Asterisk – you will need to purchase it. Different codecs have different compression ratios resulting in different bandwidth requirements. Generally the higher the compression the more CPU power required to compress, and sometimes decompress. In most cases this means:  Higher compression = More CPU power = Lower Bandwidth  Lower compression = Less CPU power = More Bandwidth So the more bandwidth you have, the less need for a higher compression ratio and the less powerful the CPU that will be needed. Most VoIP providers/hardware/licensed software will support G711 and G729 (However be sure to check this before purchasing hardware, or signing up with a VoIP provider!), with G711 requiring almost 3 times as much bandwidth, and providing excellent quality and the G729 providing quality similar to a good mobile call but using less bandwidth. Below are the approximate bandwidth requirements for Several Common VoIP Compression Algorithms using SIP. They vary slightly depending on the protocol used. Codec Codec Bit Rate (Kbps) 64 8 6.4 13.2 15.2 5.3 32 24 16 Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (Kbps) 87.2 31.2 21.9 28.7 approx 30.83 approx 20.8 55.2 47.2 31.5 Approx. MBytes usage per hour 39.24 14.04 9.86 12.92 approx 13.87 approx 9.36 24.84 21.24 14.18 G.711 G.729 G.723.1 GSM iLBC G.723.1 G.726 G.726 G.728 Codecs used by ELASTIX reside in the /usr/lib/asterisk/modules directory. The following links will give you some indications of the bandwidth usage of the various codecs that you may be using or contemplating on using. http://www.asteriskguru.com/tools/bandwidth_calculator.php http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk698/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094ae 2.shtml http://www.voip-calculator.com/calculator/lipb/ http://www.connect802.com/voip_bandwidth.php http://www.newport-networks.com/pages/voip-bandwidth-calculator.html There are others. All you have to do is Google for them  Elastix Without Tears Page 210 of 298 38.1 INSTALLING G729 AND G723 CODECS If you have the licence for the g729 codec and found that the Digium version of g729 is a little problematic and would like to try the free version, following is the method of installing it as described by David Klaverstyn – thanks David. DISCLAIMER: You might have to pay royalty fees to the G.729/723 patent holders for using their algorithm. Before downloading the codec module you need to verify what your processor type is, as to get a compatible compiled codec. From the Linux command type in: # cat /proc/cpuinfo Look specifically at the model name and the flags. The following is an example of the process that I am using. Process: 0 vendor_id: GenuineIntel cpu family: 6 model: 8 model name: Pentium III (Coppermine) stepping: 3 cpu MHz: 648.110 cache size: 256 KB fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug: no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu: yes fpu_exception: yes cpuid level: 2 wp: yes flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse bogomips: 1297.41 From this information we can see that it is a Pentium III processor and it is using sse. This is the 2 bits of required information that we need. If you don’t see sse in your flag then the file you need must contain the words no-sse. Now go to http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/ and select wither Asterisk version 1.2 or 1.4 depending on the version you are using. The files are named as codec_g72x-???-pentiumx.so So from the information above to obtain the G729 codec we need to get the file codec_g729-gcc-pentium3.so and for the G723 codec we need to get the file g723gcc-pentium3.so The gcc represents the way the module was compiled. This is your most likely choice. To view the different type of compiled version look at this file http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/README Now that we know what file we need you can now download the appropriate file. Change folders to /usr/lib/asterisk/modules Elastix Without Tears Page 211 of 298 # cd /usr/lib/asterisk/modules Download the required file(s) For the G729 codec For Pentium III # wget http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/built-for-asterisk1.2/codec_g729-gcc-pentium3.so For Pentium IV # wget http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/built-for-asterisk1.2/codec_g729-gcc-pentium4.so For the G723 codec For Pentium III # wget http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/built-for-asterisk1.2/codec_g723-gcc-pentium3.so For Pentium IV # http://kvin.lv/pub/Linux/Asterisk/built-for-asterisk1.2/codec_g723-gcc-pentium4.so Rename the appropriate codecs to: codec_g729.so and codec_g723.so Restart asterisk and you are done. If Asterisk does not start then you may need to try icc files instead of gcc. Elastix Without Tears Page 212 of 298 39 PSTN TRUNK – SPECIAL HANDLING 39.1 DIAL 0 FOR OUTSIDE LINE There will be times when a user would like to get an outside line something similar to a PABX by simply dialling a number e.g. 0 or 9. I got around it by creating an entry in extensions_custom.conf. In my case I use 0 as the prefix to get an outside line. I have also pre-recorded a voice prompt to instruct the caller what to do after the second dial tone. 39.1.1 Using Zaptel Card Method ;############################################## ; To get outside line through ZAP - Ben 22-12-2005 ; after dialling 0 will get a second dial tone. ; Then dial the number required. ; No need to press the send button after the second number dialled ;############################################## exten => 0,1,Playback(start-dial-after-dialtone) ;exten => 0,2,Dial(ZAP/1/{EXTEN}) ; < -- if using zaptel exten => 0,2,Dial(DAHDI/1/{EXTEN}) ; < -- if using DAHDI exten => 0,3,Hangup The example above is based on systems that have Zaptel card (e.g. TDM400 or X100P etc.) installed. Note:* If you're using a PRI line, you need to enable 'overlapdial' in /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf for this to work. 39.1.2 Using SPA3K Method Using SPA3K will be a little tricky. I am describing how I got around it (assuming that you have set up the SPA3K as described in this document), however there maybe other method. 1. In the SPA Line 1 Tab, I have included the following entry in the dialplan: <0:#><:@gw0>) 2. The following is what my dialplan looks like in SPA3K (**|*xx|xx.|<0:#><:@gw0>) 3. In the PSTN Line Tab, I have the following:    VOIP-PSTN Gateway Enabled: Yes VOIP Caller Auth Method: None VOIP Caller Default DP: None In made the following entry in my Asterisk entensions_custom.conf ;############################################## ; To get outside line through SPA3K - Ben 25-12-2005 ; after dialling 0 will get a second dial tone. Then dial the Elastix Without Tears Page 213 of 298 ; number required. No need to press the send button again ;############################################## exten => 0,1,Playback(start-dial-after-dialtone) exten => 0,2,Dial(SIP/Telstra/{EXTEN}) ; Telstra being the name of the SPA3K trunk. exten => 0,3,Hangup Every time when I dial ‘0’, the SPA3K will send it to Gateway 0, which is the PSTN line and present me with a second dial tone. 39.2 GIVING PRIORITY TO EMERGENCY NUMBERS (E.G. 000) Emergencies, by definition should be given right of way. This applies to the right of using the telephone for emergency purposes above other uses. Imagine what will happen if you want to use the PSTN line to call emergency 000 (in Australia) and someone else was hogging the line. The sensible way is for Asterisk to disconnect the line and allow you to make the emergency call instead. The following method will provide you with the facility, however you need to do some editing to the extensions_custom.conf file in /etc/asterisk. In my case I have pre-recorded a voice prompt called ‘calling-emergency’ which says, “You are trying to call emergency assistance. If you have dial this in error, please hangup” ;################################################### ; Give priority to emergency number by disconnecting existing user ; if using the PSTN line first, otherwise simply call the emergency number. ;################################################### exten => 000,1,Background(calling-emergency) ; voice warning exten => 000,2,Wait(1) ; give caller a chance to hang up exten => 000,3,Dial(Zap/1/000,,j) ; If ZAP 1 is busy, jump to n+101 exten => 000,4,Hangup() ; hang up after the call exten => 000,104,Softhangup(Zap/1-1) ; hang up the line if being used exten => 000,105,Goto(3) ; make call after disconnecting the other user **Change Zap to DAHDI if you are using DAHDI instead of Zaptel Elastix Without Tears Page 214 of 298 40 ADVANCED TRUNKS HANDLING Some users would like to balance the trunks usage between VSPs and some prefer to cascade the usage amongst their VSPs. Adrian Macarthur-King has been working on a more advanced trunk handling to allow the load balancing and cascading of trunk usage and came up with 2 methods to handle these requirements. The 2 methods outlined below are similar in concept but not in usage. methods may be suitable for you. One of the 40.1 BALANCING TRUNK USAGE This is a fairly good way of achieving trunk usage balancing, but it does take a little fiddling. This shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to set up, provided you know at least how to modify your extensions_custom.conf and configure a call queue. This method doesn't intelligently balance trunks based on number of calls per trunk (i.e > 300 = failover or similar), but it does balance outgoing calls evenly between as many trunks as you wish. This has the same effect in many ways, but it won't stop you going over your FUP if you make more than you're supposed to for ALL of your trunks. Summary You can use the "Automatic Call Distribution" aspect of asterisk queues to distribute calls to different outbound routes. From the caller's perspective, this is seamless and appears exactly as a normal outbound call (except without correct progress tones - see Limitations) I've used the "fewestcalls" ring strategy so that the trunks will be balanced based on the fewest completed calls. This should basically just alternate outbound calls back and forth between each trunk. Feel free to try other ring strategies such as roundrobin etc. Note* This method balances calls between outbound routes, not trunks, which retains FreePBX flexibility with trunk order/failover. Limitations 1) Please note that this will disable outbound progress tones, if you don't know what that means, then it might not matter. Having said that, progress tones are very important to some, so this method might not be the best for them. See here for more info http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=VOIP_Progresstones 2) This will disable outbound route ordering from within freepbx. In fact, changing the route order in freepbx might break this, so set up your routes how you want them, and then don't change them after configuring this method. (If you do, it's not the end of the world, you just have to modify the outbound route names as you'll see later on). Brief method description We're going to create some scripts to hihack outbound calls from the standard outbound routes, save the number to dial into a variable, direct the call into a queue, which will then distribute outbound calls evenly between one of two or more "fake agents", which will then retrieve the number to be dialled from the variable, and pass the call on to the corresponding outbound route. Elastix Without Tears Page 215 of 298 Detailed Steps. These look long and complicated, but they're really not. Don't be dissuaded, give it a try! I'll do as much of this as I can from FreePBX using the "Custom Destinations" and "Misc Applications" modules, but you will need to make conf file modifications. This guide assumes you want to balance two trunks, but it should work for as many as you want. Step 1. Ensure your FreePBX is relatively up to date. This should work with vanilla Elastix 1.0 just fine. Step 2.  Create a new queue within freepbx. The queue will take our outbound calls, and distribute them to our fake agents (which will then redirect calls to our outbound routes)  Assign an arbitrary queue number like '102' (You'll need this later)  Assign some Static Agents with arbitrary numbers such as "1001" and "1002" (on seperate lines, you'll need these numbers later). Assign as many agents as you have outbound routes that you want to balance between. E.G Two static agents for two trunks.  Check "Ringing Instead of MoH:" (This is the part that breaks progress tones, because the ringing is generated by the queue, but it's either that, or music on hold, so go figure)  Set "Ring Strategy:" to fewest calls (or whatever you like if you know what you're doing)  Leave everything else on defaults (unless you know what you're doing). Step 3. Create the first half of the fake agents to represent our outbound routes. You're going to need two different outbound-routes that you want to balance between. Each route can have the same dial prefixes, and this method will ignore the outbound route "order" and balance between two or more of the routes that you specify. If you know what you're doing, you can modify these scripts to allow for multiple route failover as well, but ignore that for the moment. So firstly, create two outbound routes in FreePBX that we will use to alternate between for outbound calls. Next, add the following to the end of your /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.co nf file. [route1] exten => _.,1,Goto(OUTBOUNDROUTE_1_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE,${DIALLEDNUMBER},1) [route2] exten => _.,1,Goto(OUTBOUNDROUTE_2_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE,${DIALLEDNUMBER},1) Now before you add this, you're going to have to replace.. OUTBOUNDROUTE_1_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE and OUTBOUNDROUTE_2_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE ..with the contexts that represent your outbound routes. Now this is a little tricky, because there's no easy way to find out what these names are. The names seem to be a combination of the text "outrt-" with a three digit number representing their dial order + the name you gave them in FreePBX. The easiest way to find out the name, is browse Elastix Without Tears Page 216 of 298 to one of the outbound routes in FreePBX, and look at the URL in location bar of your browser, it should look something like the following. https://10.0.0.100/admin/config.php?display=routing&extdisplay=002-gotalk1 If you take that 002-gotalk1 and add "outrt-" to the front of it, to become "outrt-002-gotalk1", then you have your route context name. So my two are: outrt-002-gotalk1 and outrt-002-gotalk2 So the end of my extensions_custom.conf file would look like: [route1] exten => _.,1,Goto(outrt-002-gotalk1,${DIALLEDNUMBER},1) [route2] exten => _.,1,Goto(outrt-002-gotalk2,${DIALLEDNUMBER},1) Step 4. Create the second half of the "fake agents" to represent our outbound routes.       We have to create "Custom Destinations"s and "Misc Applications"s so that we can direct the calls to the custom script we've added. Create two custom destinations first. Have the route for the first one exactly "route1,${EXTEN},1" where "route1" is the first name in the square brackets in Step 3. Create a description of say "Route1-Script" Have the route for the second one exactly "route2,${EXTEN},1" where "route2" is the second name in the square brackets in Step 3 Create a description of say "Route2-Script". Step 5. Create two Misc Applications. First one: Description: "WhateverYouLike" Feature code: One of the static agents you added in step 2 (e.g 1001) Destination: Custom Applications (Route1-Script) Second one: Description: "WhateverYouLike2" Feature code: The second of the static agents you added in step 2 (e.g 1002) Destination: Custom Applications (Route2-Script) Step 6. Add a custom outboud-allroutes context to your /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf to direct all outbound calls into our queue. You can do this by copying and pasting the following at the end of your extensions_custom.conf. Make sure you CHANGE THE NUMBER in line 9 ("102") to be whatever queue number you assigned in Step 2. Elastix Without Tears Page 217 of 298 [outbound-allroutes-custom] exten => _.,1,Set(__DIALLEDNUMBER=${EXTEN}) exten => _.,n,Set(__BLKVM_OVERRIDE=BLKVM/${EXTEN}/${CHANNEL}) exten => _.,n,Set(__BLKVM_BASE=${EXTEN}) exten => _.,n,Set(DB(${BLKVM_OVERRIDE})=TRUE) exten => _.,n,Set(_DIAL_OPTIONS=${DIAL_OPTIONS}M(auto-blkvm)) exten => _.,n,Set(__NODEST=${EXTEN}) ;CHANGE THE NUMBER IN THE FOLLOWING LINE (102) to be whatever queue number you assigned earlier. exten exten exten exten => => => => _.,n,Queue(102,tr,,) _.,n,dbDel(${BLKVM_OVERRIDE}) _.,n,Set(__NODEST=) _.,n,Goto(app-blackhole,hangup,1) (There may be some weird spaces and newlines appearing so be careful copying and pasting this). If you're interested, this last script assigns the number the person has dialled to a variable "Diallednumber" (so we can use it after the call comes out of the queue to pass the call on to where it was intended to go) and then places the call into a queue using the normal FreePBX method. 40.2 CASCADING TRUNK USAGE This is another multiple trunk solution for "cascading" trunks instead of "balancing" them like in the previous solution. This method allows you to specify a maximum number of calls, per type of call, per trunk, per billing month, and will automatically cascade through as many trunks as you like. Summary This method will use a dial plan that keeps a count of outbound calls per type, per trunk, per month in the asterisk database. In order to have this work with FreePBX, this method makes use of a custom trunk, and uses ordinary FreePBX trunks and routes. Note that this method cascades FreePBX outbound routes, not trunks, so you can still have the flexibility of autofailover on particular routes. This method is trickier to install than the load balancing because you have to mess around with the dial plans a little more to change the variables to suit your own set up. Limitations 1. Non retrospective. This method starts counting calls from 0 automatically from the moment it's installed, so if you start using this script halfway through the month, it won't know how many calls you've made so far. 2. If you lose the asterisk DB somehow, or delete the tree that the counts are stored in, then your call counts will start again and you'll lose where you're up to. This shouldn't happen though I don't think. 3. This method counts numbers of calls only, and NOT duration. This may be a problem for counting mobile minutes for example. Brief steps description Elastix Without Tears Page 218 of 298 We're going to add several custom trunks in freepbx and point them at some contexts that we're going to add to the extensions_custom.conf. Then we're going to add some outbound routes to send calls to these custom trunks. Then we're going to modify these contexts to work how we want them to. Detailed Steps Step 1 Work out how many different call types you want to count, and what prefix's (outbound route patterns) each calltype will need. E.G mobiles 04XXXXXXXX locals NXXXXXXX 02XXXXXXXX nationals 0[356789]XXXXXXXX Step 2 In FreePBX, create as many custom trunks as you have call types. In my case I created three custom trunks. I didn't change any settings when creating these three, except the "Custom Dial String", which I set to.. Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-mobile-calls/n and Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-local-calls/n and Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-national-calls/n Step 3 This is now going to get a little complicated, so just bear with me. You're going to need a pile of outbound routes, and they're going to need to be in a particular order. Firstly, we're going to need one outbound route for each "call type" we want to count. So if you have three calltypes, create three out-bound routes. For each outbound route, give it a name, and set the dial patterns for each type to correspond with one of the call types we want to count, and set its trunk sequence as the corresponding custom trunk we added in step 1. E.G Mobiles route Dial prefix: 04XXXXXXXX Trunk Sequence: Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-mobile-calls/n Local Route Dial prefix: NXXXXXXX 02XXXXXXXX Trunk Sequence: Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-local-calls/n National route Dial prefix: 0[356789]XXXXXXXX Elastix Without Tears Page 219 of 298 Trunk Sequence: Local/$OUTNUM$@outbound-national-calls/n Make sure that these three outbound routes are at the top of the list in FreePBX. Reorder them using the arrows if you have to. Secondly, we're going to need one outbound route for every actual trunk that we have. So if you have three actual trunks, create three more out-bound routes. Set each route with each trunk in its trunk sequence. Each route here will need a full list of dial patterns to match ALL call types (As if each route is the ONLY route you have. Setting them to "." will work to catch everything) E.G Route 1 -> Trunk sequence: Trunk 1 Route 2 -> Trunk Sequence: Trunk 2 Route 3 -> Trunk Sequence: Trunk 3 MAKE SURE that these routes are at the bottom of the list in FreePBX Reorder them using the arrows if you have to. Step 4 We're going to need to add the following to your /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.co nf Here is a link to the file http://presstheinter.com/part1.conf. [outbound-count-calls] ; Don't change anything below here exten => _.,1,Set(routeToUse=route1.000000) exten => _.,2,Set(call-limit-ToUse=call-limit-route1.000000) exten => _.,3,Set(yeardate=${STRFTIME(${MATH(${EPOCH}${MATH(${billingoffset}*86400)})},GMT+10,%C%y%m)}) exten => _.,4,NoOp( Billing YearMonth = ${yeardate}) exten => _.,5,GotoIf(${DB_EXISTS(outboundcallcount/${outboundcallcounttype}${routeToUse}-${yeardate})}?${EXTEN},100:${EXTEN},110) exten => _.,100,NoOp( Same Month / Trunk ) exten => _.,101,NoOp( ${outboundcallcounttype} is currently ${DB(outboundcallcount/${outboundcallcounttype}-${routeToUse}-${yeardate})} ) exten => _.,102,Set(callcount=${DB(outboundcallcount/${outboundcallcounttype}${routeToUse}-${yeardate})}) exten => _.,103,GotoIf($[${callcount} < ${${call-limitToUse}}]?${EXTEN},107:${EXTEN},104) exten => _.,104,Set(routeToUse=${routeToUse:0:5}${MATH(${routeToUse:-8:8}+1)}) exten => _.,105,Set(call-limit-ToUse=${call-limit-ToUse:0:16}${MATH(${call-limitToUse:-8:8}+1)}) exten => _.,106,Goto(5) exten => _.,107,Set(DB(outboundcallcount/${outboundcallcounttype}-${routeToUse}${yeardate})=${MATH(${callcount}+1)}) exten => _.,108,NoOp( ${outboundcallcounttype} count is now ${MATH(${callcount}+1)} ) exten => _.,109,Goto(${${routeToUse}},${EXTEN},1) exten => _.,110,NoOp( New Month / Trunk ) exten => _.,111,Set(DB(outboundcallcount/${outboundcallcounttype}-${routeToUse}${yeardate})=1) exten => _.,112,Goto(${${routeToUse}},${EXTEN},1) Step 5 Now we have to add more to the /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf file, but this time, we will have to change the text. Basically we need to add one context for each of our call types that we want to count. Each context will need to look like the following but will need several parts changed. I've bolded the sections you need to change. One particular part is the "billingoffset=1" Elastix Without Tears Page 220 of 298 part. You need to replace this number 1 with the number of the day of the month that your billing cycle starts. The hard part is that you're going to have to replace.. OUTBOUNDROUTE_1_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE and OUTBOUNDROUTE_2_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE .. (and more if you want) with the contexts that represent the second set of outbound routes you created in Step 3. Now this is a little tricky, because there's no easy way to find out what these names are. The names seem to be a combination of the text "outrt-" with a three digit number representing their dial order + the name you gave them in FreePBX. The easiest way to find out the name, is browse to one of the outbound routes in FreePBX, and look at the URL in location bar of your browser. it should look something like the following: https://10.0.0.100/admin/config.php?display=routing&extdisplay=002-gotalk1 If you take that 002-gotalk1 and add "outrt-" to the front of it, to become "outrt-002gotalk1", then you have your route context name. So my two are: outrt-002-gotalk1 and outrt-002-gotalk2 So, make three copies of the following context. Modify each one to have correct settings and add them to the end of your extensions_custom.conf. Here is a link to the file http://presstheinter.com/part2.conf [outbound-mobile-calls] ; Set the name of the calltype here. One word, no spaces. exten => _.,1,Set(__outboundcallcounttype=mobile) exten => _.,n,NoOp( Calltype = ${outboundcallcounttype} ) ; Set billing offset here exten => _.,n,Set(__billingoffset=0) ; Set each route name and the call limit for this route for this call type. They are in the order in which they will cascade. exten => _.,n,Set(__route1.000000=OUTBOUNDROUTE_1_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route1.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route2.000000=OUTBOUNDROUTE_2_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route2.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route3.000000=OUTBOUNDROUTE_3_CONTEXT_NAME_HERE) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route3.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route4.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route4.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route5.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route5.000000=100) ;You can create as many more trunks as you like by following the above formula exten => _.,n,Goto(outbound-count-calls,${EXTEN},1) So my three entries looked like the following (http://presstheinter.com/part3.conf ) [outbound-mobile-calls] ; Set the name of the calltype here. One word, no spaces. Elastix Without Tears Page 221 of 298 exten => _.,1,Set(__outboundcallcounttype=mobile) exten => _.,n,NoOp( Calltype = ${outboundcallcounttype} ) ; Set billing offset here exten => _.,n,Set(__billingoffset=0) ; Set each route name and the call limit for this route for this call type. They are in the order in which they will cascade. exten => _.,n,Set(__route1.000000=outrt-004-gotalk1) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route1.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route2.000000=outrt-005-gotalk2) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route2.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route3.000000=outrt-006-gotalk3) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route3.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route4.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route4.000000=100) exten => _.,n,Set(__route5.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route5.000000=100) ;You can create as many more trunks as you like by following the above formula exten => _.,n,Goto(outbound-count-calls,${EXTEN},1) [outbound-local-calls] ; Set the name of the calltype here. One word, no spaces. exten => _.,1,Set(__outboundcallcounttype=local) exten => _.,n,NoOp( Calltype = ${outboundcallcounttype} ) ; Set billing offset here exten => _.,n,Set(__billingoffset=0) ; Set each route name and the call limit for this route for this call type. They are in the order in which they will cascade. exten => _.,n,Set(__route1.000000=outrt-004-gotalk1) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route1.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route2.000000=outrt-005-gotalk2) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route2.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route3.000000=outrt-006-gotalk3) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route3.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route4.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route4.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route5.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route5.000000=300) ;You can create as many more trunks as you like by following the above formula exten => _.,n,Goto(outbound-count-calls,${EXTEN},1) [outbound-national-calls] ; Set the name of the calltype here. One word, no spaces. exten => _.,1,Set(__outboundcallcounttype=national) exten => _.,n,NoOp( Calltype = ${outboundcallcounttype} ) ; Set billing offset here exten => _.,n,Set(__billingoffset=0) ; Set each route name and the call limit for this route for this call type. They are in the order in which they will cascade. exten => _.,n,Set(__route1.000000=outrt-004-gotalk1) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route1.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route2.000000=outrt-005-gotalk2) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route2.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route3.000000=outrt-006-gotalk3) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route3.000000=300) Elastix Without Tears Page 222 of 298 exten => _.,n,Set(__route4.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route4.000000=300) exten => _.,n,Set(__route5.000000=UNUSED) exten => _.,n,Set(__call-limit-route5.000000=300) ;You can create as many more trunks as you like by following the above formula exten => _.,n,Goto(outbound-count-calls,${EXTEN},1) Step 6. After you make each call, you can watch the count go up. I set my call-limits to 5 just to test After 1 call. elastix*CLI> database show /outboundcallcount/mobile-route1.0 00000-200805 : 1 After 6 calls. elastix*CLI> database show /outboundcallcount/mobile-route1.0 00000-200805 : 5.000000 /outboundcallcount/mobile-route2.0 00000-200805 : 1 I guess this will fill your database up with junk after awhile, so if you really want, on the first day of your billing cycle, you could run elastix*CLI> database deltree outboundcallcount, to clear this out. I would include this in the code, but some people might be interested in their statistics over time, and it really won't use up that much space, so I've left it in. Elastix Without Tears Page 223 of 298 41 PORT FORWARDING AND QOS – ROUTERS 41.1 PORT FORWARDING While most domestic routers using UPnP do not require port forwarding, some routers do. Even if your router does not require port forwarding for ELASTIX to work, do yourself a favour and forward a few of the relevant ports to your Asterisk IP address anyway – it doesn’t hurt. IAX Port: 4569 (UDP) Sip ports: 5004 - 5082 (UDP and TCP), more if you want to, although you only require 5060. RTP ports: 10000 – 10500 (UDP) – this should be enough although in the conf file it was defined as 10000-20000. If you do you must also edit rtp.conf to reflect the same value. I am using the LinkSys WRT54G wireless router. In the example below, I have forwarded all the ports mentioned above to my asterisk box IP, which is 192.168.1.101 These should be enough for starters. 41.2 QOS – ROUTERS Some routers have QOS facility while some routers haven’t. It is highly recommended that you enable this function if your router supports it. There have been a number of discussions on the effectiveness of QOS on broadband utilising the public Internet circuit. It is beyond this guide to document the effectiveness or otherwise of enabling QOS on your router. For a start, there are just too many routers there for me to give any meaningful examples. I use the Linksys™ WRT54G®. Taking the easy way out, I simply restrict the PCs (see below) that more often than not will be used as a P2P client or chatting on the MSN chat channels. I restrict the PCs according to their MAC addresses. Elastix Without Tears Page 224 of 298 In the application priority section (see below), I have defined the various ports that I want priority to be accorded the highest priority. In this case I have defined the port ranges related to my VOIP requirement. My recommendation is, if your router has the function, use it. At the very least, it will prioritise traffic within your own LAN especially when you have sons and daughters (for that matter you too can be the culprit) who are always on the P2P, leeching files and music.  This may not be the best solution. If anyone has a better solution for the Linksys WRT54G, please let me know. Elastix Without Tears Page 225 of 298 42 UPGRADING YOUR SYSTEM Mostly everyone would like to have the latest and the greatest and if you are like most, chances are that you would certainly want to update your ELASTIX and/or freePBX as soon as there is a new update. You repository is repo.elastix.org 42.1 UPGRADING ELASTIX To upgrade Elastix, at the command prompt, type the following; yum –y update or yum update elastix In most cases, it may be prudent to update the whole system including Centos, where other dependencies will also be addressed. This will also upgrade freePBX. The approach I took is to first update yum itself. yum update yum This will only take a few minutes and it gives the advantage of the process looking for the fastest mirror which will reduce your online update time by a factor of up to 80%. After having updated yum, you may then issue the full update command. yum update This method cuts down my online update process from about 5 hours to about 1 hour. When you execute the command, you will see a screen similar to the one illustrated below. At the end of it, it will tell you that your update is completed. amportal restart Elastix Without Tears Page 226 of 298 42.2 UPGRADING FREEPBX It is suggested not to upgrade freePBX to a new Stable until the new version has been fully integrated into Elastix as experience dictates that it may break something. That does not mean that you shouldn’t upgrade but do it with the caution in mind. There are 2 ways to upgrade freePBX as explained at the aussievoip website here http://www.aussievoip.com/wiki/freePBX Either one will be fine but I would like to suggest that you take the all-in-one version with modules and be done with it. Afterall, this is the method recommended if one is on a limited-bandwidth connection, or the FreePBX machine doesn't have easy Internet access. To conduct this upgrade, you will need to log on to the Elastix box as root. At the command prompt, do the following; cd /usr/src/ wget http://mirror.freepbx.org/freepbx-2.4.0.tar.gz (or whatever the new version is) tar zxvf freepbx-2.4.0.tar.gz cd freepbx-2.4.0 ./install_amp Once this is done, freePBX is now upgraded to version 2.4.0 and you can start managing and/or upgrading the freePBX modules. 42.3 UPGRADING ASTERISK You may also update Asterisk using the yum command. yum update asterisk Elastix Without Tears Page 227 of 298 43 TOOLS The following are tools that I use regularly to maintain my Asterisk systems. 43.1 WEBMIN Webmin is an invaluable web based tool for managing a Linux box. Webmin make it easy to configure application like SMTP mail, editing files etc. Webmin is not installed as default in Elastix but user can download and install it manually. Log in to the Elastix box as root and do the following at the command prompt: wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin-1.4101.noarch.rpm rpm --install webmin-1.410-1.noarch.rpm I have found the above method is straightforward and simple. However there are some users who found that following an alternative method is simpler. If that is the case, the alternative installation method can be found here: http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/webmin.shtml Once installed, you may connect to Webmin remotely through your browser using the following address https://:10000. E.g. 192.168.0.101:10000 If you would like to avoid clashing the port with your RTP port which is 10000 – 20000, you may edit the file /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf and change the port value to something else, such as 9000. Locate the entry where it says: Port=10000 And change this to; Port=9000 You can use https://192.168.0.101:9000 to connect to Webmin instead. Elastix Without Tears Page 228 of 298 The alternative is to edit the /etc/asterisk/rtp.conf file like the example below and you can keep https://192.168.0.101:10000  This will break PA1688 based phones. It's better to change your webmin.conf file [general] ; ; RTP start and RTP end configure start and end addresses ; rtpstart=10000 < - - change this to 10002(totally unnecessary.. ) rtpend=20000 43.2 PUTTY PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham and can be downloaded from the following link.http://www.putty.nl/download.html 43.3 WINSCP WinSCP is an open source freeware SFTP client for Windows using SSH. Legacy SCP protocol is also supported. Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer. Elastix Without Tears Page 229 of 298 It can be downloaded from the following link. http://winscp.net/eng/index.php 43.4 NANO A simple editor called NANO, which for the novice Linux user is far simpler to understand and control than the standard VI that comes with the Elastix Distribution. Since Nano is not included in the Elastix distribution, it need to be downloaded and install manually. To do that you must log in to Elastic as user root. So once you are logged into your Elastix Server either at the console or via SSH, you need to issue a command yum install nano similar to the following screen. Elastix Without Tears Page 230 of 298 After a few lines flick by (this may take up to a minute or so), it will then ask you if it is ok to install nano which you will reply with a Y. Once completed you will then have Nano on your system. 43.5 PHPMYADMIN PhpMyAdmin is a web interface for managing your MySQL server. Unfortunately it is not included in the Elastix distribution. If you want to use this tool, you will need to download it from The phpMyAdmin Project for their latest version. After downloading the file, do the following step to install it. 1. Log in to your Elastix server, either at the console or using putty, as root. 2. Using nano, create a dbadmin directory in /var/www/html/modules cd /var/www/html/modules mkdir dbadmin 3. After unpacking the phpMyAdmin file that you downloaded, copy the entire content to /var/www/html/modules/dbadmin 4. Create a text file called config.inc.php in /var/www/html/modules/dbadmin nano config.inc.php 5. Populate the text file with the following: Once this is done, you may log in to phpMyAdmin with your browser using the following address: http:///modules/dbadmin (eg: http://192.168.1.101/modules/dbadmin). You will be asked to enter the username and password. Use root as the username and eLaStIx.2oo7 as the password and you can now start using the phpMyAdmin. Elastix Without Tears Page 231 of 298 Elastix Without Tears Page 232 of 298 44 GET UNDER THE BONNET  Config files manual tweaks in this guide are meant for advanced users. Unless you have a compelling reason to do so, users are advised against any manual config file tweaks. Just as you think that all is OK, you realized something else requires attention. This is true with Elastix as well. To do this we may need to edit some configuration files (.conf) that reside both in the /etc/asterisk directory and /etc directories. Configuration files in the /etc/asterisk are generally editable through File editor. To start editing the .conf files we need to select the PBX tab and select the Tool option followed by File Editor selection from the menu as illustrated below. You may need to navigate through the pages to find the file you wish to edit from the resulting screen. Eg. The zapata.conf can be found on the last page. Select the file you wish to edit e.g. zapata.conf (marked with red arrow) and we will see a new screen below which can be edited manually. Elastix Without Tears Page 233 of 298 Once done with your editing, click Save and then click Back as illustrated above. 44.1 EDITING THE .CONF FILES A number of .conf files may require editing to get asterisk to work, depending on the individual requirements. In this guide, as a base, we will be looking at sip.conf, sip_general_custom.conf, iax_custom.conf (just in case you want IAX, but not really necessary if you are just running SIP), indications.conf, enum.conf, extensions_custom.conf and modprobe.conf (which lives in the /etc directory and may need to be edited if you have a FXO card e.g. X100P installed. We will look at them later on under Interfacing Asterisk to PSTN).  Every time you update freePBX, there is a good chance that changes or additions you have made in sip.conf will be overwritten. To avoid this, all additions I wish to make in sip.conf are made in sip_general_custom.conf 44.1.1 sip.conf There is a slight change in the structure of sip.conf from older versions of Elastix and as such there are a number of areas that we should pay attention to and changes were made to overcome previous issues. You will notice that sip_custom.conf is missing. If necessary you can add this conf file manually. In the later versions of Elastix, the sip.conf looks like this: ;----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ;Do NOT edit this file as it is auto-generated by FreePBX. All modifications to ;this file must be done via the web gui. There are alternative files to make ;custom modifications, details at: http://freepbx.org/configuration_files ;----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ; [general] ; These files will all be included in the [general] context ; #include sip_general_additional.conf ;sip_general_custom.conf is the proper file location for placing any sip ;general options that you might need set. For example: enable and force the ;sip jitterbuffer. If these settings are desired they should be set the ;sip_general_custom.conf file. Elastix Without Tears Page 234 of 298 ; ; jbenable=yes ; jbforce=yes ; ;It is also the proper place to add the lines needed for sip nat'ing when going ;through a firewall. For nat'ing you'd need to add the following lines: ; nat=yes , externip= , localhost= , and optionally fromdomain= . ; #include sip_general_custom.conf ;sip_nat.conf is here for legacy support reasons and for those that upgrade ;from previous versions. If you have this file with lines in it please make ;sure they are not duplicated in sip_general_custom.conf, if so remove them ;from sip_nat.conf as sip_general_custom.conf will have precedence. #include sip_nat.conf ;sip_registrations_custom.conf is for any customizations you might need to do to ;the automatically generated registrations that FreePBX makes. ; #include sip_registrations_custom.conf #include sip_registrations.conf ; These files should all be expected to come after the [general] context ; #include sip_custom.conf #include sip_additional.conf ;sip_custom_post.conf If you have extra parameters that are needed for a ;extension to work to for example, those go here. So you have extension ;1000 defined in your system you start by creating a line [1000](+) in this ;file. Then on the next line add the extra parameter that is needed. ;When the sip.conf is loaded it will append your additions to the end of ;that extension. ; #include sip_custom_post.conf 44.1.2 sip_general_additional.conf ;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ;Do NOT edit this file as it is auto-generated by FreePBX. All modifications to ; ; this file must be done via the web gui. There are alternative files to make ; ; custom modifications, details at: http://freepbx.org/configuration_files ;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ; vmexten=*97 disallow=all allow=ulaw allow=alaw context=from-sip-external callerid=Unknown notifyringing=yes notifyhold=yes limitonpeers=yes tos_sip=cs3 tos_audio=ef tos_video=af41 alwaysauthreject=yes ; Added allowguest=no ; Added 44.1.3 sip_general_custom.conf Any changes you need to apply under the general context should be applied in this file. bindport = 5060 bindaddr = 0.0.0.0 nat=yes ; Port to bind to (SIP is 5060) ; Address to bind to (all addresses on machine) Elastix Without Tears Page 235 of 298 ;externip= or externhost=netvoice.selfip.com ; < -- Do not use this for Pennytel – leave it out localnet=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 context=from-trunk externrefresh=10 allowguest=no language=au videosupport=yes ;defaultexpirey=600 ; **Engin users: include this if necessary ;maxexpirey=3600 ; **Engin & BBP Global users: include this if necessary rtptimeout=60 rtpholdtimeout=120 progressinband=yes useragent = Elastix  Every time you update freePBX, there is a good chance that changes or additions you have made in iax.conf will be overwritten. To avoid this, all additions I wish to make in iax.conf are made in iax_custom.conf 44.1.4 iax_custom.conf This file may have to be created, as it may not exist. ; additions to iax.conf that would not get deleted if you upgrade freepbx ;externip = or (one or the other NOT both) externhost = ; < -- Do not use this for Pennytel – leave it out localnet = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 language=au delayreject = yes jitterbuffer = yes mailboxdetail = yes 44.1.5 indications.conf In the general section ensure the following exist: [general] country = au ; (The default is country = us, therefore replace “us” with “au”) 44.1.6 enum.conf [general] ; ; The search list for domains may be customized. ; Domains are searched in the order they are listed here. ; search => e164.arpa search => e164.org Elastix Without Tears Page 236 of 298 44.1.7 extensions_custom.conf If you have a ZAP trunk and you want to get an external line and be presented with a dial tone first before you dial the external line, you may add the following codes in the extensions_custom.conf file. The example below assumes that your ZAP is on channel 1. ;exten => 0,1,Dial(ZAP/1/{EXTEN}) < -- use this if you are using Zaptel exten => 0,1,Dial(DAHDI/1/{EXTEN}) exten => 0,2,Hangup This will allow you to dial 0 and you will get a second dial tone from PSTN. Following which you can dial a PSTN number that you wish to call.  If you're using a PRI line, you need to enable 'overlapdial' in /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf for this to work. . 44.2 CREATE MISSING DIRECTORIES You may need to create a few missing directories but before you do that please make doubly sure that the directories are actually missing. They are: /var/www/html/recordings /var/www/html/_asterisk You can either use WinSCP to create these directories or use Nano. If you use Nano, do the following: cd /var/www/html mkdir recordings cd /var/www/html mkdir _asterisk When you start Elastix or when you do amportal restart and if you see the following errors means that you will need to create those directories. chown: cannot access `/var/www/html/recordings': No such file or directory chmod: cannot access `/var/www/html/recordings': No such file or directory chown: cannot access `/var/www/html/_asterisk': No such file or directory. Elastix Without Tears Page 237 of 298 45 TROUBLE SHOOTING With any installation, you will find some unexpected problems. Some are inherent issues due to bugs or undocumented features, while others are unintentional mistakes. We will endeavour to list troubleshooting tips as we experience them (or those suggested by other users). These will be added progressively as we encounter them. 45.1 DEBUG MESSAGES AND LOG FILES ARE YOUR FRIENDS Whenever problem strikes, there is always a reason for it. To assist you in locating the problem is to monitor the activities of your Elastix using the following command at the command line (which will give you the Asterisk CLI). Asterisk –rvvvv (the “v” depends on the level of verbosity you need) Studying the activities will give you an indication of what has gone wrong. 45.2 ASTERISK FEATURE CODES NOT WORKING If you are using ATAs such as the Sipura SPA3K, Linksys PAP2 etc., you will need to delete all the Vertical Service Feature codes in the ATA, otherwise the Asterisk feature codes such as *77, *99 etc may not work. This is caused by the ATA intercepting the codes thinking that it is its own feature codes. This also applies to all other ATAs, FXS devices such as the various routers with built-in FXS ports and IP Phones that has their own feature codes built-in. Unless these feature codes are disabled, they are likely to clash with Asterisk's feature codes and as such Asterisk feature codes will not give you the desired results. 45.3 ASTERISK DROPS CALLS AFTER A FEW SECONDS If Asterisk rings an extension but drops the calls too soon before it was answered, chances are, you may have set the ‘Ringtime Default’ (Number of seconds to ring phones before sending callers to voicemail) too short. This setting can be found in the General Setting under Voicemail. A setting of 20 would be appropriate. Elastix Without Tears Page 238 of 298 45.4 PENNYTEL ASTERISK PROBLEM Pennytel, for some reason rejects user agent if it is Asterisk. To work around this, you are required to introduce the following line in your sip.conf under [general] useragent = My PABX ; required if you are with Pennytel The user agent can be any string as long as it is not Asterisk. 45.5 UNABLE TO RECEIVE INCOMING CALLS If you are unable to receive incoming calls, chances are that you may have missed setting up the incoming call handling as suggested in the previous sections of this guide. A quick fix for ELASTIX is to create an Inbound Route with the DID and CID field left blank. At least this will let incoming calls through while you try to solve the problem. Please refer to the following section on Calls Handling in this guide: 45.6 UNABLE TO SEND OUT VOICEMAIL MAIL NOTIFICATION THE Mailling is your source of information as to why your mail wont go out. Usually looking through the maillog will give you an indication of what went wrong as illustrated below: The mail log resides in /var/log/maillog 45.7 SIPURA SPA3000 – NOT HANGING UP AFTER PSTN CALLS For months I have to wrestle with the problem of SPA3K not hanging up after a PSTN call. Although the caller has hung up, SPA3K will hold the line off hook until I manually power cycle SPA3K. The following settings may overcome the problem: . PSTN Line Tab (Advanced Mode) PSTN Disconnect Detection Detect CPC: yes Detect Polarity Reversal: yes Detect PSTN Long Silence: yes Detect VoIP Long Silence: yes PSTN Long Silence Duration: 180 VoIP Long Silence Duration: 180 PSTN Silence Threshold: medium Min CPC Duration: 0.2 Elastix Without Tears Page 239 of 298 Detect Disconnect Tone: no Disconnect Tone: Leave blank  I deleted my original Disconnect Tone setting of: 425@-30,425@30;1(.375/.375/1+2) which seems to work well for Telstra, and replaced it with 425@-30,425@-30;1(.390/.390/1+2) which works better with Optus. Only one catch with this: if you put somebody on hold for longer than the above settings, if they don't make any noise, it will hang up. 45.8 VIRTUAL FAX LIST DOES NOT DISPLAY EXISTING VIRTUAL FAX. An error in one of the lines of /var/www/html/libs/paloSantoFax.class.php (in line 146) caused this problem. Change the line from if(is_array($result)) to if(isset($result)) Once this is done, the display will return. Elastix Without Tears Page 240 of 298 46 MY ELASTIX® PBX NETWORK The following is a representation of my network schematic on my Local Area Network with my Asterisk box as I have done according to my narration above. IBM TALK / DATA TALK RS CS TR RD TD CD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 8 # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 8 # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 8 # Elastix Without Tears Page 241 of 298 APPENDIX A A.1 ASTERISK FEATURE CODES Asterisk feature codes are defined in the feature codes selection of Elastix PBX Configuration screen, illustrated below: # ## ** *0 *1 *2 *11 *12 *28 *30 *31 *32 *34 *35 *43 *52 *53 *54 *55 *60 *65 *69 *70 *71 *72 *73 Directory In-Call Asterisk Blind Transfer Call Pickup Speed Dial Prefix In-Call Asterisk Toggle Call Recording In-Call Asterisk Attended Transfer User Log on User Log off Day/Night toggle Blacklist a number Remove a number from the blacklist Blacklist the last caller Perform dictation Email completed dictation Echo Test Call Forward No Answer/Unavailable Activate Call Forward No Answer/Unavailable Deactivate User Intercom Allow User Intercom Disallow Speaking Clock Speak your Extension number (your extension is XXX) Last Caller number/ID (Call trace) Activate Call Waiting (deactivated by default) Deactivate Call Waiting Call Forwarding System Disable Call Forwarding Elastix Without Tears Page 242 of 298 *74 Call Forward all prompting deactivate *75 Set user speed dial *77 IVR Recording *78 Enable Do-Not-Disturb *79 Disable Do-Not-Disturb *80 Intercom prefix *90 Call Forward on Busy *91 Disable Call Forward on Busy *92 Call Forward Busy Prompting deactivate *97 Message Center (My Voicemail) *97 + 0 Change email greeting message. *98 Enter Message Center *99 Playback IVR Recording *422 Connect to Gabcast 70 Call Parking (or 700 see Call Parking and Transfer) 411 Phonebook dial-by-name directory 555 ChanSpy 666 Test Fax 888 Zap Barge (there are variations) 7777 Simulate incoming call A.1.1 Wakeup Call Feature *62 missing Those who are familiar with the Wakeup-Call feature will find that the feature is missing. This is relatively easy to remedy as the necessary agi is included within this distribution although not included in the feature. To recover this functionality, all you need to do is simply include the following (in bold) in your extensions_custom.conf file as per my example below. Place it directly under the [from-internal-custom] context. [from-internal-custom] exten => *62,1,Answer exten => *62,2,AGI(wakeup.php) exten => *62,3,Hangup Save it and restart asterisk. A.2 ASTERISK CLI COMMANDS These are some of the available CLI commands that can be executed from the console when you run: asterisk –r (or –rvvv depending on the level of verbosity you may want). To stop ELASTIX – amportal stop To start ELASTIX – amportal start A.2.1 General commands !: Executes a given shell command abort halt: Cancel a running halt add extension: Add new extension into context add ignorepat: Add new ignore pattern add indication: Add the given indication to the country amportal start: Stop ELASTIX and amportal stop: Restart ELASTIX. debug channel: Enable debugging on a channel Elastix Without Tears Page 243 of 298 dont include: Remove a specified include from context help: Display help list, or specific help on a command include context: Include context in other context load: Load a dynamic module by name logger reload: Reopen log files. Use after rotating the log files. no debug channel: Disable debugging on a channel pri debug span: Enables PRI debugging on a span pri intense debug span: Enables REALLY INTENSE PRI debugging pri no debug span: Disables PRI debugging on a span remove extension: Remove a specified extension remove ignorepat: Remove ignore pattern from context remove indication: Remove the given indication from the country save dialplan: Overwrites your current extensions.conf file with an exported version based on the current state of the dialplan. A backup copy of your old extensions.conf is not saved. The initial values of global variables defined in the [globals] category retain their previous initial values; the current values of global variables are not written into the new extensions.conf. Using "save dialplan" will result in losing any comments in your current extensions.conf. set verbose: Set level of verboseness show agents: Show status of agents show applications: Shows registered applications show application: Describe a specific application show channel: Display information on a specific channel show channels: Display information on channels show codecs: Display information on codecs show conferences: Show status of conferences show dialplan: Show dialplan show image formats: Displays image formats show indications: Show a list of all country/indications show locals: Show status of local channels show manager command: Show manager commands show manager connect: Show connected manager users show parkedcalls: Lists parked calls show queues: Show status of queues show switches: Show alternative switches show translation: Display translation matrix show voicemail users: List defined voicemail boxes show voicemail zones: List zone message formats soft hangup: Request a hangup on a given channel A.2.2 AGI Commands show agi: Show AGI commands or specific help dump agihtml: Dumps a list of agi command in html format A.2.3 Database Handling database del: Removes database key/value database deltree: Removes database keytree/values database get: Gets database value database put: Adds/updates database value database show: Shows database contents A.2.4 iax2 iax2 iax2 IAX Channel Commands debug: Enable IAX debugging no debug: Disable IAX debugging set jitter: Sets IAX jitter buffer Elastix Without Tears Page 244 of 298 iax2 show cache: Display IAX cached dialplan iax2 show channels: Show active IAX channels iax2 show peers: Show defined IAX peers iax2 show registry: Show IAX registration status iax2 show stats: Display IAX statistics iax2 show users: Show defined IAX users iax2 trunk debug: Request IAX trunk debug iax debug: Enable IAX debugging iax no debug: Disable IAX debugging iax set jitter: Sets IAX jitter buffer iax show cache: Display IAX cached dialplan iax show channels: Show active IAX channels iax show peers: Show defined IAX peers iax show registry: Show IAX registration status iax show stats: Display IAX statistics iax show users: Show defined IAX users init keys: Initialize RSA key passcodes show keys: Displays RSA key information A.2.5 SIP Channel commands sip debug: Enable SIP debugging sip no debug: Disable SIP debugging sip reload: Reload sip.conf (added after 0.7.1 on 2004-01-23) sip show channels: Show active SIP channels sip show channel: Show detailed SIP channel info sip show inuse: List all inuse/limit sip show peers: Show defined SIP peers (register clients) sip show registry: Show SIP registration status (when Asterisk registers as a client to a SIP Proxy) sip show users: Show defined SIP users A.2.6 Server management restart gracefully: Restart Asterisk gracefully restart now: Restart Asterisk immediately restart when convenient: Restart Asterisk at empty call volume reload: Reload configuration stop gracefully: Gracefully shut down Asterisk stop now: Shut down Asterisk immediately stop when convenient: Shut down Asterisk at empty call volume extensions reload?: Reload extensions ONLY unload: Unload a dynamic module by name show modules: List modules and info about them show uptime: Show uptime information show version: Display Asterisk version info A.3 ASTERISK SPECIAL EXTENSIONS The following are some Asterisk Special Extensions that are useful to know when creating your Dial Plan or Special Custom Context. i = invalid, jump here when an invalid number is dialled. t = timeout, jump here when we timeout. h = hang-up, jump here when a call in hung up. s = standard, jump here if the dialled extension is unknown (used for generic processing). Elastix Without Tears Page 245 of 298 o = operator, a special extension to escape voice mail (configurable) A.4 ASTERISK COMMON VARIABLES The following are some of the special variables in use with the Asterisk scripts as defined in the Asterisk’s document. These variables are automatically defined when a new call starts. ${ACCOUNTCODE} ${CALLERID} ${CALLERIDNAME} ${CALLERIDNUM} ${CALLINGPRES} ${CHANNEL} ${CONTEXT} ${DATETIME} ${DNID} ${ENUM} ${EPOCH} ${EXTEN} ${ENV(VAR)} ${HANGUPCAUSE} ${INVALID_EXTEN} ${LANGUAGE} ${LEN(VAR)} ${MEETMESECS} ${PRIORITY} ${RDNIS} ${TIMESTAMP} ${TXTCIDNAME} ${UNIQUEID} ${SIPCALLID} ${SIPDOMAIN} ${SIPUSERAGENT} Account code (if specified) Caller ID Caller ID Name only Caller ID Number only PRI Caller ID presentation for incoming calls Current channel name Current context Current date time in the format: YYYY-MM-DD_HH:MM:SS Dialed Number Identifier Result of application EnumLookup Current unix style epoch Current extension Environmental variable VAR Asterisk hangup cause The invalid called extension (used in the "i" extension) Current language String length of VAR (integer) Number of seconds a user participated in a MeetMe Current priority Redirected Dial Number ID Service Current date time in the format: YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS Result of application TXTCIDName Current call unique identifier SIP Call-ID: header verbatim (for logging or CDR matching) SIP destination domain of an inbound call (if appropriate) SIP user agent The following are set by the dial() application: ${DIALEDPEERNAME} ${DIALEDPEERNUMBER} ${DIALEDTIME} ${ANSWEREDTIME} ${DIALSTATUS} Dialed peer name Dialed peer number Total time for the call in seconds (Network time). Time from answer to end of call in seconds. Status of the call, one of: | CHANUNAVAIL |CONGESTION | BUSY | NOANSWER | ANSWER | CANCEL A.5 INDICATIONS FOR VARIOUS COUNTRIES The following are some of the indications for the various countries that I am aware off. Please submit others that you know of to me. [at] ringcadence = 1000,5000 dial = 420 busy = 420/400,0/400 ring = 420/1000,0/5000 congestion = 420/200,0/200 callwaiting = 420/40,0/1960 dialrecall = 420 Elastix Without Tears Page 246 of 298 record = 1400/80,0/14920 info = 950/330,1450/330,1850/330,0/1000 stutter = 380+420 [au] ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 413+438 busy = 425/375,0/375 ring = 413+438/400,0/200,413+438/400,0/2000 congestion = 425/375,0/375,420/375,0/375 callwaiting = 425/200,0/200,425/200,0/4400 dialrecall = 413+438 record = !425/1000,!0/15000,425/360,0/15000 info = 425/2500,0/500 std = !525/100,!0/100,!525/100,!0/100,!525/100,!0/100,!525/100,!0/100,!525/100 facility = 425 stutter = 413+438/100,0/40 ringmobile = 400+450/400,0/200,400+450/400,0/2000 [br] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/250,0/250 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/250,0/250,425/750,0/250 callwaiting = 425/50,0/1000 dialrecall = 350+440 record = 425/250,0/250 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330 stutter = 350+440 [be] ringcadence = 1000,3000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/3000 congestion = 425/167,0/167 callwaiting = 1400/175,0/175,1400/175,0/3500 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 900/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = 425/1000,0/250 [ch] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/200,0/200,425/200,0/4000 dialrecall = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,425 record = 1400/80,0/15000 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = 425+340/1100,0/1100 [cl] ringcadence = 1000,3000 dial = 400 busy = 400/500,0/500 Elastix Without Tears Page 247 of 298 ring = 400/1000,0/3000 congestion = 400/200,0/200 callwaiting = 400/250,0/8750 dialrecall = !400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,400 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/333,1400/333,1800/333,0/1000 stutter = !400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/10 0,!0/100,400 [cn] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 450 busy = 450/350,0/350 ring = 450/1000,0/4000 congestion = 450/700,0/700 callwaiting = 450/400,0/4000 dialrecall = 450 record = 950/400,0/10000 info = 450/100,0/100,450/100,0/100,450/100,0/100,450/400,0/400 stutter = 450+425 [cz] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425/330,0/330,425/660,0/660 busy = 425/330,0/330 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/165,0/165 callwaiting = 425/330,0/9000 dialrecall = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,425/330,0/330,425/660,0/660 record = 1400/500,0/14000 info = 950/330,0/30,1400/330,0/30,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = 425/450,0/50 [de] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/480,0/480 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/240,0/240 callwaiting = !425/200,!0/200,!425/200,!0/5000,!425/200,!0/200,!425/200,!0/5000,!425/200,!0/200,!425/ 200,!0/5000,!425/200,!0/200,!425/200,!0/5000,!425/200,!0/200,!425/200,0 dialrecall = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,425 record = 1400/80,0/15000 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = 425+400 [dk] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = !425/200,!0/600,!425/200,!0/3000,!425/200,!0/200,!425/200,0 dialrecall = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,425 record = 1400/80,0/15000 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 Elastix Without Tears Page 248 of 298 stutter = 425/450,0/50 [ee] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/300,0/300 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 950/650,0/325,950/325,0/30,1400/1300,0/2600 dialrecall = 425/650,0/25 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/650,0/325,950/325,0/30,1400/1300,0/2600 stutter = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/10 0,!0/100,425 [es] ringcadence = 1500,3000 dial = 425 busy = 425/200,0/200 ring = 425/1500,0/3000 congestion = 425/200,0/200,425/200,0/200,425/200,0/600 callwaiting = 425/175,0/175,425/175,0/3500 dialrecall = !425/200,!0/200,!425/200,!0/200,!425/200,!0/200,425 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/330,0/1000 dialout = 500 [fi] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/300,0/300 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/150,0/150,425/150,0/8000 dialrecall = 425/650,0/25 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/650,0/325,950/325,0/30,1400/1300,0/2600 stutter = 425/650,0/25 [fr] ringcadence = 1500,3500 dial = 440 busy = 440/500,0/500 ring = 440/1500,0/3500 congestion = 440/250,0/250 callwait = 440/300,0/10000 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330 stutter = !440/100,!0/100,!440/100,!0/100,!440/100,!0/100,!440/100,!0/100,!440/100,!0/100,!440/10 0,!0/100,440 [gr] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425/200,0/300,425/700,0/800 busy = 425/300,0/300 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 Elastix Without Tears Page 249 of 298 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/150,0/150,425/150,0/8000 dialrecall = 425/650,0/25 record = 1400/400,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,0 stutter = 425/650,0/25 [hk] ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 350+440 busy = 480+620/500,0/500 ring = 440+480/400,0/200,440+480/400,0/2000 congestion = 480+620/250,0/250 callwaiting = 440/100,0/4000 dialrecall = 300/1500,0/500 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330 [hu] ringcadence = 1250,3750 dial = 425 busy = 425/300,0/300 ring = 425/1250,0/3750 congestion = 425/300,0/300 callwaiting = 425/40,0/1960 dialrecall = 425+450 record = 1400/400,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,0 stutter = 350+375+400 [il] ; Source: libtonezone. description = Israel ringcadence = 1000,3000 dial = 414 busy = 414/500,0/500 ring = 414/1000,0/3000 congestion = 414/250,0/250 callwaiting = 414/100,0/100,414/100,0/100,414/600,0/3000 dialrecall = !414/100,!0/100,!414/100,!0/100,!414/100,!0/100,414 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 1000/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = !414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/16 0,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,!414/160,!0/160,414 [in] ; Source: libtonezone. description = India ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 400*25 busy = 400/750,0/750 ring = 400*25/400,0/200,400*25/400,0/2000 congestion = 400/250,0/250 callwaiting = 400/200,0/100,400/200,0/7500 Elastix Without Tears Page 250 of 298 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0/1000 stutter = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!35 0+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 [it] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425/200,0/200,425/600,0/1000 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/400,0/100,425/250,0/100,425/150,0/14000 dialrecall = 470/400,425/400 record = 1400/400,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,0 stutter = 470/400,425/400 [jp] ; Source: libtonezone. description = Japan ringcadence = 1000,2000 dial = 400 busy = 400/500,0/500 ring = 400+15/1000,0/2000 congestion = 400/500,0/500 callwaiting = 400+16/500,0/8000 dialrecall = !400/200,!0/200,!400/200,!0/200,!400/200,!0/200,400 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0 stutter = !400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/10 0,!0/100,400 [lt] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/350,0/350 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/150,0/150,425/150,0/4000 dialrecall = 425/500,0/50 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,0 stutter = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/10 0,!0/100,425 [mx] ringcadence = 2000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/250,0/250 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 Elastix Without Tears Page 251 of 298 congestion = 425/250,0/250 callwaiting = 425/200,0/600,425/200,0/10000 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/330,0/30,1400/330,0/30,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!35 0+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 [nl] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/250,0/250 callwaiting = 425/500,0/9500 dialrecall = 425/500,0/50 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = 425/500,0/50 [no] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 425/200,0/600,425/200,0/10000 dialrecall = 470/400,425/400 record = 1400/400,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,0 stutter = 470/400,425/400 [nz] ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 400 busy = 400/250,0/250 ring = 400+450/400,0/200,400+450/400,0/2000 congestion = 400/375,0/375 callwaiting = !400/200,!0/3000,!400/200,!0/3000,!400/200,!0/3000,!400/200 dialrecall = !400/100!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,400 record = 1400/425,0/15000 info = 400/750,0/100,400/750,0/100,400/750,0/100,400/750,0/400 stutter = !400/100!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100!0/100,!400/100,!0/100,!400/100, !0/100,400 [pl] ringcadence = 1000,4000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/4000 congestion = 425/500,0/500 callwaiting = 425/150,0/150,425/150,0/4000 dialrecall = 425/500,0/50 record = 1400/500,0/15000 Elastix Without Tears Page 252 of 298 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000,!950/330,!1 400/330,!1800/330,!0/1000 stutter = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/10 0,!0/100,425 [pt] ringcadence = 1000,5000 dial = 425 busy = 425/500,0/500 ring = 425/1000,0/5000 congestion = 425/200,0/200 callwaiting = 440/300,0/10000 dialrecall = 425/1000,0/200 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 stutter = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/10 0,!0/100,425 [ru] ringcadence = 800,3200 dial = 425 busy = 425/350,0/350 ring = 425/800,0/3200 congestion = 425/350,0/350 callwaiting = 425/200,0/5000 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0 [se] ringcadence = 1000,5000 dial = 425 busy = 425/250,0/250 ring = 425/1000,0/5000 congestion = 425/250,0/750 callwaiting = 425/200,0/500,425/200,0/9100 dialrecall = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,425 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/332,!0/24,!1400/332,!0/24,!1800/332,!0/2024,!950/332,!0/24,!1400/332,!0/24,!1800/3 32,!0/2024,!950/332,!0/24,!1400/332,!0/24,!1800/332,!0/2024,!950/332,!0/24,!1400/332,!0/ 24,!1800/332,!0/2024,!950/332,!0/24,!1400/332,!0/24,!1800/332,0 stutter = !425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/100,!0/100,!425/10 0,!0/100,425 [sg] ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 425 ring = 425*24/400,0/200,425*24/400,0/2000 ; modulation should be 100%, not 90% busy = 425/750,0/750 congestion = 425/250,0/250 callwaiting = 425*24/300,0/200,425*24/300,0/3200 stutter = !425/200,!0/200,!425/600,!0/200,!425/200,!0/200,!425/600,!0/200,!425/200,!0/200,!425/60 0,!0/200,!425/200,!0/200,!425/600,!0/200,425 Elastix Without Tears Page 253 of 298 info = 950/330,1400/330,1800/330,0/1000 ; not currently in use acc. to reference dialrecall = 425*24/500,0/500,425/500,0/2500 ; unspecified in IDA reference, use repeating Holding Tone A,B record = 1400/500,0/15000 ; unspecified in IDA reference, use 0.5s tone every 15s nutone = 425/2500,0/500 intrusion = 425/250,0/2000 warning = 425/624,0/4376 ; end of period tone, warning acceptance = 425/125,0/125 holdinga = !425*24/500,!0/500 ; followed by holdingb holdingb = !425/500,!0/2500 [uk] ringcadence = 400,200,400,2000 dial = 350+440 specialdial = 350+440/750,440/750 busy = 400/375,0/375 congestion = 400/400,0/350,400/225,0/525 specialcongestion = 400/200,1004/300 unobtainable = 400 ring = 400+450/400,0/200,400+450/400,0/2000 callwaiting = 400/100,0/4000 specialcallwaiting = 400/250,0/250,400/250,0/250,400/250,0/5000 creditexpired = 400/125,0/125 confirm = 1400 switching = 400/200,0/400,400/2000,0/400 info = 950/330,0/15,1400/330,0/15,1800/330,0/1000 record = 1400/500,0/60000 stutter = 350+440/750,440/750 [us] ringcadence = 2000,4000 dial = 350+440 busy = 480+620/500,0/500 ring = 440+480/2000,0/4000 congestion = 480+620/250,0/250 callwaiting = 440/300,0/10000 dialrecall = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0 stutter = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!35 0+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 [us-old] ringcadence = 2000,4000 dial = 600*120 busy = 500*100/500,0/500 ring = 420*40/2000,0/4000 congestion = 500*100/250,0/250 callwaiting = 440/300,0/10000 dialrecall = !600*120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,600*120 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0 stutter = !600*120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,!600* 120/100,!0/100,!600*120/100,!0/100,600*120 [tw] ringcadence = 1000,4000 Elastix Without Tears Page 254 of 298 dial = 350+440 busy = 480+620/500,0/500 ring = 440+480/1000,0/2000 congestion = 480+620/250,0/250 callwaiting = 350+440/250,0/250,350+440/250,0/3250 dialrecall = 300/1500,0/500 record = 1400/500,0/15000 info = !950/330,!1400/330,!1800/330,0 stutter = !350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,!35 0+440/100,!0/100,!350+440/100,!0/100,350+440 Elastix Without Tears Page 255 of 298 APPENDIX B B.1 – AUSTRALIAN VSPS (TRUNKS) The following is a collection of TRUNK settings recommended for other VSPs that are not covered above. Details of trunks configuration are correct at the time they were compiled, however changes may have been made. Users are advised to consult their respective VSPs for confirmation. Note: In Peer Details, insert qualify=yes if you want fail-over to PSTN should you loose your internet connection. B.1.1 BBPglobal Peer Details Trunk Name: bbpglobal User Details User Context: disallow=all allow=alaw&ulaw&gsm authuser= fromdomain=sip2.bbpglobal.com fromuser= host= sip2.bbpglobal.com insecure=very secret= type=peer username= context=from-trunk fromuser= insecure=very secret= type=user username= Note:You may need to include the following in your sip.conf Maxexpirey=3600 Qualify=yes Register String: :sip2.bbpglobal.com/ B.1.2 Engin BYO Peer Details Trunk Name: engin disallow=all allow=ulaw&alaw auth=md5 canreinvite=yes dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromdomain=voice.mibroadband.com.au User Details User Context: 02321XXXX context=from-pstn fromdomain=voice.mibroadband.com.au host=byo.engin.com.au secret= type=user username=02321XXXX Note: You may need to include the following in your sip.conf fromuser=02321XXXX host=byo.engin.com.au insecure=very musiconhold=framed nat=yes port=5060 qualify=no realm=mobileinnovations.com.au reinvite=yes secret= type=friend username=02321XXXX Defaultexpirey=600 Maxexpirey=3600 externip=(your external ip address) localnet = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 Changing the fromdomain to byo.engin.com.au will also influnce the outcome. Register String: 02321XXXX:@byo.engin.com.au/02321XXXX Elastix Without Tears Page 256 of 298 B.1.3 Faktortel (IAX) Peer Details Trunk Name: faktortel disallow=all allow=g729&gsm&ulaw&alaw host=iax.faktortel.com.au qualify=3000 secret= type=friend username=xxxxxx User Details User Context: xxxxxx auth=md5 context=from-trunk host=iax.faktortel.com.au qualify=3000 secret= type=friend username=xxxxxx Register String: xxxxxx:@iax.faktortel.com.au Faktortel supports the following codecs: ulaw, alaw, ilbc, gsm, g729. The following is the link on the discussions for setting up Faktortel on ELASTIX. http://www.faktortel.com.au/support-Elastix-settings.shtml B.1.4 GoTalk Peer Details Trunk Name: GoTalk User Details User Context: 094XXXXX disallow=all allow=alaw dtmfmode=inband username=094XXXXX fromuser=094XXXXX insecure=very nat=yes host=sip.gotalk.com qualify=yes secret= type=peer context=from-trunk fromuser=094XXXXX host=dynamic insecure=very nat=yes secret= type=user username=094XXXXX The following may also neet to be set in sip_general_custom.conf useragent = whatever (as long as it is not asterisk) Register String: 094XXXXX:@sip.gotalk.com/094XXXXX Elastix Without Tears Page 257 of 298 B.1.5 iinet Peer Details Trunk Name: iinettrunk User Details User Context: fromdomain=iinetphone.iinet.net.au context=from-trunk fromuser= host= sip.nsw.iinet.net.au fromuser= insecure=very dtmfmode=auto nat=yes host=sip.nsw.iinet.net.au registersip=yes pedantic=no qualify=yes secret= type=friend insecure=very nat=no secret= type=friend username= canreinvite=no qualify=yes The following may also need to be set in sip_general_custom.conf useragent = whatever (as long as it is not asterisk) Register String: @iinetphone.iinet.net.au:< password>:@/ B.1.6 iPrimus Primus is a strange animal. To get it to work with Elastix requires me to do a bit of detective work. With my partner in crime, Colin, we set out to play detective because we need to obtain the correct credential to get Elastix to register and to be able to make and receive calls through Elastix. Primus Telecom has refused to assist. To get the necessary credentials, we cheated a little as the method was published in the whirlpool forum http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=604015 First of all, using a browser, we need to enter the following address: https://spconfig.voip.iprimus.net.au/SoftphoneConfigurationServer/Default.aspx?Actio n=LOGIN&username=username&password=password&computerid=db7b351e57 af&MAC=your_NIC_MAC_address Replace the bold type with your Talk Broadband username and password given to you by iPrimus. You can get your NIC MAC address by running ipconfig /all. When you submit that address, the following data will be displayed in your browser. [Data] Success=1 [Settings] proxies:proxy0:display_name="02********" proxies:proxy0:username="AU_********" proxies:proxy0:password="********" system:auto_update:config_server_url="https://spconfig.voip.iprimus.net.au/Soft phoneConfigurationServer/Default.aspx?Action=CONFIG&Username=username&Version=1 &MAC=$MAC$&computerid=$computerid$" audio:headset:audio_in_agc_enabled="0" audio:speaker_phone:audio_in_agc_enabled="0" codecs:speex_fec:enabled="0" codecs:speex_wb:other_bandwidths="24000,26000,28800,32800,40000,44000" codecs:speex_wb:starting_bandwidth="44000" codecs:speex_wb:usable_bandwidths="20800,24800,28800,36800,44000" Elastix Without Tears Page 258 of 298 codecs:speex_wb_fec:enabled="0" proxies:proxy0:contacts_etag="" proxies:proxy0:contacts_last_upload_failed="0" proxies:proxy0:contacts_mod="0" proxies:proxy0:default_session_refresh_interval_in_seconds="60" proxies:proxy0:digit_map="#1\a\a.T;match=1;prestrip=2;" proxies:proxy0:domain="asnjla2.bw.iprimus.net" proxies:proxy0:enable_session_timer="0" proxies:proxy0:enabled="1" proxies:proxy0:ice_enabled="1" proxies:proxy0:maximum_time_before_reregistration_in_seconds="1800" proxies:proxy0:minimum_time_before_reregistration_in_seconds="20" proxies:proxy0:override_outbound_proxy="1" proxies:proxy0:override_sip_listen_port="0" proxies:proxy0:override_stun_server="1" proxies:proxy0:port_range_enable="0" proxies:proxy0:proxy="sbc01a.syd.voip.iprimus.net.au:15060" proxies:proxy0:register="1" proxies:proxy0:reregister_in_seconds="3600" Note the bold highlights. These are the data that you need for your trunk setting. Armed with the data above, you may now set your trunk setting. Peer Details Trunk Name: iPrimus User Details User Context: 02******** disallow=all allow=alaw&ulaw fromdomain=asnjla2.bw.iprimus.net fromuser=AU_XXXXXXXX host=asnjla2.bw.iprimus.net insecure=very outboundproxy=sbc01a.syd.voip.iprimus.net.au context=from-trunk type=user port=15060 secret=YYYYYYYY type=peer username=AU_XXXXXXXX Register String: [email protected]:YYYYYYYY:AU_XXXXXXXX@iprimus/02******** B.1.7 MyNetFone Peer Details Trunk Name: MyFonesip User Details User Context: 091XXXXX disallow=all allow=g729&alaw&ulaw authname=091xxxxx canreinvite=no dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromuser=091xxxxx host=sip01.mynetfone.com.au insecure=very nat=yes pedantic=no qualify=yes username=091xxxxx secret= type=friend canreinvite=no context=from-trunk fromuser=091xxxxx insecure=very qualify=no secret= type=friend username=091xxxxx Register String: [email protected]::[email protected]/091xxxxx For further information on MyNetFone, you may refer to the following link: http://www.myfone.com.au/downloads/sip.conf and http://www.myfone.com.au/downloads/extensions.conf Elastix Without Tears Page 259 of 298 B.1.8 Nehos Peer Details Trunk Name: Nehos User Details User Context: 661XXXX disallow=all allow=g729 host=sip.ifone.com.au qualify=yes username=661xxxx secret= type=peer context=from-trunk host=sip.ifone.com.au username=661xxxx secret= type=user Register String: 661xxxx:@sip.ifone.com.au B.1.9 Nodephone Peer Details Trunk Name: Nodephone User Details User Context: disallow=all allow=g729 canreinvite=no dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromdomain=sip.internode.on.net context=from-trunk host= sip.internode.on.net username= secret= type=user username= fromuser= host=sip.internode.on.net insecure=very secret= type=peer Register String: :@sip.internode.on.net/ B.1.10 SipMe Peer Details Trunk Name: sipme authname=1777xxxxxx dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromuser=1777xxxxxx host=sip.sipme.com.au insecure=very secret= type=peer username=1777xxxxxx User Details User Context: 1777xxxxxx context=from-trunk fromuser=1777xxxxxx secret= type=user Register String: 1777xxxxxx:@sip.sipme.com.au/1777xxxxxx Elastix Without Tears Page 260 of 298 B.2 – NEW ZEALAND VSPS (TRUNKS) B.2.1 iTalk Peer Details Trunk Name: italk User Details User Context: disallow=all allow=ulaw&g729 canreinvite=no context=from-trunk dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromuser=64997xxxxx host=akl.italk.co.nz insecure=very username=64997xxxxx secret= type=friend You may prefix outgoing calls with 0197 to disable outgoing CID. Inbound route 64997xxxxx required to be forwarded to a destination ext/menu Register String: 64997xxxxx:@akl.italk.co.nz/64997xxxxx (Source Ref: Steve Biddle) B.2.2 Double Zero 64 (IAX) Peer Details Trunk Name: 0064 User Details User Context:; Your_Customer_ID disallow=all allow=ulaw&g729 dtmfmode=rfc2833 host=voip.0064.co.nz insecure=very username=your_Customer_ID secret= type=peer context=from-pstn host=voip.0064.co.nz insecure=very username=CUSTOMER_ID secret=PASSWORD type=user Register String: Your_Customer_ID: @voip.0064.co.nz Elastix Without Tears Page 261 of 298 B.3 – OTHER VSPS (TRUNKS) B.3.1 Broadvoice Peer Details Trunk Name: Broadvoice User Details User Context: disallow=all allow=ulaw canreinvite=no dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromdomain=sip.broadvoice.com fromuser= host=sip.broadvoice.com insecure=very nat=yes username= secret= type=peer context=from-trunk type=user Register String: @sip.broadvoice.com::@sip.broadvoice.com/ B.3.2 FWD aka Pulver(IAX) Peer Details Trunk Name: fwd User Details User Context: 65xxxx disallow=all allow=ulaw&alaw auth=rsa canredirect=no host=iax2.fwdnet.net inkeys=freeworlddialup insecure=very username=65xxxx secret= type=peer auth=rsa context=from-trunk inkeys=freeworlddialup type=user Register String: 65xxxx:@iax2.fwdnet.net B.3.3 SipBroker Peer Details Trunk Name: sipbroker-out disallow=all allow=g729&ulaw&alaw canreinvite=no dtmfmode=rfc2833 fromdomain= fromuser= host=sipbroker.com insecure=very nat=yes port=5060 secret= type=peer You will not require user details since you will not be receiving incoming calls from this trunk. You do not need to register either. Elastix Without Tears Page 262 of 298 If you are using SipBroker, you must ensure that your sip_nat.conf is modified to the following (or add these lines in sip_general_custom.conf). nat=yes externip= ; if you have fix IP or externhost= ; if you are using Dynamic IP localnet=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 B.3.4 SipPhone Peer Details Trunk Name: sipphone User Details User Context: 1747xxxxxxx fromdomain=proxy01.sipphone.com host=proxy01.sipphone.com insecure=very username=1747xxxxxxx secret= type=peer canreinvite=no context=from-trunk fromuser=1747xxxxxxx insecure=very qualify=no username=1747xxxxxxx secret= type=user Register String: 1747xxxxxxx:@proxy01.sipphone.com/1747xxxxxxx B.3.5 VOIP Buster Peer Details Trunk Name: VoipBuster disallow=all allow=alaw&ulaw context=from-pstn dtmfmode=inband fromdomain=sip1.voipbuster.com fromuser= host=sip1.voipbuster.com insecure=very nat=yes (necessary in some cases) qualify=yes User Details User Conext: If you have an inbound number, an Inbound route is required to forwarded your incoming call to a destination extension or IVR menu: Inbound Route: DID: No Fax username= secret= srvlookup=yes type=friend Register String: :@sip1.voipbuster.com/ (Source Ref: Florent Chandelier) Elastix Without Tears Page 263 of 298 APPENDIX C Details for Asterisk Sound Files can be obtained from the following links: http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk+sound+files http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+sound+files+additional http://www.nathanpralle.com/software/ast_masterlist.html C.1 VOICE FOR ASTERISK MESSAGES Brian, a Whirlpool Enthusiast, posted the following tip in the Whirlpool forum. Brian has asked me to include his discovery in this guide. The following is an extract of Brian’s exploits – verbatim  I have just been setting up the Digital Receptionist and I wanted to use a professional voice for messages. I thought I might detail my exploits here for those that might be considering the same thing. First you need the original recording either from a real professional or a "text to voice" utility. I went with the Realspeak demo http://www.nuance.com/realspeak/demo/default.asp The "British Daniel" voice was deep and professional. Check this out http://www.cbservers.com.au/whirlpool.wav Now the demo has a 100-character limit so you may need to do 2 or 3 files and join them together with a program like Accoustica MP3 mixer. http://www.acoustica.com/mp3%2Daudio%2Dmixer/ Save it as a wav file. It was after this part that I had a lot of problems. Asterisk is very funny about sound files. I tried using all sorts of programs to get the file to the right specs but it failed to work every time. I eventually used "sox" an open source command line editing tool and it worked first go (using advice from VoIP-info & digium forums) http://sox.sourceforge.net/ then at the command line prompt use this syntax: sox winwave.wav -r 8000 -c 1 -s -w linwave.wav you may then upload your message to asterisk. Some further reading; http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2002-December/006635.html http://www.voip-info.org/tikiindex.php?page=Convert+WAV+audio+files+for+use+in+Asterisk http://users.pandora.be/Asterisk-PBX/IVR.htm http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk+sound+files Elastix Without Tears Page 264 of 298 C.2 AUSTRALIAN VOICE AND LANGUAGE SET FOR ASTERISK As part of OpenVoice contribution to the Asterisk community, they are offering a free set of Australian prompts for the Asterisk™ Open Source PBX. The files (male voice) can be downloaded here: http://www.openvoice.com.au/free.php Of course, don’t forget to add the following line in the iax.conf and sip.conf configuration file under [general]. In zapata.conf configuration file the line should be added under [channels]. language=au ; (or fr, it or whichever language is installed) Elastix Without Tears Page 265 of 298 APPENDIX D (ATAS AND ROUTERS) D.1 ALCATEL SPEEDTOUCH 510/530 ADSL ROUTER If you are using Telstra Alcatel SpeedTouch 510/530 ADSL Router, you will need to unbind port 5060, otherwise you will not be able to use VOIP since Alcatel, in their wisdom for reasons best known to themselves, have decided that we are not suppose to use this port. So they blocked it in these types of routers. But, as we know, there are more than just one way to skin a cat  thus, the solution is to telnet to the ADSL modem and remove this restriction. I am assuming that you are running a Windows PC to do this. Click on Start > Run then type: telnet 10.0.0.138 [or replace with the correct ip address] you will notice the following; Trying 10.0.0.138... Connected to speedtouch Escape character is '^]'. Username : root Password : ---------... ... welcome message blah blah blah ... You then should unbind the SIP protocol and reboot the modem thus: =>nat unbind application=SIP port=5060 =>config save =>system reboot To check whether the SIP protocol is bound in your modem use this command to show the list of bindings (only showing SIP here): =>nat bindlist Application Proto Port SIP udp 5060 If the line doesn't appear, your phone should work. Source Reference: http://www.sipgate.co.uk/faq/index.php?aktion=artikel&type=faq&rubrik=024&id=398&lan g=de D.2 BILLION 7402 VL Some extra information that will get a Billion 7402 VL FXS to work with asterisk and have NAT port 5060 points to the Asterisk server. By default, if you enable the FXS ports on the Billion 7402 VL router to be sip enabled, the router automatically forwards the port (5060) to its own IP address and an error will Elastix Without Tears Page 266 of 298 occur if you try to forward that port to the Asterisk box. This is because it is intended for the FXS ports to connect directly to an external SIP provider. To overcome this issue and make the FXS ports connect to the Asterisk box, complete the following: From a windows command prompt… telnet 192.168.XXX.XXX (router I.P. address) voip set interfacename iplan (this changes it from the WAN to the LAN interface Next, power reset the router. Now you can add the NAT to point to the asterisk server and the FXS ports will connect to the Asterisk box. NOTE: - Also codec G729 had to be disabled on the FXS ports for calls to work. Not sure why. (Source Reference: Sean Mahon) D.3 LINKSYS PAP2 AND SIPURA SPA2000 The most common Analog Telephone Adapters (ATA) amongst Australian VOIP users are the Linksys PAP2, Sipura 2000 and Sipura SPA3000 (the Sipura SPA3000 was covered in the chapter relating to Interfacing Asterisk to PSTN). The Linksys PAP2 and the Sipura SPA2000 are essentially identical units encased in different boxes and branded differently. The examples presented here apply to both the Linksys PAP2 and Sipura SPA2000. Note: The set-up described here is for use with ELASTIX and not for connecting the unit directly to the VOIP service provider. I will describe the minimum changes that are required to get these ATAs to work in conjunction with Asterisk. As supplied, the unit comes with DHCP enabled. It is best to allocate a fix IP address to the unit and therefore the first thing to do is to disable the DHCP and allocate a fix IP address e.g. 192.168.1.50. You need to do the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Connect the unit to your network via the RJ45 port behind the unit. Power up the unit Plug in a telephone in the RJ11 port 1 behind the unit (any one will do) Dial **** and listen to the instruction that you will hear from the IVR Dial 101 and when prompted enter 0 followed by # (this will disable DHCP) Dial 111 and when prompted enter 192*168*1*50 followed by # (assuming that you want to allocate 192.168.1.50 as the IP address of the ATA). 7. Dial 120 and you will hear the current sub-net mask. If it is not your existing network subnet mask you may want to change it. If it is the same as your current network’s subnet mask, do don’t need to do anything else). If you need to change the sub-net mask, do the following: 8. Dial 121 and at the prompt enter 255*255*255*0 (assuming that is your existing sub-net mask) Elastix Without Tears Page 267 of 298 Next, connect to the Unit using your browser by entering http://192.168.1.50 in your browser address bar and hit enter. 2. Select Admin Login and then select (switch to advanced view) 3. Select the System Tab a. Under Internet Connection Type, change the Gateway address to the address of your router. 4. Select Regional Tab a. Under Vertical Service Activation Codes, delete all the fields. 5. Select Line 1 Tab a. Under SIP Setting, change the SIP Port to 5060 b. Under Proxy and Registration, change the Proxy to reflect the address of your Asterisk box. c. Under Subscriber Information, change the Display Name to whatever you like, change the User ID to the Asterisk Extension number that you have allocated for this line e.g. 201. Change the Password to the password you have allocated to the asterisk extension. Change Use Auth ID to Yes. Change the Auth ID to the extension number you have allocated e.g. 201, the same as the User ID. d. Under Dial Plan, change the existing dial plan to (*x.|x.) Change Enable IP Dialling to yes. 6. Select Line 2 Tab a. Under SIP Setting, change the SIP Port to 5061 b. Under Proxy and Registration, change the Proxy to reflect the address of your Asterisk box. c. Under Subscriber Information, change the Display Name to whatever you like, change the User ID to the Asterisk Extension number that you have allocated for this line e.g. 202. Change the Password to the password you have allocated to the asterisk extension. Change Use Auth ID to Yes. Change the Auth ID to the extension number you have allocated e.g. 202, the same as the User ID. d. Under Dial Plan, change the existing dial plan to (**|*x.|x.) Change Enable IP Dialling to yes. 7. Set this setting only if you are using STUN Server a. Select SIP Tab b. Handle VIA received: no c. Handle VIA rport: no d. Insert VIA received: no e. Insert VIA rport: no f. Substitute VIA Addr: yes g. Send Resp To Src Port: yes h. STUN Enable: yes i. STUN Test Enable: no j. STUN Server: stun.xten.com (I use stun.xten.com, you may use whichever stun server you like) k. NAT Keep Alive: 15 These are the minimum changes you need to do to get the ATA working in conjunction with Asterisk. There are other changes that you can do depending on your own Elastix Without Tears Page 268 of 298 requirement. There are various discussions on this topic in the Whirlpool, Voxilla and other forums that you can refer to. Elastix Without Tears Page 269 of 298 APPENDIX E – HARDWARE SPECIFIC E.1 RAID If you have a machine with 2 sata drives or 2 ide drives you can use this ISO to raid your Elastix setup. The ISO is _base_d on the new 1.0 stable. To use the ISO, place into your new PBX and boot the cd. At the boot screen you would have normally just pressed enter to go straight into a normal install. On this ISO you can also do this but it will just be a single HDD install. SATA RAID At the first boot screen write linux ks=cdrom:/ks_sataraid.cfg IDE RAID At the first boot screen write linux ks=cdrom:/ks_ideraid.cfg To download the ISO grab it here http://www.voipeye.com.au/Elastix-1.0-mbit.com.au.iso E.2 HOW TO INSTALL ELASTIX WITH SOFTWARE RAID1 (Submitted by George Tellos) This is the standard procedure for novice to build a raid1 machine and install any almost any thin distro. First of all you need two disks and they have to be about the same size. Best would be they are identical. Don’t configure IDE RAID mode at BIOS. If you have hardware raid then follow other instructions. For example on an Dell Vostro 200 configure raid at bios, press ctrl+I at boot, press enter 4 times and you will have a nice little hardware raid1. Here we’ll do it manually, works on almost anything! Cabling Connect your disks like this: 1. You have two ATA disks. Put one on primary master and the other on primary slave. Put your cd-rom on primary or secondary slave. This way you will have SDA and SDC 2. You have two ATA disks. Put one on primary master and the other on primary slave. Put your cd-rom anywhere on the secondary channel. This way you will have SDA and SDB 3. You have two SATA disks. Put one on channel 0 and the other on channel 0. Put your cd-rom anywhere you like, channel 2 or on any ATA channel. This way you will have SDA and SDB Starting the procedure Elastix Without Tears Page 270 of 298 Boot from cd-rom, at the welcome screen type “advanced” and press enter. What until it asks you how you like to configure partitions on your disks. Of course we’ll use all space so forget your data on those disks. Choose “Custom layout” and continue on the following steps. Note if you have partitions already you have to delete them all by hand using the “delete” button …on the screen, not on the keyboard ;) Just highlight them and select delete. Use up and down arrow keys to move through disks, tab to move through options and space to select/toggle To create the /boot partition and configure raid for this Step 1 Highlight free space under SDA (first disk) using arrow keys and select NEW using tab. On the new screen select using only tab and space: File system Type: Software Raid Allowable Drives: SDA (unselect SDB using space) Size: 512 Force to be a primary partition: Select this or the system will never boot Step 2 The same procedure for SDB but with one difference Allowable Drives: SDB (unselect SDA) Step 3 Select RAID Mount point: /boot File System Type: ext3 Raid Level: RAID1 Raid members: sda1 and sdb1. It’s already selected. Leave them alone! To create swap partition and configure raid for this Step 1 Highlight free space under SDA (first disk) using arrow keys and select NEW using tab. On the new screen select using only tab and space: File system Type: Software Raid Allowable Drives: SDA (unselect SDB using space) Size: 2048 Force to be a primary partition: DON’T select this! Step2 The same procedure for SDB but with one difference Allowable Drives: SDB (unselect SDA) Step 3 Select RAID Mount point: nothing! File System Type: swap Raid Level: RAID1 Raid members: sda2 and sdb2. It’s already selected. Leave them alone! To create root partition and configure raid for this Write down the free space of the smallest drive. Step 1 Elastix Without Tears Page 271 of 298 Highlight free space under SDA (first disk) using arrow keys and select NEW using tab. On the new screen select using only tab and space: File system Type: Software Raid Allowable Drives: SDA (unselect SDB using space) Size: type the number you wrote down or just toggle the option “Use all available space” if you have identical disks Force to be a primary partition: DON’T select this! Step2 The same procedure for SDB but with one difference Allowable Drives: SDB (unselect SDA) Step 3 Select RAID Mount point: / File System Type: ext3 Raid Level: RAID1 Raid members: sda3 and sdb3. It’s already selected. Leave them alone! We’re done! Press OK to continue installing the system as usual. Wrap it up On first boot, login and type: watch cat /proc/mdstat to see the status of the raid. See if all raid members are active and nothing is unusable or the machine will blow up! Just kidding. Finally press ctrl+c to exit this screen. Some FAQ Why we mirror the swap partition? No reason. We mirror them all! Why we use twice as much space than the default setup? Because we have big disks and because free space is never enough! Will the system format the disks and build the raid on it’s own? Yes, don’t worry. Just don’t be too quick to reboot the first boot. That’s all folks, Elastix Without Tears Page 272 of 298 APPENDIX F (USERS’ CONTRIBUTIONS) F.1 ELIMINATING ECHO PROBLEMS IN SPA-3000 Tony, another participant in the Whirlpool Forum, provided the following recommendation. Echo in the SPA-3000 is a common problem. In reality, most of the time the SPA-3000 isn't causing the echo, it's just making it more noticeable. This is due to the fact that the SPA-3000 passes calls from the PSTN to the LINE1 by converting it to VoIP internally and then backs to analogue. This process does not produce any echo, however is can add about 30ms of latency to the call. This added latency can make echo that was previously unnoticed suddenly become annoying. A pure digital system has no echo (the TX and RX path are 100% separated). It's the interaction of the Digital and Analogue that cause problems. This may help getting rid of that pesky echo on your Sipura SPA-3000 PSTN line: 1. Make sure you are running the latest firmware (3.1.7) and you have everything back to factory defaults or at least undo all the previous tweaking. 2. Switch *off* all echo can in all your devices. There are 6 places in the sipura to switch off echo can.  PSTN Line -> "Echo Canc Enable",  "Echo Canc Adaptive Enable",  "Echo Supp Enable" and  Line 1 -> "Echo Canc Enable",  "Echo Canc Adaptive Enable",  "Echo Supp Enable". The idea is that we want to hear how bad the echo is with different configs. 3. Unplug everything from your phone line except the SPA-3000. This includes all the extension cables even with nothing connected to them. These can cause impedance problems that lead to echo. 4. Set the Impedance on your lines.  PSTN -> "Port Impedance" = 220+820||120nF as a starting point.  Regional -> FXS Port Impedance = "220+820||115nF" as a starting point. 5. In the PSTN tab set –  "Tip/Ring Voltage Adjust: = 3.1V" and  "Operational Loop Current Min = 16mA". Doesn't seem to affect echo, but I believe that these are the correct numbers for Australia. 6. Turn down the jitter buffers!  "PSTN -> Network Jitter Level: = low",  "PSTN -> Jitter Buffer Adjustment: = disable". This reduces the delay across your SPA-3000.  "LINE1 -> Network Jitter Level: = low",  "LINE1 -> Jitter Buffer Adjustment: = up and down". If you are using a poor quality VoIP service as well as the PSTN then you could change the  "LINE1 -> Network Jitter Level: = medium". Elastix Without Tears Page 273 of 298 7. Set the preferred codec for the PSTN to be g711a and lock it in.  "PSTN -> Preferred Codec = g711a",  "PSTN -> Use Pref Codec Only = yes". Obviously adjust this if you’re accessing your PSTN line via VoIP from a remote network. Set the LINE1 to allow g711a as well as whatever else your prefer.  "LINE1 -> Use Pref Codec Only = no". The g711a is fast to encode and decode. Using this codec again reduces your latency and may make the echo less obvious or easier to catch with the echo canceller. 8. Power cycle the SPA-3000 (pull the power plug). Believe it or not, this sometimes fixes the problem especially after you have changed the physical phone wiring. 9. Make some test calls. The telco test number 1800801920 is a good one to start with. It has a recorded voice telling you your local phone number. While it's talking, talk back and work out how much echo you are getting. Talk loud, talk soft. 10. Look at what you have got. If you can hear an echo then the problem could be that your probably sending to much power down the line. This is probably reflecting back somewhere as an echo. If you’re close to the exchange and have good wires then this is probably the case. You need to crank back on the power. Go to PSTN -> "SPA To PSTN Gain" and turn it down. Be aware that at some point if you turn it down to much, the SPA sorts does a double negative and turns it way up. I believe the range of this variable is about -127 -> 127 (from my testing). Turn it down, down, down, down until the person can still hear you but reduced echo. Note: if you enable "Echo Supp Enable" then you will negate these parameters. It seems that the Sipura echo suppression is actually just an automatic gain control. It's really annoying - leave it off. 11. Make a test call to someone with a known good phone out via the SPA's PSTN line or get someone to call in to the PSTN line. Best if it’s just a boring old Telstra phone hard wired to a socket on the wall. Don't call a mobile! If the remote party is hearing echo, it could be that your phone is so loud that it's feeding back into the microphone. Turn down the PSTN To SPA Gain until you can comfortable hear the person, no more. If the remote user can still hear echo, try using a different phone plugged into the SPA. Go for the basics first, a cruddy old Telstra phone is what I use for testing. If this solves the problem you may have a bad phone or an impedance miss match between your phone and the SPA.   Try changing the Regional -> FXS Port Impedance to "600". Try changing the FXO port impedance to "600" or "global". If this doesn't help, change it back. The impedance will only affect what the *remote* party hears, it won't help echo you are hearing. 12. After you have the echo down to a reasonable level, go back into the "PSTN" tab and switch on the "Echo Can Enable = yes". Check to see if the echo has improved. If the echo is tolerable at this level, leave the adaptive echo canceller off. You should have the echo level down to a level that can be stomped on by the echo canceller. If you are using a sip device to talk through your PSTN line, you should probably do all the echo cancellation at that device and leave it switched off in the SPA. The adaptive echo canceller is a lot more aggressive but also can cancel out some of the incoming conversation. In particular if you’re calling in a loud environment then the voice going down the line from your end can trick the echo canceller to start canning some of Elastix Without Tears Page 274 of 298 the real conversation. It makes the incoming party sound a bit scratchy. Leave it off unless you really need it. The "Echo Supp Enable" switches on automatic gain controls. This means the Sipura will be constantly turning up and down the volume of the call for you and the remote party to try and keep the sound levels at a "good" level. Sipura's definition of good may not suit your situation. The constant variation of the volume annoys me so I recommend leaving it "off". 13. Test call. Talk loud, talk soft. Is your conversation clear at both ends? Should be a lot better. If echo re-appears, at a later date, remember to try power cycling the SPA before you tweak with anything. It may also be at the other end of the call. In the end it basically boils down to this – If you are hearing the echo, the real problem is at the *other* end of the connection. In a normal phone conversation, the latency is so low that you don't notice it. Your brain automatically tunes out to its own voice when you’re talking (as long as the delay between talking and hearing isn't to long). When you insert the SPA, the delay is increased and sometimes the echo can become noticeable. The only way you can counter this is to reduce the latency (jitter buffer) and/or reduce the gains so the echo volume is reduced below the level that it is noticed. At this point, the SPA-3000 echo canceller should be able to kill off the rest. F.2 IMMEDIATE ANSWER OF PSTN CALLS By default, calls will be answered after about 3 rings thus allowing time for Asterisk to detect the CID. Some users may want the PSTN calls to be answered by Asterisk immediately especially if there is a common phone connected in parallel and to avoid someone answering the call using the parallel phone. To do this you need to change one setting in the zapata.conf file. By default the setting is set to: Immediate = no To force Asterisk to answer immediately, change the line to read: Immediate = yes If you are not using Fax, it is also a good idea to disable fax extension in your General setting. This may or may not work satisfactorily as Asterisk needs a couple of rings to detect CID. F.3 INSTALLING FAIL2BAN (Extract from Sunshine Networks) For those who do not have ready access to the internet (which is very few if you need this), I have reproduced the procedure as blogged by Sunshine Networks. Your VoIP server, just like any other server that is accessible through the internet, is a potential target to hackers. Today's blog is about securing your Elastix 1.6 installation so that hackers don't get to play with your VoIP server. I won't state the obvious like setting strong passwords or changing default passwords, this is purely aimed at countering the most common way to hack SIP servers at the moment: Brute-forcing SIP passwords. Elastix Without Tears Page 275 of 298 Disclaimer: This technique involves the use of the Fail2Ban script. The Fail2Ban script is not created or maintained by Sunshine Networks. The use of any blog item on their website is purely at your own risk. Like always, think before you do. Securing Elastix 1.6 using Fail2Ban scripts: SSH to your VoIP server and login as root, then type the following commands: # cd /usr/src/ # wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/fail2ban/files/fail2banstable/fail2ban-0.8.4/fail2ban-0.8.4.tar.bz2/download # tar -jxf fail2ban-0.8.4.tar.bz2 # cd fail2ban-0.8.4 # python setup.py install # cp /usr/src/fail2ban-0.8.4/files/redhat-initd /etc/init.d/fail2ban # chmod 755 /etc/init.d/fail2ban # cd /etc/fail2ban/filter.d # touch asterisk.conf Copy these contents into /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/asterisk.conf : # # # # # # # =================== /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/asterisk.conf Fail2Ban configuration file $Revision: 250 $ [INCLUDES] # Read common prefixes. If any customizations available -- read them from # common.local #before = common.conf [Definition] #_daemon = asterisk # Option: # Notes.: The # # for # # Values: # failregex regex to match the password failures messages in the logfile. host must be matched by a group named "host". The tag "" can be used for standard IP/hostname matching and is only an alias (?:::f{4,6}:)?(?PS+) TEXT failregex = NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - Wrong password NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - No matching peer found NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' Username/auth name mismatch NOTICE.* .*: Registration from '.*' failed for '' - Device does not match ACL NOTICE.* failed to authenticate as '.*'$ NOTICE.* .*: No registration for peer '.*' (from ) NOTICE.* .*: Host failed MD5 authentication for '.*' (.*) NOTICE.* .*: Failed to authenticate user .*@.* # Option: # Notes.: # Values: ignoreregex regex to ignore. If this regex matches, the line is ignored. TEXT Elastix Without Tears Page 276 of 298 # ignoreregex = # =================== Add the [asterisk-iptables] section to your /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf file : # /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf #==================== [asterisk-iptables] enabled filter action = true = asterisk = iptables-allports[name=ASTERISK, protocol=all] sendmail-whois[name=ASTERISK, [email protected], [email protected]] logpath = /var/log/asterisk/full maxretry = 5 bantime = 600 #==================== Also in /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf file you want to add your own IP address range ( ours is 192.168.1.0 ) : ignoreip = 127.0.0.1 192.168.1.0/24 Edit /etc/asterisk/logger.conf to add the [general] section with dateformat: #==================== [general] dateformat=%F %T #==================== Reload logger module in Asterisk: asterisk -rx "module reload logger" Add Fail2ban to the list of startup services : chkconfig fail2ban on Start Fail2ban: /etc/init.d/fail2ban start Check if fail2ban is showing up in iptables: iptables -L –v You should see "fail2ban-ASTERISK" in your iptables output. Any hackers that try to brute-force your SIP passwords will now be banned after 5 attempts for 600 seconds ( see jail.conf if you want to change these values ) How to test if your security is working correctly. Download a software SIP client and try to connect to your Elastix box using false credentials. Make sure you don't try this from an IP address that is on the "ignoreip" list ( 192.168.1.0/24 for instance ). If your client gets blocked after 5 attempts and you receive an email saying your IP has been blocked, then you can safely assume that your configuration is working correctly. Elastix Without Tears Page 277 of 298 APPENDIX G (PUBLICATIONS AND REFERENCES) G.1 DUNDI – A GUIDE TO A SIMPLE SETUP You will find a guide to a simple DUNDi set-up at the GoldfishNet Blog: http://blog.thegoldfish.net/dundi-tutorial-for-asteriskhome/ G.2 THE FUTURE OF TELEPHONY BY O’REILLY PUBLISHING You may download the pdf version of this publication here: http://voipspeak.net/images/stories/orielly/AsteriskTFOT.zip O’Reilly has licensed the book under the creative commons license and as such, you are free to download and distribute it. G.3 OTHER ASTERISK FORUMS, TUTORIALS AND WIKIS One of my favourite site is http://www.elastixconnection.com.au/ Others that I refer to are: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk%40home+Handbook+Wiki http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=123387 http://sourceforge.net/docman/?group_id=121515 The following are two tutorial sites that I recommend everyone who is serious about Elastix and Asterisk generally. http://mundy.org/blog/index.php?p=81 http://www.asteriskguru.com/tutorials/ http://www.freewebs.com/voipformula/VoIP-HOWTO.html G.4 VOICE OVER IP – PER CALL BANDWIDTH CONSUMPTION The following is a reference from Cisco Systems that’s worth a look. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk698/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094ae 2.shtml G.5 USB PHONE SUPPORT Most USB Phones are pre-configured for use with Skype and as a result some USB Phone users are experiencing difficulties using the USB phones dial pads to dial out using providers other than Skype especially when using SIP. Special driver are usually required. The following are links, which may interest USB phone users, where appropriate drivers may be found. Users may have to try different drivers to find a suitable one. http://www.yealink.com/english/support.htm http://www.packetizer.com/products/ http://www.sednacomputer.com/products/se-p1k.html http://www.welltech.com/product_e_06.htm http://www.waytec.com.au/download.htm http://www.pc-telephone.com/free-phone.htm http://www.sjlabs.com/usbphone/SJphoneDriverATCOM-AU-100.exe Elastix Without Tears Page 278 of 298 NOTES DELETE CALL RECORDS FROM CDR There will be time when you need to delete the CDR records from your call details record. One example is those calls you made while testing. These will need to be deleted before going live where you will need clean record. There 2 ways which this can be done. 1. From the Reports GUI itself 2. Doing it directly from the SQL database Deleting CDR Record from Reports GUI As illustrated below, do the following from the reports screen: 1. Select the date range 2. Click on filter 3. Click Delete Delete from MySQL database Alternatively, you can do it manually; Login to the shell (SSH) as root. You can do this using Putty. Enter these commands manually, each on a new line. mysql –p Enter password: eLaStIx.2oo7 use asteriskcdrdb; delete from cdr; exit; Your CDR will now be empty. Elastix Without Tears Page 279 of 298 EXTENSION NUMBERS TO AVOID USING Unless you are prepared to edit and change some codes, its best to avoid the following extension numbers: 70-79 700-799 7777 911 999 Reserved for calls on hold Reserved for calls on hold Reserved extension for incoming calls simulation Emergency number Emergency number in some countries HOW TO RESTRICT OUTGOING CALLS – MANUAL METHOD This requirement often manifests itself in an office environment where management restricts staff from making International, long distance, or even local calls. In many organizations, staffs are confined to making internal calls only. There are 2 ways that this can be handled. One is by using the Custom Context module or by creating the necessary context manually. Here, we will create the procedure manually. It is somewhat complicated, but I will try to explain it here and provide an example. 1. Set up all your trunks and outbound routes as normal. At this stage, users can make unrestricted calls. This is the normal way of doing it with freePBX. You probably would have already done this. 2. Through File Editor of Elastix, open extensions_additional.conf and locate the [outbound-allroutes] section of the file. You will notice something like my example below. [outbound-allroutes] include => outbound-allroutes-custom include => outrt-001-PSTN include => outrt-002-SPA3K include => outrt-003-Oztell include => outrt-004-Pennytel include => outrt-005-Domestic include => outrt-006-MobileAust include => outrt-007-International include => outrt-008-12Number include => outrt-009-13N1800Numbers include => outrt-010-e164 include => outrt-011-SingaporeLink include => outrt-012-KualaLumpurLink include => outrt-013-MalaccaLink exten => foo,1,Noop(bar) ; end of [outbound-allroutes] Highlight them, copy and paste in a notepad text file somewhere and will get back to this a little later. Alternatively you can paste it directly to extensions_custom.conf. Do not do this if Elastix is active as it may cause some problem while people using it. Elastix Without Tears Page 280 of 298 3. Through File Editor of Elastix open extensions_custom.conf and create a section like my example below. You can get the codes from [from-internal-additional] of extensions_additional.conf. So will have to do some juggling because you can’t cut and paste this from another .conf file without having to close one (you can cut and paste from here if you like). [from-restricted] ; ; These are all the applications that you will require ; include => app-cf-busy-off include => app-cf-busy-off-any include => app-cf-busy-on include => app-cf-off include => app-cf-off-any include => app-cf-on include => app-cf-unavailable-off include => app-cf-unavailable-on include => app-calltrace include => app-callwaiting-cwoff include => app-callwaiting-cwon include => app-dialvm include => app-directory include => app-dnd-off include => app-dnd-on include => app-echo-test include => app-recordings include => app-speakextennum include => app-speakingclock include => app-userlogonoff include => app-zapbarge include => app-vmmain include => ext-group include => ext-fax include => ext-meetme include => ext-findmefollow include => ext-paging include => ext-queues include => ext-test include => ext-local include => parkedcalls ; ; #### OutBound Routes ######## ; # Below are all restricted routes # ; ########################### ; Now copy your [outbound-allroutes] that was saved to the text file directly underneath the last line of the above context. Remember to delete the [outbound-allroutes] label. Unfortunately you can’t cut and paste my example because they are my routes NOT yours. Your final handiwork will look something like the example below: [from-restricted] ; ; These are all the applications that you will require ; include => app-cf-busy-off include => app-cf-busy-off-any Elastix Without Tears Page 281 of 298 include => app-cf-busy-on include => app-cf-off include => app-cf-off-any include => app-cf-on include => app-cf-unavailable-off include => app-cf-unavailable-on include => app-calltrace include => app-callwaiting-cwoff include => app-callwaiting-cwon include => app-dialvm include => app-directory include => app-dnd-off include => app-dnd-on include => app-echo-test include => app-recordings include => app-speakextennum include => app-speakingclock include => app-userlogonoff include => app-zapbarge include => app-vmmain include => ext-group include => ext-fax include => ext-meetme include => ext-findmefollow include => ext-paging include => ext-queues include => ext-test include => ext-local include => parkedcalls ; ; #### OutBound Routes ######## ; # Below are all restricted routes # ; ########################### ; ; new outbound-restricted-routes include => outbound-allroutes-custom ;include => outrt-001-PSTN include => outrt-002-SPA3K include => outrt-003-Oztell include => outrt-004-Pennytel include => outrt-005-Domestic include => outrt-006-MobileAust include => outrt-007-International include => outrt-008-12Number include => outrt-009-13N1800Numbers include => outrt-010-e164 include => outrt-011-SingaporeLink include => outrt-012-KualaLumpurLink include => outrt-013-MalaccaLink exten => foo,1,Noop(bar) ; ; end of outbound-restricted-routes Now add the following codes underneath that to finish it off. ; exten => h,1,Hangup exten => s,1,Macro(hangupcall) exten => h,1,Macro(hangupcall) Elastix Without Tears Page 282 of 298 4. You may now comment out the outbound routes you do not want the restricted extensions to use. E.g. If you comment out include => outrt-001-PSTN, the restricted extension cannot use PSTN. 5. After you have done that, you need to go back to FreePBX and edit the extension that you want to restrict by change the context to from-restricted instead of from-internal. Now go enjoy yourself with it. Elastix Without Tears Page 283 of 298 BUG REPORTS Software is not software if it is released without any bugs. It just goes against natures logic, not to mention our Mr. Murphy  MISSING DIRECTORIES. The following directories are missing from Elastix 1.0RC. This has been remedied in later versions. /var/www/html/recordings /var/www/html/_asterisk You can either use WinSCP to create these directories or use Nano. If you use Nano, do the following: su asterisk cd /var/www/html mkdir recordings cd /var/www/html mkdir _asterisk When you start Elastix or when you do amportal restart and if you see the following errors means that you will need to create those directories. chown: cannot access `/var/www/html/recordings': No such file or directory chmod: cannot access `/var/www/html/recordings': No such file or directory chown: cannot access `/var/www/html/_asterisk': No such file or directory. MISSING ENTRIES IN ZAPATA.CONF (FOR ZAPTEL USERS) The following entries may be missing from zapata.conf. If they are missing, simply add them. #include zapata_additional.conf #include zapata-channels.conf VOICEMAIL CANNOT BE DELETED FROM GUI In Ver.1.0-RC2 Voicemail cannot be deleted from the GUI. To delete the voicemail, one must delete it after listening to it on the phone. This may be remedied in future versions. CALL RECORDING NOT FUNCTIONING As at Ver.1.0-RC2 Call recording will only record external calls only and when it does, the date and time of the recording were wrong. Therefore, no matter how many calls were recorded, you will only be able to see one call and the previous calls are deleted by the system. To overcome this, upgrade to Elastix 1.0 Stable then update again to Elastix 1.016 yum update elastix. Elastix Without Tears Page 284 of 298 SYMLINK ERROR (Symlink from modules failed) On the freePBX system status, a Symlink Error is reported. If this occurs in your installation, the steps below will eliminate this error. mv /etc/asterisk/sip.conf /etc/asterisk/sip.conf.old mv /etc/asterisk/iax.conf /etc/asterisk/iax.conf.old mv /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf.old mv /var/lib/asterisk/bin/fax-process.pl /var/lib/asterisk/bin/faxprocess.pl.old /var/lib/asterisk/bin/retrieve_conf ALL PHONES UNUSABLE IF INTERNET CONNECTION IS LOST. This only happens if users are using SIP Trunks and/or using Dynamic DNS service. Luckily, those using IAX trunks only are spared this issue. Some say it is not a bug but to me if users have to make modification to get all the phones to work locally and accept PSTN calls, something is terribly wrong and therefore it is a bug and I think it is a fundamental flaw in the design of Asterisk. Asterisk is assuming that when a call is being made, the call is going to be made via a trunk IF a sip trunk is recorded and enabled. Therefore Asterisk will scan for SIP trunk availability. Once Asterisk finds a trunk it will start sip. If it does not find an available trunk it will give up and start sip then you can make a call. However if you have more than one SIP trunk, it will scan for all enabled SIP trunks until the verification times out. If you happen to have 10 SIP trunks, all 10 will be verified first before you can use your phones. In normal cases where internet connection is available, this will only take a couple of seconds to complete, but if internet connection is out, the verification process will take for ever till it just dies away and all your extensions rendered useless. If no SIP trunk is recorded or enabled at all, then it will start sip immediately and you can make a call. This issue only appears for those using SIP trunks, especially multiple SIP trunks. This is not a major issue if you only have 1 sip trunk because when Asterisk fails on that trunk, it will give up and start sip. The only thing you notice will be a slight delay between your dialling and the other phone ringing. Normally it is just a slight irritation - nothing more. The problem starts when you have multiple SIP trunks. If you have 2 SIP trunks, the delay before Asterisk gives up is a little longer and you can still dial internal numbers after a long delay. In many cases the input key will be very sluggish and enough for users to think that nothing is happening, until it actually times out and dies. Worse still if you have 3 or more trunks, the delay becomes so long for Asterisk to cycle through all your SIP trunks and the phone system becomes unusable, just gave up and dies. This is where the fundamental flaw is. Asterisk should dial the number without scanning for SIP trunk (even if you have SIP trunks) unless the number dialed is part of an outbound route that requires SIP trunk. IAX is spared this hassle why not SIP? Elastix Without Tears Page 285 of 298 I tested this by adding 1 sip trunk then 2 sip trunks etc. The delay becomes progressively longer and longer the more sip trunks I added.... which brought me to the above conclusion. Question is; how do we get around this? There is a way but it is a kludge. It works and you don’t have to fiddle with codes or create a local DNS or BIND and what not that the normal digger would not know how. This is a project you should try. Kludge: Create 2 boxes. Link both boxes using IAX. You can either use method 1 or method 2 as outlined in the chapter about linking 2 boxes. Make one of the boxs handles all your SIP trunks (Box A). Make the other box (Box B) handles your entire PSTN trunk and make sure you comment out externhost from sip_general_custom.conf or sip_nat.conf in Box B. Attach all your extensions to to box B Direct all incoming SIP calls from Box A to Box B. Direct all outgoing SIP calls from Box B to Box A. Naturally you must create all the appropriate dial plans and routes to handles your requirements in each of the boxes. If for any reason internet is down, it will only affect Box A while Box B, where all your extensions and PSTN trunks are will be spared. Of course if your router dies then all will be dead. Considering a basic box with 1GB RAM, DVD writer and 500GB of Hard disk only costs $350.00, I have resorted to this method and the reward is peace of mind . VIRTUAL FAX LIST DOES NOT DISPLAY EXISTING VIRTUAL FAX. An error in one of the lines of /var/www/html/libs/paloSantoFax.class.php (in line 146) caused this problem. Change the line from if(is_array($result)) to if(isset($result)) Once this is done, the display will return. Elastix Without Tears Page 286 of 298 CHEAT SHEET amportal restart asterisk -rvvvv To restart Elastix after configuration change without rebooting. However certain changes will need rebooting. To get to asterisk CLI This works in custom context e.g.  Voicemail(s2000@default) - will not play default message  Voicemail(su2000@default) - will not play default message and instead play your unavailable custom message. Edit ENABLECW=yes in amportal.conf Tells you what mode your TDM400 is running on. To set the NTP time manually from the command line. Tells you what version of Aterisk is installed. Tells you what Zaptel modules you have installed To restart asterisk if required when something goes wrong To restart network service if connection goes down and did not come up again even though internet has been restored. To set the system clock under Linux, you need to use the “date” command. Example: To set the current time and date to May 12, 2007:10:15.30 seconds pm, type ``date 051222152007.30' (The time,in bold, is in 24 hour notation). To see what the current local time is, run “date” with no arguments. This command run on the Asterisk CLI to tell you features in use. This command runs on the Asterisk CLI to tell you codecs in use. To reload SIP. This command is to be run from Asterisk CLI This command when executed from the Asterisk CLI will display the SIP register status. This command when executed from the Asterisk CLI will display the SIP peers status. This command when executed from the Asterisk CLI will display the IAX2 register status. This command when executed from the Asterisk CLI will display the IAX2 peers status. Disable default voicemail message Enable Call waiting by default grep "AUTO FXO" /var/log/messages /etc/init.d/ntpd stop ntpdate ntp.netspace.net.au /etc/init.d/ntpd start rpm -qa | grep asterisk rpm -qa | grep zaptel-modules service asterisk restart service network restart Set System time on system clock core show features core show translation sip reload sip show registry sip show peers iax2 show registry iax2 show peers SOME LINUX COMMANDS IN COMMON USE chown touch To change file ownership to the new owner To create a blank file using the Elastix Without Tears Page 287 of 298 USER SUGGESTIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS ADVANCED FIREWALL AND BRUTE FORCE ELASTIX SETUP Draft 1 by Dave Edwards In the following document, some references are made to Trixbox, however the methods apply equally to Elastix. APF stands for Advanced Policy Firewall. This is used to control iptables on the system to allow or disallow ports to be open. APF has additional features that make it stand out above the rest. Reactive Address Blocking (RAB), QoS (TOS), direct integration with BFD, and much more—see its site for full details. BFD stands for Brute Force Detection. This is used to monitor any failed logins and block IP addresses from getting in. This runs as a cron daemon and works perfectly with APF. Installing both of these applications is very simple. You can download both of them from the R-fx Networks links, uncompress them, and then run the install.sh script. Tim has also created an installer script that can be downloaded to your machine and run. This will install the latest and greatest APF/BFD. To get this script, you will need to use wget or another method to pull it off a web server. You will want to be logged into your system as root to use these commands:    wget http://engineertim.com/install_apf_bfd.sh chmod 755 install_apf_bfd.sh ./install_apf_bfd.sh This will start the installation process for both APF and BFD. Once the scripts complete, you will be returned to a command prompt. APF Configuring APF is pretty easy, and we will look at few of the config file options in this section. Two of the options are covered in great detail on its web site and wellcommented in the conf.apf file. The config file for APF lives in /etc/apf and is called conf.apf. We will need to edit the conf.apf file. If you have multiple network interfaces on your trixbox setup, you will want to set the IFACE_IN and IFACE_OUT to your external interface. This is the untrusted network interface that is connected to the Internet. If you have a second card, eth1, that is used for internal, trusted network, you can set the IFACE_TRUSTED to this interface. To begin editing the file, use the following command: For those who use windows I recommend winscp http://winscp.net/eng/download.php  to edit files nano /etc/apf/conf.apf Please see the comments in the conf.apf if you are uncertain. Elastix Without Tears Page 288 of 298 The setup script will try to properly determine which interface is used for the untrusted network and place it in the appropriate field. It is recommended to set the value of SET_TRIM to 0. This value sets the total number of rules allowed inside of the deny trust system. It is designed to save memory and start time. With the default value of 50, the system will start to purge old rules once this number is met. With the inclusion of BFD, this number will generally climb past 50. Setting this value to 0 will disable this feature. SET_TRIM="0" APF has the ability to do QoS on packets; this is defined with the TOS values in the conf.apf file. For SIP and IAX, you can set the following: TOS_8="21,20,80,4569,5060,10000_20000" This also requires a small tweak to one of the config files, which we will discuss later in this article, in order to tag UDP packets. If you changed the SSH port to a different number, we have to edit the conf.apf file to match this new port. HELPER_SSH_PORT="2222" Make sure to replace 2222 with the correct port number on which you decided to run SSH. Ingress filtering is used to open inbound ports for access; both TCP and UDP have separate settings. For a trixbox setup, the following ports should be open; both TCP and UDP are listed. If you are not using TFTP, then do not have port 69 open. Do not forget to change the SSH port from 22, to the port you choose to run SSH on, otherwise you will be locked out; here we are using port 2222 from our last example. We have not included IAX ports in this setup. There is an easy way to ensure that only specific hosts can use IAX, which we will cover later. This is handy if you use IAX to do interoffice trunks, as I do, but don't want IAX ports open for the world to see. IG_TCP_CPORTS="2222,69,80,5060,6600,10000_20000" IG_UDP_CPORTS="69,5060,10000_20000" Egress filtering is used to allow outbound filtering. I don't use egress filtering, and it will not be covered in this article. It is set to EGF="0", or disabled by default. In the section of the onf.apf file called Imported Rules, there are settings for various feeds. Feeds are used so that many people can get information about malicious IP addresses as soon as one system reports them; this way if a script from a certain IP is attacking systems, often before the script gets a chance to get to you, your system has already blocked that IP address. Some of these feeds are very handy and I use them all. You can even set up your own custom feed that would allow you to adjust all of your servers with global deny rules. You can disable or enable this feature with the USE_DS setting—a 1 is enabled, a 0 is disabled. We are now ready to start APF for the first time. If you start APF right now and something is wrong, it will disable itself in 5 minutes. This is called DEVEL_MODE and is the first setting in the conf.apf file. Leave this set to 1 until you are certain you can get in via SSH and things are working. To save the configuration file, hit Ctrl+O to save and Ctrl+X to exit. To see a list of command-line options, run apf without any flags. [trixbox1.localdomain apf]# apf apf(3402): {glob} status log not found, created APF version 9.6 Copyright (C) 1999-2007, R-fx Networks Elastix Without Tears Page 289 of 298 Copyright (C) 2007, Ryan MacDonald This program may be freely redistributed under the terms of the GNU GPL usage /usr/local/sbin/apf [OPTION] -s|--start ......................... -r|--restart ....................... -f|--stop........ .................. -l|--list .......................... -t|--status ........................ -e|--refresh ....................... Rules -a HOST CMT|--allow HOST COMMENT ... add host (IP/FQDN) to allow_hosts.rules and immediately load new rule into firewall -d HOST CMT|--deny HOST COMMENT .... add host (IP/FQDN) to deny_hosts.rules and immediately load new rule into firewall -u|--remove HOST ................... remove host from [glob]*_hosts.rules and immediately remove rule from firewall -o|--ovars ......................... output all configuration options load all firewall rules stop (flush) & reload firewall rules stop (flush) all firewall rules list all firewall rules output firewall status log refresh & resolve dns names in trust To start APF, we issue the following command: [trixbox1.localdomain apf]# apf –s apf(3445): apf(3489): apf(3489): apf(3489): apf(3489): Networks apf(3489): {resnet} parsing reserved.networks into etc/apf/internals/reserved.networks apf(3489): {glob} loading reserved.networks apf(3489): {glob} SET_REFRESH is set to 10 minutes apf(3489): {glob} loading bt.rules apf(3489): {dshield} downloading http://feeds.dshield.org/top10-2.txt apf(3489): {dshield} parsing top10-2.txt into /etc/apf/ds_hosts.rules apf(3489): {dshield} loading ds_hosts.rules apf(3489): {sdrop} downloading http://www.spamhaus.org/drop/drop.lasso apf(3489): {sdrop} parsing drop.lasso into /etc/apf/sdrop_hosts.rules apf(3489): {sdrop} loading sdrop_hosts.rules apf(3489): {glob} loading common drop ports ...........trimmed for this document......... apf(3489): {glob} default (ingress) input drop apf(3445): {glob} firewall initalized apf(3445): {glob} !!DEVELOPMENT MODE ENABLED!! - firewall will flush every 5 minutes. {glob} activating firewall {glob} determined (IFACE_IN) eth0 has address 192.168.1.31 {glob} determined (IFACE_OUT) eth0 has address 192.168.1.31 {glob} loading preroute.rules {resnet} downloading http://r-fx.ca/downloads/reserved. We can see that APF has started, downloaded some rules from dshield.org and spamhaus.org, and then told us it is in DEVELOPMENT MODE. Now, test connecting to your server over SSH to ensure that you have set up the correct port number ingress. If you can't connect, you will have to wait 5 minutes and then APF will shutdown. Once you are sure you can get in with SSH, we can change the conf.apf file fromDEVEL_MODE="1" to DEVEL_MODE="0" and restart/start APF. APF will start and not warn you about being in DEVELOPMENT MODE; your firewall should be good to go. APF additional tweaks This setup might not be ideal for everyone. If you connect to your provider over IAX, then you will definitely want to add the IAX ports to the conf.apf. However, if you have two or more systems that you connect to each other over IAX for interoffice connections, this is the way to go. This will work with static IP addresses and DynDNS setups alike. You can use a fully qualified DNS hostname or IP address. One of the flags for the apf command is -a, which is allow. This will globally allow a host to connect to this system, bypassing the firewall rules. It can't be stressed that how handy this is. Some examples are allowing Elastix Without Tears Page 290 of 298 an SNMP query, IAX connections, or other ports that you do not want open, but need to allow specific hosts to connect to. To do this, just issue the following command and substitute your remote system IP address for the one we have here. apf -a 192.168.1.216 This will allow the system 192.168.1.216 to connect to any port on the firewalled server, thereby bypassing the firewall rules. If you are running APF on both systems, be sure to do the same thing on the other host using the correct IP address. APF also allows a system admin to block a host or a complete subnet. This is handy if you see someone attempting to connect to your machine over FTP, Telnet, SSH, and so on. To block a specific host, use the following; be sure to use the IP address you want to block. apf -d 192.168.1.216 To block a complete subnet (CIDR), the command is very similar: apf -d 202.86.128.0/24 This will block the entire subnet. You can sometimes get the subnet (CIDR) listing using a WHOIS on the IP address. You can also look up a CIDR by IP on Google or ripe.net. Be sure that the subnet that you are blocking is not the one you are using or you could lock yourself out. TOS for UDP packets are not defined for APF. Only TCP packets have the TOS bit set. There is an easy way to fix this. In the /etc/apf/internals folder, there is a file called functions.apf. We need to edit this file manually. It is pretty straightforward as to what we need to change, so don't worry. There are several places where we have to add a single line. Look for the TOS_ section in the functions.apf file. It will look like this: if [ ! "$TOS_0" == "" ]; then for i in `echo $TOS_0 | tr ',' ' '`; do i=`echo $i | tr '_' ':'` $IPT -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --sport $i -j TOS --set-tos 0 done fi We have to add the settings for UDP. We copy one line and change tcp to udp. A sample is below, highlighted. if [ ! "$TOS_0" == "" ]; then for i in `echo $TOS_0 | tr ',' ' '`; do i=`echo $i | tr '_' ':'` $IPT -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --sport $i -j TOS --set-tos 0 $IPT -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p udp --sport $i -j TOS --set-tos 0 done fi This additional line has to be done for all the TOS bits you are using. If you are using only TOS_8, then only worry about doing it for those. Make sure you do the tospostroute and tospreroute sections. BFD Brute Force Detection is used to capture illegitimate login attempts for services on the system. We see quite often a large number of SSH attempts into servers that haven't had the SSH port changed. These attempts are often an outside attempt to gain access by running dictionary attacks against common user names. These can now easily be stopped by using BFD. Elastix Without Tears Page 291 of 298 If you ran the install_apf_bfd.sh, then BFD should be installed. The configuration file for BFD is located in/usr/local/bfd and is called conf.bfd. This file, like the one for APF, is heavily commented and covered in great detail on the R-fx Networks web site. This section will just cover some of the settings. First, this must be stated that you can become locked out of your own server if you fail to type your own password correctly. This is another good reason to add a trusted system using the apf -a command. You can also add a host to specifically block by adding the IP address to the /usr/local/bfd/ignore.hosts file. The ban command that BFD uses is tied directly to APF. The command is apf -d, which is the same as we saw to manually ban addresses and subnets. The first configuration variable we will look at is TRIG; this is the number of failed attempts before becoming banned. The default is 15, and is pretty good. Keep in mind that this is per IP address connections, not account. So if 1 IP address fails 15 times using multiple accounts, it will be banned. Feel free to change this value if you want; I recommend not setting this above 5 to reduce the number of attempts that are allowed. BFD has the ability to send emails out to alert of brute force attempts. This is a good idea as it will give you notice when attempts to access your system are occurring. To enable email alerts, set the value of EMAIL_ALERTS to 1; then set the address you want emails to be sent to using EMAIL_ADRESS. You can define the subject for the email as well. This makes for easy flagging/filtering in email applications. BFD runs from cron and places a cron entry in /etc/cron.d called bfd. This runs BFD every 3 minutes. This should be acceptable for almost anyone. You can get a list of offending IP addresses using bfd on the command line. This is useful for looking at specific IP subnets that you might want to start blocking, if you see a pattern starting. To get this list, use the following command: bfd –a To start BFD, use the following command: bfd –s SUMMARY While there are other ways to help ensure the security of your system, we have covered some of the most important in this article. Besides a good firewall, changing access to the SSH service and adding login attempt protection to your extensions is going to go a long way in keeping hackers out of your system. Do not underestimate the importance of security; these steps can mean the difference between being secured and having someone log in and start making thousands of phone calls around the country from your phone system. Now we need to also add some extra BFD rules for SIP and IAX This one is for SIP wrong passwords. Save this as asterisksip # failed logins from a single address before ban # uncomment to override conf.bfd trig value TRIG="5" # file must exist for rule to be active REQ="/usr/sbin/asterisk" if [ -f "$REQ" ] then Elastix Without Tears Page 292 of 298 LP="/var/log/asterisk/full" TLOG_TF="asterisk.sip" TMP="/usr/local/bfd/tmp" ## ASTERISK: SIP wrong password ARG_VAL=`$TLOG_PATH $LP $TLOG_TF | grep -i "wrong password" | grep chan_sip | awk '{NF=NF-3} {print $NF}'| tr -d '\'\' ` fi This rule is for wrong or non existent extension. Save this as asterisksip2 # failed logins from a single address before ban # uncomment to override conf.bfd trig value TRIG="5" # file must exist for rule to be active REQ="/usr/sbin/asterisk" if [ -f "$REQ" ] then LP="/var/log/asterisk/full" TLOG_TF="asterisk.sip2" TMP="/usr/local/bfd/tmp" ## ASTERISK: SIP no extension ARG_VAL=`$TLOG_PATH $LP $TLOG_TF | grep -i "No matching peer found" | grep chan_sip | awk '{NF=NF-5} {print $NF}'| tr -d '\'\' ` fi This rule is for IAX. Save this as asteriskiax. # failed logins from a single address before ban # uncomment to override conf.bfd trig value TRIG="5" # file must exist for rule to be active REQ="/usr/sbin/asterisk" if [ -f "$REQ" ] then LP="/var/log/asterisk/full" TLOG_TF="asterisk.iax" TMP="/usr/local/bfd/tmp" ## ASTERISK: IAX2 auth failed ARG_VAL=`$TLOG_PATH $LP $TLOG_TF | grep -i "failed MD5 authentication" | grep chan_iax2 | awk '{NF=NF-8} {print $NF}'` fi Special thanks goes to Ioan Indreias and Gonzalo Gonzalez. If it looks like the code is missing, try to highlight it all and copy/paste it into a text document. Hopefully this will show the entire rule without issue. Make sure these rules are stored in /usr/local/bfd/rules/ Then rerun bfd with bfd -q and see if the new rules are in place by checking for the files in /usr/local/bfd/tmp/ . Elastix Without Tears Page 293 of 298 To setup Email Alerts   /usr/local/bfd  Edit conf.bfd    Look for    # local user or email address alerts are sent to (separate multiple with comma) EMAIL_ADDRESS="your email addy" Save and restart services apf –a and bfd –s Hopefully this keeps your systems locked down. Elastix Without Tears Page 294 of 298 TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM ON EMBEDDED FREEPBX 2.5.X ON BLANK EXTENSION FIELDS Saleh, an Elastix User and a regular on the Elastix forum solved the Extensions GUI problem of displaying blank when freepbx was upgraded to FreePBX 2.5 with the following solution: The index.php which resides in /var/www/html/modules/pbxadmin needs to be edited as shown below. # vi /var/www/html/modules/pbxadmin/index.php and after this line’ $GLOBALS['recordings_save_path'] = "/tmp/"; please add this tow lines $GLOBALS['_guielement_tabindex'] = 1; $GLOBALS['_guielement_formfields'] = 0; Reload elastix and the problem will be resolved. SOLVING MISDIALING USING ANALOG PHONES (Leonid Fainshtein) How to solve the following two problems that Elastix users who use analog handset suffer a lot from: 1. User didn't finish the dialing but Asterisk starts to handle the call. 2. Asterisk always add three seconds delay before it starts to handle the dialed number. Very frequently, PBX users who use analog handsets do not complete dialing the phone number before the PBX starts to make call. Please be aware of the Asterisk inter-digit timeout handling algorithm for the Zaptel devices: 1. Asterisk waits 16 seconds for the first digit. 2. If there is no ambiguous match, Asterisk waits 8 seconds for the next digit. 3. If there is an ambiguous match, Asterisk waits 3 seconds for the next digit. Those time-outs are hard-coded and cannot be changed in the Asterisk configuration files. Following is an example. You have defined two patterns each of which ends with a dot. The first pattern is _9X. — the “x” is followed by a dot. The second pattern is _90044X. The Asterisk user dials 900-44-208-123-4567. In this case, the Asterisk will discover the ambiguous match when the user has dialed 900. In other words, the Asterisk will wait for the fourth digit a maximum of three additional seconds. Therefore, we suggest that you define the dial patterns according to the following two principles: Elastix Without Tears Page 295 of 298   The dialing patterns must be as long as possible even when you do not know the exact phone number length. This lowers the probability of a failed dialing attempt. Avoid defining default patterns like _9. Patterns like these will overcome your better defined patterns. Unfortunately FreePBX by default generates context [bad-number] that is included into the [from-internal] context that is the default for PBX extensions. The [bad-number] context looks like the following: [bad-number] include => bad-number-custom exten => _X.,1,ResetCDR() exten => _X.,n,NoCDR() exten => _X.,n,Wait(1) exten => _X.,n,Playback(silence/1&cannot-complete-as-dialed&check-numberdial-again,noanswer) exten => _X.,n,Wait(1) exten => _X.,n,Congestion(20) exten => _X.,n,Hangup exten => _*.,1,ResetCDR() exten => _*.,n,NoCDR() exten => _*.,n,Wait(1) exten => _*.,n,Playback(silence/1&feature-not-availline&silence/1&cannot-complete-as-dialed&check-number-dialagain,noanswer) exten => _*.,n,Wait(1) exten => _*.,n,Congestion(20) exten => _*.,n,Hangup As you can see, presence of “_X.” pattern adds ambiguity to each dialing that a user will perform from their handset. As result of that (a) Asterisk will always make 3 seconds delay after a user has dialed the last digit and (b) maximum inter-digit delay will also 3 seconds only. It is possible to disable the [bad-number] context generation by adding the following parameter to the /etc/amportal.conf AMPBADNUMBER=false In order to apply the change you need to force FreePBX to rebuild the configuration. You can make some changes in the configuration and then click on “Apply Configuration Changes Here”. Elastix Without Tears Page 296 of 298 BIBLIOGRAPHY The real people behind this guide (Real Names used or aliases if real names unknown): I have also made references to a number of other online publications and forums whenever I need confirmations and further clarifications. Some of the information in this document were sourced from these people and places. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 The Elastix Team Asterisk Guru Brian They keep on getting better http://www.asteriskguru.com Advise tips and tricks- Voice for Asterisk A friend from a long way back. From the days I learned to use a PC and according to Bob, I still can’t use it. Bob has been helping me putting this document together and providing me with valuable material and content. Thanks heap Bob. Major assistance, advice, and basically a place to go when things go wrong. Advance Firewall and Brute Force Elastix Setup Seven Steps to Better Security with Asterisk Helping me with e164 X100P Patch for UK Caller ID http://www.lusyn.com Another of my source for help when things go wrong. Mark is a very competent VoIP consultant. No job is too small or too big for Mark. Source for Australian Voice Testbed and resident cynic Help with Raid configuration. freePBX Developer and Super Hero – without which there will be no Elastix Solution for Billion 7402 BL Advise, Tips and tricks on codecs and dial plan etc Changes and assistance with Raid configuration Helping me out with Cron Jobs and Scripts Advise, Tips and tricks on Webmin Procedure in inplimenting Fail2Ban Giving me clues to some obscure processes. How to secure Trixbox CE For correcting my various mistakes. I am still wading through all the errors. Thanks Tzafrir A site I often refer to when I require further clarification. Assistance with Custom Contexts http://voxilla.com My hero http://mundy.org my place of salvation. Bob Fryer - Voiceintegrity Colin Swan Dave Edwards J Todd Jack Zimmermann lusyn.com Mark Brooker - MBIT Openvoice Peter Quodling Rehan Rob Thomas Sean Mahon Shaun (Ewing) Sofoklis Sflomos Stefan Keller-Tuberg SteveM Sunshine Netwotks Thunderbird1/Chippy Tim Yardley Tzafrir Cohen of XORCOM voip-info.org Vladimir de la Cruz Voxilla.com Ward Mundy I know there are numerous other people I have referenced that I have not mentioned above but their assistance and knowledge are and will always be highly appreciated. Elastix Without Tears Page 297 of 298 CHANGES MADE SINCE LAST UPDATE Changes made to instructions on Time Conditions. Added Under User Contribution – Installing Fail2ban Added Advance Firewall setup. Elastix Without Tears Page 298 of 298