http://www.pbxer.com Build your own PBX Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:50:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's annoying having scripts and bots attempting to ssh into your pbx server. If you have proper passwords they don't stand a chance of getting in, but it's not satisfying to ignore them while they create load and clutter up your log files with failed login messages. There are many tools ... http://www.pbxer.com/simple-shell-script-to-block-failed-ssh-attempts/ Having your asterisk server on the public internet, people will try to use your phone system for free. One technique is for scripts simply to look for any accounts with easy to guess usernames and passwords. It's easy to spot these attempts in the log files. Just look for any "Fail" ... http://www.pbxer.com/asterisk-security-use-iptables-to-block-nasty-hosts/ Recording calls on a PBX is easy, since the audio is already in digital form. The quality is the same as what you hear, so while it's not radio broadcast quality, it's good enough for note taking or simply to document a call. There are various commands to record calls on ... http://www.pbxer.com/recording-phone-calls/ Sometimes it's important for phone to ring differently. Maybe you want your "work" number to sound different than your "home" number. Maybe two people share a phone and you don't want people answering calls that aren't for them. To get distinctive rings on the Aastra 9133i, I had to use multiple ... http://www.pbxer.com/finally-an-elegant-way-to-get-a-distinctive-ring-on-the-aastra-9133i/ Before getting into details, it helps to have a visual overview of the system we're building. Let's walk through this diagram. There are couple of VOIP phones that connect to a standard router. The router is connected to the internet using a broadband connection (probably ADSL or cable) that has a minimum ... http://www.pbxer.com/build-your-pbx-overview/ To run an asterisk command, you need to connect to the asterisk server (as root) and type your command. For example: asterisk -r dialplan reload Now, if you were already logged in as root, you could do this in one step: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload" Or if you were a regular user: sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "dialplan ... http://www.pbxer.com/run-common-asterisk-commands-as-a-normal-user-account/ To be able to make calls to regular phone numbers and receive calls, you need a VOIP provider. There are so many providers coming and going that it is hard to know who to choose. If you want to do research yourself, an excellent resource is DSL Report's The ... http://www.pbxer.com/build-your-pbx-step-5-add-a-voip-provider/ You've got asterisk installed, configured and running. Now it's time to get your phone to connect to asterisk. There are several major vendors of VOIP phones. I'm going to outline the steps for a SNOM 320 and an Aastra 9133i phone. Configuring phones isn't hard, since you basically need to enter ... http://www.pbxer.com/build-your-pbx-step-4-configure-your-voip-phone/ There are about a dozen configuration files in /etc/asterisk/, but for a standard PBX, you are only going to need to use a few of them: sip.conf - SIP is a protocol that allows VOIP devices to communicate. In this file you specify your VOIP provider as well as which VOIP ... http://www.pbxer.com/build-your-pbx-step-3-configure-asterisk-pbx/ There is no 'yum' package for asterisk, but it's no problem to compile it from source. Download asterisk from digium. They've made it hard to find the link from their homepage, but you can browse the files from their download area. At the time of writing, the latest version was 1.4.21.2, ... http://www.pbxer.com/build-your-pbx-step-2-compile-asterisk/