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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
In Detail
AsteriskNOW is an open-source Software Appliance from Digium: a customized Linux distribution, which includes Asterisk (the leading open-source telephony engine and tool kit), the AsteriskGUI, and all the other software needed for an Asterisk telephony system. AsteriskNOW is easy to install. It allows you to deploy Asterisk quickly and easily, and offers flexibility, functionality and features that are available only in expensive proprietary business systems.
Who this book is for
This book is for complete beginners who are interested in setting up their own telephony system and are overwhelmed with the configuration options in Asterisk. It shows how to install and configure AsteriskNow and configure the required dial plan.
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Seitenzahl: 198
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008
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Table of Contents
AsteriskNOW
Nir Simionovich
AsteriskNOW
Copyright © 2008 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: March 2008
Production Reference: 1290208
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847192-88-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Nir Simionovich
Reviewers
Kimberly Collins
Kristian Kielhofner
Acquisition Editor
Viraj Joshi
Technical Editor
Akshara Aware
Editorial Team Leader
Mithil Kulkarni
Project Manager
Abhijeet Deobhakta
Project Coordinator
Aboli Mendhe
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Proofreader
Chris Smith
Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
Cover Work
Shantanu Zagade
Foreword
Asterisk® has grown from the very humble beginnings of being my own PBX since I couldn't afford to buy one, and has grown into a world-wide phenomenon, becoming successful due to both the ideas behind it as well as the open-source development model. The usability and usefulness of Asterisk as part of an IP PBX or other telephony system versus a proprietary phone system can be compared in part to the difference between the Betamax and VHS video standards (except, of course that Asterisk is both the open system *and* the best quality system). Betamax, while of an initial high quality, was a proprietary system whose technology could only be advanced by the original creators of the standard. The VHS standard, on the other hand, was made available to a larger development base and thus resulted in more innovation and development. The end result was that the open standard surpassed the proprietary standard in quality, usability, and value. The results are similar as Asterisk has been adopted by a large development community, and resulted in innovation and ease of use that has surpassed traditional technologies.
Every business (and for that matter, pretty much every home) needs a phone system of some level. How to create a system, however, has historically been left to very technical people (even originally in the case of Asterisk). AsteriskNOW™, a software appliance which includes Asterisk as well as the AsteriskGUI™, was created in order to lower the barrier to use and make setting up one's own phone system much less daunting. In a world of GUI-oriented applications, it made sense to create a GUI which could also be useful as well as inspire innovation and creativity.
The AsteriskGUI™, and the code beneath it, is unique compared to other GUIs used in conjunction with Asterisk because the all important Asterisk configuration files can be edited in both the GUI and the command line. Changes made to your IP PBX via the GUI are reflected in the Asterisk configuration files, and vice versa. Thus a novice user, as well as an experienced Asterisk programmer, can use AsteriskNOW in ways that best suit their needs.
Even with AsteriskNOW's ease of use, setting up an IP PBX may not be as easy as it sounds. The book you now hold in your hands is a guide which will assist you in setting up an AsteriskNOW system. If you are new to telephony, you'll gain an understanding of the basic concepts as well. If you are experienced with IP PBX solutions, you'll find information which may help with an AsteriskNOW solution you are developing. The open-source community often provides further assistance for new users on setup, configuration, and creating solutions, and having read this book, you'll get much better support since you've already gotten off to a great start.
Enjoy your experience with Asterisk and AsteriskNOW! And remember to contribute to the ever growing community of Asterisk users and developers who have made it possible for you to create your own PBX, whether it's through code contribution, documentation or just helping other users who are a few steps behind you.
Best Wishes,
Mark Spencer
Original Author and Project Manager, Asterisk CTO, Digium
About the Author
Nir Simionovich has been involved with the open-source community in Israel since 1997. His involvement with the open-source community started back in 1997, when he was a student in the Technion, Israel's Technology Institute in Haifa. Nir quickly became involved in organizing open-source events and promoting usage of Linux and open-source technologies in Israel.
In 1998, Nir started working for an IT consulting company (artNET experts Ltd.), where he introduced Linux-based solutions for enterprises and banks. By 2000, Nir had become a SAIR/GNU-certified Linux trainer and Administrator, slowly educating the future generations of Linux admins.
In 2001, Nir moved to the cellular content market, working for a mobile content delivery company (m-Wise Inc.—OTC.BB: MWIS.OB). During his commission at m-Wise, Nir successfully migrated a company that was built purely on Windows 2000 and ColdFusion to open-source technologies, such as Mandrake Linux (today Mandriva), Apache Tomcat, and Kannel (open-source SMS/WAP gateway).
By 2006, Nir had co-founded Atelis (Atelis PLC—AIM: ATEL). Atelis is a Digium distributor and integrator. During the course of 2006, Nir developed an Asterisk-based international operator services platform for Bezeq International, which had replaced a Nortel DMS-300 switch. This platform is currently in use by Bezeq International in Israel, serving over 4000 customers a day.
In mid 2007, Nir left Atelis to become a freelance Asterisk promoter and consultant. Nir currently provides Asterisk consulting and development services to various companies, ranging from early-stage start-up companies, through VoIP service providers and VoIP equipment vendors. In his spare time, Nir is the founder of the Israeli Asterisk users group, the website maintainer of the group and an Asterisk developer, dealing mainly with the localization aspects of Asterisk to Israel.
Nir can be reached at <[email protected]> or through his website http://www.greenfieldtech.net.
I believe the first time I ever used Asterisk™ was mid 2002. Back then I was working as the IT Director of a start-up company dealing mostly in the mobile market. Our office PBX was a Panasonic PBX, which used to stop working right when we needed it the most. I was frustrated: the PBX in the office never works right and the PBX technicians that come to fix it never do their job right. Being involved in the open-source community since early 1995, I asked myself: "Isn't there an open-source alternative to this?"—So, I started searching.
I discovered a few projects, but none were really a complete solution besides a solution that was called Asterisk™, from a company in Huntsville called Linux Support Services. I downloaded and installed it, and immediately realized the following: no way would my company migrate from the Panasonic to Asterisk™ at that point in time. So, I started, learned and understood it and waited for my chance.
Approximately six months later, the company had got involved in an SMS-based Callback solution. The initial solution was based on a Cisco AS5300 gateway, which was outsourced from another company for the duration of the development. Once the development had finalized, the company wanted to start the service based on the Cisco equipment only to realize that the cost of building the system would never sustain the projected business model. At that point, I saw the opportunity to take Asterisk and adapt the code base to use Asterisk instead of using a Cisco gateway. I took it up to modify the code along with another programmer. The development and modifications lasted about four weeks, and we got the same functionality using Asterisk—the date was early 2003. The new development was able to sustain the business model, which then evolved into a fully operational SMS callback service.
Since then, I've developed various platforms based upon the Asterisk open-source project. I've established the Israeli Asterisk™ users group community, held the first Israeli Asterisk™ convention, and most importantly, was co-founder of Atelis plc, which is now traded on the London stock exchange (AIM: ATEL). I recently left Atelis plc and established my own small Linux™ and Asterisk™ consultancy firm, which renders consulting services to various Asterisk™-based service companies and Asterisk™-enabled vendors in Israel and around the world.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank some people:
First of all, I'd like to thank my wife for putting up with my rants and raves about Open Source, Asterisk, the amount of hardware and mess on my desk and my complete disregard to anything in the house. Nili, I love you.
To my parents, for putting up with my craziness over the years and the endless nights of me tapping at the console when I was growing up.
To Mark Spencer, for developing Asterisk™ and for creating one of the most innovative tools on the market today. And most importantly, thank you for your help back in 2003, when I needed to install the first BRI interface and had no idea what I was doing in there—Mark was back then sitting in the IRC channel, and was one of the biggest helps to me.
To Schuyler Deerman, who actually connected me with Packt for publishing this book. Schuyler is one of Digium's field marketing person and had become a close friend over the course of our mutual work. Schuyler is currently studying in France.
To Optimus, my first Asterisk™ server, which had suffered and suffered and suffered, till I got it to work as I wanted it. Optimus is currently resting in pieces somewhere down the pile of servers I have at home.
About the Reviewers
Kimberly Collins is a California transplant who found her home in Austin, TX. She has worked in the field of Information Technology and communications for over ten years.
She spent the last two years working for one of the largest hosting companies in the world, and currently is one of their lead administrators and developers of their global VOIP infrastructure.
Occasionally you might catch her in IRC as jgoddess, but if you happen to miss her then you can find her on AIM as womkim or MSN messenger as <[email protected]>. You can email her at <[email protected]>.
Kristian Kielhofner is VP, Systems Engineering for Star2Star Communications, developer of an end-to-end VoIP architecture. Kristian is responsible for the design and implementation of Star2Star's VoIP services. He is also the creator and lead developer of AstLinux, an embedded Linux distribution for voice and networking appliances. In addition to working on AstLinux and the Star2Star Architecture, Kristian enjoys traveling to speak about free software at events around the globe.
Preface
AsteriskNOW is an open-source software appliance from Digium: a customized Linux distribution, which includes Asterisk (the leading open-source telephony engine and tool kit), the AsteriskGUI, and all the other software needed for an Asterisk telephony system.
This book discusses the installation and configuration of the AsteriskNOW open-source PBX appliance distribution and is written in the form of a self-study guide or a quick cookbook, to get you up and running with AsteriskNOW as fast as possible.
While Asterisk, the open-source PBX is a fairly broad subject to cover—the AsteriskNOW distribution takes the spikes out of installing and using Asterisk, and lowers the bar to the level of an intermediate system's administrator.
Note
This book is based upon AsteriskNOW Beta 6. By the time this book is published, the version of AsteriskNOW may have changed, and new features may have been added to it. This book will enable your descent into the Asterisk world and AsteriskNOW in particular giving you the basics of Asterisk and AsteriskNOW—no matter what version you may use.
What This Book Covers
Chapter 1 introduces the basic concepts of a telephony system, both traditional and IP telephony. The chapter serves as trip down telephony memory lane, explaining the various interfaces, technologies, and terms commonly used in the telephony and telecommunications industry.
Chapter 2 introduces the various hardware elements required for installing your AsteriskNOW PBX system and the AsteriskNOW installation procedure. Pay close attention to the hardware mentioned in this chapter; familiarity with the Digium line of interface cards will make your deployment much easier, when trying to decide which hardware to use.
Chapter 3 deals with the various aspects of configuring extensions and IP phones, the basic elements of an IP telephony system. You will be introduced to two specific types of IP phones—a hardware IP phone (LinkSys SPA-941) and a software IP phone (CounterPath X-Lite).
Chapter 4 deals with the concept of telephony service providers. These are usually your local PSTN providers. In addition, the chapter deals with the concept of IP telephony providers: inbound providers and termination providers.
Chapter 5 explains what routing rules are and how they are processed within the AsteriskNOW operational model.
Chapter 6: Routing calls into and out from your PBX system can be complex. This chapter deals with the various logics that need configuration in order to enable proper call traversal to and from your PBX system.
Chapter 7: Interactive Voice Response and Auto Attendants are corner stones of the PBX market. AsteriskNOW provides a highly versatile and simple interface for configuring and controlling these two elements. This chapter deals with the configuration of an IVR/Auto-Attendant, and most importantly, the rules for building a proper IVR/Auto-Attendant.
Chapter 8 deals with some of the more advanced features of AsteriskNOW. Voicemail, conferencing, and call parking are utilized on a day-to-day basis in every PBX system—pay attention to the voicemail-to-email feature; it may lower your expenses on calling the voicemail system, when you are outside the office.
Chapter 9 deals with configuring call-queues and building a mini call center. While AsteriskNOW is fully capable of serving over 100 agents, this chapter will explain how to create a miniature call center and the concept of skill-based routing.
Chapter 10 takes a look into the general aspects of managing your AsteriskNOW installation, beyond the telephony portion. Like any other computer-enabled service your AsteriskNOW system will require maintenance such as backups, monitoring, and more.
Chapter 11 is meant for the hard-core user looking to do more than what the GUI interface has to offer. This chapter should be approached with care; if you are not an experienced Asterisk/Linux user or a developer looking to develop applications for AsteriskNOW you could skip this chapter.
Chapter 12 is meant as a short look ahead to other possibilities enclosed with your PBX. AsteriskNOW and Asterisk are not only a PBX, but actually a rich telephony development platform, capable of doing much more than being a PBX.
Appendix A is a jargon buster.
Appendix B takes a quick look at how to configure Free World Dialup (FWD) services for your AsteriskNOW PBX system. If you have multiple offices, utilizing FWD to interconnect freely between them will enable cost savings on inter-office communications.
Appendix C shows how a service provider can modify the AsteriskNOW distribution to add their own service provider entry directly into the AsteriskNOW GUI.
What You Need for This Book
This book is a practical guide to get you up and running with AsteriskNOW. In order to install a fully working PBX system using AsteriskNOW, you will need the following:
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "The interesting portion of the above line is the _9XXX!"
A block of code will be set as follows:
New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "In the above network diagram, every Central Office Exchange is connected to the other exchanges ".
Note
Important notes appear in a box like this.
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader Feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book, what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply drop an email to <[email protected]>, making sure to mention the book title in the subject of your message.
If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or email <[email protected]>.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer Support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our contents, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in text or code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing this you can save other readers from frustration, and help to improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the Submit Errata link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata added to the list of existing errata. The existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Questions
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with some aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.
If you run into issues while using this book, feel free to logon to AsteriskNOW support forum on the author's website located at http://www.greenfieldtech.net/support/.
Chapter 1. An Introduction to Telephony and Asterisk
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. —Ambrose Bierce.
