Asterisk: Thinking Out of the Box

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AsteriskThinking Out of the Box

• Carl Davis

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PBX Out of the Box

• You should be so lucky
• 138 ready-to-use Asterisk Applications
• None of these operate out of the box to
  immediately give you a usable system
• They are building blocks that allow you to build
  virtually any type of telephony system
• Some of these need only a little support
• Your Telephony system is only limited by your
  imagination

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What You Get

• By adding the samples from the distribution
  during Asterisk installation (make samples), you
  receive several useful trials
• Demo call via IAX to Digium _at_ extension 500
• Echo test _at_ extension 600
• Single User with Voicemail _at_ extension 1234
• Voicemail system _at_ extension 8500
• DIY Toolkit

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500

• Give Digium a call. This will connect directly
  to the Digium offices which are open from 800am
  to 500pm CDT, Monday through Friday, holidays
  not withstanding. Be aware
• You must be connected to the Internet
• You must have a way to dial!!! -)

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600

• Can you hear me now? Dialing this extension will
  create an audio loopback and allow you to hear
  everything you say through your connection. Be
  aware
• You must be able to connect to your Asterisk PBX
  with a microphone and speaker to perform this
  test!!! -)

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1234

• This will connect you to the console. You will
  need to be familiar with Asterisk console
  commands to guide your way through this
  interface. Once here, you may
• Not be able to do much because you still need a
  way to connect to your Asterisk PBX
• Lets skip Voicemail right now. Its there, at
  8500, but you need towell, you know -)

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How Do You Connect?

• You, and the rest of your world, must be
  connected to this technological marvel you just
  built. While you will read many times that
  having a good understanding of Asterisk dial
  plans is essential (true), you must also
  understand that dial plans depend on connections
  to and from the rest of the world.
• Boy, are you in luck, because you just
  constructed a Multi-Protocol PBX that provides
  you with an ever growing number of ways to
  connect!

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Connections

• The most popular are
• SIP
• ZAP
• IAX
• Others are available and more are created
  everyday. You may even create your own.

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Ready to Use Tool Kit

• Now you are on the right track. What do you want?
• Auto Attendant
• Call Rollover
• Voice Mail
• Do Not Disturb
• Audio Conferencing
• Find Me/Follow Me
• Long Distance AAA

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Auto Attendant

• demo
• exten gt s,1,Wait(2)
• exten gt s,n,Answer
• exten gt s,n,BackGround(enter-ext-of-person)
• exten gt 2,1,Dial(MYEXTEN,15)
• exten gt 2,n,Goto(d-DIALSTATUS,1)
• exten gt d-BUSY,n,Playback(tt-allbusy)
• exten gt d-BUSY,n,Hangup
• exten gt _d-.,n,Playback(monkeys)
• exten gt _d-.,n,Hangup

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Call Rollover

• exten gt d-NOANSWER,1,Dial(MYCELLPHONE,15)
• exten gt d-NOANSWER,n,goto(n-DIALSTATUS,1)
• exten gt n-NOANSWER,1,Playback(vm-nobodyavail)
• exten gt n-NOANSWER,n,Hangup
• exten gt n-BUSY,n,Playback(tt-allbusy)
• exten gt n-BUSY,n,Hangup
• exten gt _n-.,n,Playback(tt-weasels)
• exten gt _n-.,n,Hangup

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Voice Mail

• exten gt n-NOANSWER,1,Voicemail(uMYMAILBOX)
• exten gt n-NOANSWER,n,Hangup
• exten gt n-BUSY,1,Voicemail(bMYMAILBOX)
• exten gt n-BUSY,n,Hangup
• exten gt _n-.,n,Playback(tt-weasels)
• exten gt _n-.,n,Hangup

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Do Not Disturb (DND)

• demo
• exten gt s,1,Wait(2)
• exten gt s,n,Answer
• exten gt s,n,BackGround(enter-ext-of-person)
• exten gt s,n,GotoIf(DB_EXISTS(DND/EXTEN)
  0?dialuser,1)
• Tell them were not all there
• exten gt s,n,Playback(tt-monkeysintro)
• exten gt s,n,Hangup
• exten gt 2,1,Dial(MYEXTEN,15)
• exten gt 2,n,Goto(d-DIALSTATUS,1)

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Audio Conferencing

• Asterisk Audio Conferencing is accomplished with
  the MeetMe application. Its configuration can be
  done entirely in the dial plan or put into the
  meetme.conf configuration. It is simple to setup
  and use and as full featured as you wish to
  configure.
• exten gt 10,1,MeetMe(1234,pM,9876)
• exten gt 10,n,Hangup

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meetme.conf

• Asterisk Audio Conferencing can also be defined
  in the meetme.conf configuration. The
  configuration is read everytime you call the
  Meetme() application. For example
• general
• audiobuffers32 min is 2, max is 32
• room
• conf gt 1234,9876

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AAA

• Authorization, Authentication and Accounting
  these are available with specific applications
  that can be used to build any feature set.
• Direct Inward System Access is DISA()
• Asterisk database access is available from the
  dial plan (check out blacklist())
• Call Detail Records can be file or MySQL based
  for call accounting
• Global variables and the Asterisk database can be
  used for further persistence of data

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References

• www.voip-info.org/wiki
• Asterisk The Future of Telephony freely
  available on www.asteriskdocs.org
• Asterisk PBX itself
• Asterisk source distribution www.asterisk.org

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QA

• Carl Davis
• President Chief Architect
• Stellar System Technologies, Inc
• carl_davis_at_stellarsystech.com
• www.stellarsystech.com
• Executive Director
• High Tech Business Council of Rochester
• www.htbc.org