Asterisk installation and basic configuration
André Guimarães 2011-07-15
Switzernet
This document describes how to install Asterisk 1.4.21 on Debian Lenny.
Installation
Access the server where you going to install asterisk. Log in as root.
All commands should be executed as root. To show this all commands are preceded by a hash (#).
Execute as root the following command (the result should be similar to the lines that follow it):
# apt-get update
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny Release.gpg
Get: 1 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Translation-en_GB
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Translation-en_GB
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/contrib Translation-en_GB
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Translation-en_GB
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/non-free Translation-en_GB
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release
Get: 2 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Translation-en_GB
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Translation-en_GB
Get: 3 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Translation-en_GB
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Translation-en_GB
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/non-free Packages/DiffIndex
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny Release
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/non-free Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/contrib Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/non-free Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/contrib Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/non-free Sources
Get: 4 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Packages/DiffIndex
Get: 5 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Get: 6 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Packages/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Packages/DiffIndex
Get: 7 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Sources/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Sources/DiffIndex
Get: 8 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Get: 9 ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Sources/DiffIndex
Ign ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Sources/DiffIndex
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Packages
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Packages
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Packages
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/main Sources
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/contrib Sources
Hit ftp://mirror.ovh.net lenny/non-free Sources
Reading package lists... Done
Install the asterisk package on the repository:
# apt-get install asterisk
After the installation, backup the default configuration files as follows.
# mkdir /etc/asterisk/samples
# cp /etc/asterisk/*.* /etc/asterisk/samples
Replace the content of the file /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf by the content in this sample file extensions.conf.
Do the same for the file /etc/asterisk/sip.conf.
To edit these files you can use nano:
# nano /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
# nano /etc/asterisk/sip.conf
In the file /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf create as many lines as needed for each phone and alternative address.
In the following example line, hardphone1 is the login of the phone and 100 is its alternative address.
exten => 100,1,Goto(hardphone1,1)
This next line routes an incoming call to hardphone1 to this phone and hangups in 30 seconds if no one answers.
exten => hardphone1,1,Dial(SIP/hardphone1,30)
Now execute the following to reload the configurations that were changed:
# asterisk -rx "sip reload"
# asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
The above lines should be executed everytime sip.conf or extensions.conf are changed.
Registering phones
Example registration with X-Lite:
Example registration with a Linksys SPA921:
Testing
After registering the phones you can see if the registrations were successful by typing:
# rasterisk -x "sip show peers"
Name/username Host Dyn Nat ACL Port Status
softphone1/softphone1 212.147.8.99 D N 62887 Unmonitored
hardphone1/hardphone1 (Unspecified) D N 0 Unmonitored
2 sip peers [Monitored: 0 online, 0 offline Unmonitored: 1 online, 1 offline]
In the above example softphone1 registered successfully (it has an IP in the Host column and a port different than 0 in the Port column), while hardphone1 is not registered (it appears Unspecified in the Host column).
You can increment the verbosity of asterisk to be able to see the calls flowing in your asterisk. In the following example you can see a successful call from hardphone1 to softphone1.
# asterisk -rx "set verbose 3"
# rasterisk
-- Executing [hardphone1@routing:1] Dial("SIP/hardphone1-007f1490", "SIP/softphone1|30") in new stack
-- Called softphone1
-- SIP/softphone1-007f57d0 is ringing
-- SIP/softphone1-007f57d0 answered SIP/hardphone1-007f1490
-- Packet2Packet bridging SIP/hardphone1-007f1490 and SIP/softphone1-007f57d0
== Spawn extension (routing, 101, 1) exited non-zero on 'SIP/hardphone1-007f1490'
You can also use ngrep to see if packages are coming and going to the phones. You can see a trace with ngrep for the call above here.
To install ngrep run the command:
# apt-get install ngrep