Testing the Asterisk PBX

I downloaded Asterisk@Home from http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net

Note, in 2006 Asterisk@Home was renamed to trixbox

Its a large download, so allow plently of time if you have a slow Internet connection. You can install it on an old PC, or use a virtual machine. I have VMware, but you could also use the free VMWare Player and QEMU, or the free Virtual PC from Microsoft. Set up a new virtual machine in VMware with an IDE disk and set the CDROM to point to the Asterisk@home ISO file.

Start the virtual machine and the A@H install screen will be displayed. Pressing enter will repartition the virtual machines hard disk and install Red Hat Linux, Apache, MySQL, Asterisk and an Asterisk web-based administration tool called AMP.

1. After installation, login as root with password password.
2. Change the root password by typing passwd.
3. Access advanced configuration settings by typing asterisk -r.
4. Run netconfig if you want to sassign a static IP address.

Note the URL displayed and paste it into you browser to open the AMP administration tool. Click Asterisc Management Portal and enter username maint and password passowrd.

1. First add an extension by clicking Setup > Extensions.
2. Select SIP
3. Assign an extension number (301 for example), a display name (Demo301).
4. Enter a password in secret (pass301 for example).
5. Set Voicemail & Directory to Enabled to access more options.
6. Enter a voicemail password and email address.
7. After clicking Submit, I got 2 errors. These didnt appear when I created another IAX2 extension, and they didnt seem to cause any problems.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/admin/functions.php on line 2599
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/admin/functions.php on line 2460

To test your extensions, install a softphone such as X-Lite from CounterPath or SJphone from www.sjlabs.com on your Windows PC.

On installing Xlite, if it cannot connect the settings screen will open. Under System Settings, select the SIP proxy settings then double-click the first entry called Default and change the following:

• Username: 301 (use the extension number)
• Authorization User: 301 (use the extension again)
• Password: pass301 (enter a secret password)
• Domain/Realm: 192.168.11.6 (the PBX IP address)
• SIP Proxy: 192.168.11.6 (the PBX IP Address)

X-Lite cannot use silence detection when it is used with Asterisk server. To solve this problem we must turn on the ‘Transmit Silence’ option. We can find this option in Menu>Advanced System settings>Audio Settings>Silence Settings>Transmit Silence. By doing this we are assured that X-lite will send always audio frames even after it detects a silence.

Next click Digital Receptionist in APM and enter your extension (301)
Try recording a message. I couldnt get anything out of mine, but maybe you’ll have better luck. But you need at least one message to set up Incoming Calls next. YOu can set up a complex IVR system here later if you want.

Next go to Incoming Calls and set the regular and after hours times to * and set it to go to Digital Receptionist Menu #1: Main Menu

Click Panel to watch the activity on your PBX

Now if you try calling your own extension (301) on your softphone, you’ll hear a pleasant womans voice telling you thet you are on the phone so please leave a message. After you leave a message and hang up you sould get an email notifying you of the voice mail. You can listen to the message by calling *98 on your softphone or using the web browser based interface linked in the email. The URL in my email was missing the server name so it didnt work, but with a but of editing I was able to open the webpage, enter my voicemail password and listen to my messages.

Now to set up another phone and get a connection to the outside world.