Midnight Madness: Introducing Incredible PBX 12 with Asterisk 12 and FreePBX

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The number "12″ always has held mystical prominence in our culture and so it is with Asterisk®. Just over 12 months ago, Digium first introduced Asterisk 12 at AstriCon in Atlanta and heralded a major change in the direction of the product. It was more than a wholesale revamping of the Asterisk feature set. There was a revolutionary new development methodology thanks to the untiring efforts of Matt Jordan and his incredibly talented development team. Unlike Asterisk releases of old, there were no serious breakages in existing applications and, where there were changes, they were carefully documented for all the world to see. Thank you, Matt & Co.

The release of Asterisk 12 also set in motion the development of FreePBX® 12 by the equally talented FreePBX Dev Team. What began as an effort simply to integrate all of the new components in Asterisk 12 quickly evolved into a major rewrite of the graphical user interface for Asterisk, no small feat given its history of starts and stops spanning nearly a decade of development. Just last week, FreePBX 12 was pronounced stable and production ready. If you thought Asterisk 12 was revolutionary, just wait until you try FreePBX 12. Simply amazing work by the FreePBX Development Team. Thank you.

While PBX in a Flash has offered a preview edition of Asterisk 12 and FreePBX 12 for quite a while, we’ve held off releasing the stand-alone Incredible PBX 12 for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we wanted Incredible PBX 12 to remain pure open source to point the way for others that want to enhance Asterisk 12 and FreePBX 12. Second, there were more than a few rough edges with both products that simply needed some time to evolve. The one year anniversary of Asterisk 12 and the stable release of FreePBX 12 seemed a fitting occasion to add our turnkey implementation of Incredible PBX to the mix.

The real beauty of Incredible PBX: there is no smoke and there are no mirrors. What you see is what you get. You begin with a base install of the Linux operating system. And then the open source Incredible PBX installer adds all of the pieces to integrate air-tight security with Asterisk 12, FreePBX 12, text-to-speech technology and dozens of applications for Asterisk into a seamless platform for either experimentation or production use. You can review the source code and embellish it as you see fit! Protecting your deployment is the IPtables firewall with a WhiteList for authorized user access coupled with Fail2Ban to monitor access attempts. This isn’t merely a security toolkit. Your server is actually locked down from the moment you complete the Incredible PBX install. Authorizing additional users is accomplished using simple administrator scripts. Or end-users can employ PortKnocker and Travelin’ Man 4 to simplify remote access. Automatic updates for security fixes and enhancements are an integral component of Incredible PBX. If the security alerts of the past month haven’t convinced you that updates are critically important, you probably should stop hosting your own PBX. Backups and restores also are simple. And the complete open source feature set of both Asterisk and FreePBX is activated to facilitate your development efforts. In short, you gain nothing by installing the individual components yourself, and you may lose a lot. With Incredible PBX, the heavy lifting has all been done for you with documented, open source code that makes it simple to add your own tweaks as desired. That’s what open source is all about!

We’ve chosen Ubuntu 14.04 as the platform on which to begin the Incredible PBX 12 adventure. More releases will follow in due course. But Ubuntu 14.04 is an extremely stable and well-supported LTS release of Linux that warrants a careful look. After all, the primary objective here is a stable telephony platform. The Ubuntu 14.04 LTS platform offers that in spades.

As a result of the trademark and copyright morass, we’ve steered away from the bundled operating system in favor of a methodology that relies upon you to put in place the operating system platform on which to run PBX in a Flash or Incredible PBX. The good news is it’s easy! With many cloud-based providers¹, you can simply click a button to choose your favorite OS flavor and within minutes, you’re ready to go. With many virtual machine platforms such as VirtualBox, it’s equally simple to find a pre-built Ubuntu 14.04 image or roll your own.

If you’re new to VoIP or to Nerd Vittles, here’s our best piece of advice. Don’t take our word for anything! Try it for yourself in the Cloud! You can build an Ubuntu 14.04 image on Digital Ocean in under one minute and install Incredible PBX 12 for Ubuntu 14.04 in under 30 minutes. Then try it out for two full months. It won’t cost you a dime. Use our referral link to sign up for an account. Enter a valid credit card to verify you’re who you say you are. Create an Ubuntu 14.04 (not 14.10!) 512MB droplet of the cheapest flavor ($5/mo.). Go to the Billing section of the site, and enter the following promo code: UBUNTUDROPLET. That’s all there is to it. A $10 credit will be added to your account, and you can play to your heart’s content. Delete droplets, add droplets, and enjoy the free ride!

For today, we’ll walk you through building your own stand-alone server using the Ubuntu 14.04 mini.iso. If you’re using Digital Ocean in the Cloud, skip down to Installing Incredible PBX 12. If you’re using your own hardware, to get started, download the 32-bit or 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" Minimal ISO from here. Then burn it to a CD/DVD or thumb drive and boot your dedicated server from the image. Remember, you’ll be reformatting the drive in your server so pick a machine you don’t need for other purposes.

For those that would prefer to build your Ubuntu 14.04 Wonder Machine using VirtualBox on any Windows, Mac, or existing Linux Desktop, here are the simple steps. Create a new virtual machine specifying either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Ubuntu. Allocate 1024MB of RAM (512MB also works fine!) and at least 20GB of disk space using the default hard drive setup in all three steps. In Settings, click System and check Enable I/O APIC and uncheck Hardware Clock in UTC Time. Click Audio and Specify then Enable your sound card. Click Network and Enable Network Adapter for Adapter 1 and choose Bridged Adapter. Finally, in Storage, add the Ubuntu 14.04 mini.iso to your VirtualBox Storage Tree as shown below. Then click OK and start up your new virtual machine. Simple!

Here are the steps to get Ubuntu 14.04 humming on your new server or virtual machine once you’ve booted up. If you can bake cookies from a recipe, you can do this:

UBUNTU mini.iso install:
Choose language
Choose timezone
Detect keyboard
Hostname: incrediblepbx < continue >
Choose mirror for downloads
Confirm archive mirror
Leave proxy blank unless you need it < continue >
** couple minutes of whirring as initial components are loaded **
New user name: incredible < continue >
Account username: incredible < continue >
Account password: makeitsecure < continue >
Encrypt home directory < no >
Confirm time zone < yes >
Partition disks: Guided - use entire disk and set up LVM
Confirm disk to partition
Write changes to disks and configure LVM
Whole volume? < continue>
Write changes to disks < yes> < -- last chance to preserve your disk drive!
** about 15 minutes of whirring during base system install ** < no touchy anything>
** another 5 minutes of whirring during base software install ** < no touchy anything>
Upgrades? Install security updates automatically
** another 5 minutes of whirring during more software installs ** < no touchy anything>
Software selection: *Basic Ubuntu server (only!)
** another couple minutes of whirring during software installs ** < no touchy anything>
Grub boot loader: < yes>
UTC for system clock: < no>
Installation complete: < continue> after removing installation media
** on VirtualBox, PowerOff after reboot and remove [-] mini.iso from Storage Tree & restart VM
login as user: incredible
** enter user incredible's password **
sudo passwd
** enter incredible password again and then create secure root user password **
su root
** enter root password **
apt-get update
apt-get install ssh -y
sed -i 's|without-password|yes|' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sed -i 's|yes"|without-password"|' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
ifconfig
** write down the IP address of your server from ifconfig results
reboot
** login via SSH to continue **


Adding Incredible PBX 12 to a running Ubuntu 14.04 server is a walk in the park. To restate the obvious, your server needs a reliable Internet connection to proceed. Using SSH (or Putty on a Windows machine), log into your new server as root at the IP address you deciphered in the ifconfig step at the end of the Ubuntu install procedure above.

WARNING: If you’re using a 512MB droplet at Digital Ocean, be advised that their Ubuntu setup does NOT include a swap file. This may cause serious problems when you run out of RAM. Uncomment ./create-swapfile-DO line below to create a 1GB swap file which will be activated whenever you exceed 90% RAM usage on Digital Ocean.

Now let’s begin the Incredible PBX 12 install. Log back in as root and issue the following commands:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx12.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx12.tar.gz
rm incrediblepbx12.tar.gz
#./create-swapfile-DO
./IncrediblePBX12.sh

The installer will first upgrade your Ubuntu 14.04 build to the latest modules. Then it will reboot. Rerun the installer again to kick off the Incredible PBX 12 installation process. Once you have agreed to the license agreement and terms of use, press Enter and go have a 30-minute cup of coffee. The Incredible PBX 12 installer runs unattended so find something to do for a bit unless you just like watching code compile. When you see "Have a nice day", your installation is complete. Write down your your three "knock" ports for PortKnocker. You can retrieve your PortKnocker setup like this: cat /root/knock.FAQ. Next, set your admin password for FreePBX 12 by running /root/admin-pw-change. Set your correct time zone by running /root/timezone-setup. To be sure your FreePBX module signatures are current, issue the following two commands:

amportal a ma refreshsignatures
amportal a r

Log out and back in as root and the automatic update utility will bring your system current with security fixes and enhancements. Then you will be greeted with a status display shown at the top of this article.

You can access the Asterisk 12 CLI by typing: asterisk -rvvvvvvvvvv

You can access the FreePBX 12 GUI using your favorite web browser to configure your server. Just enter the IP address shown in the status display. The default username is admin with the admin password you set up above. If desired, you also can change it in FreePBX Administration by clicking Admin -> Administrators -> admin. Enter a new password and click Submit Changes then Apply Config. Now edit extension 701 so you can figure out (or change) the randomized passwords that were set up for default 701 extension and voicemail: Applications -> Extensions -> 701.

Now you’re ready to set up a telephone so that you can play with Incredible PBX 12. We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. Choose Settings -> Accounts and click the New button. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 701 for your account name, and whatever password you created for the extension. Click OK.

Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place some test calls to the numerous apps that are preconfigured on Incredible PBX. Dial a few of these to get started:

123 - Reminders
222 - ODBC Demo (use acct: 12345)
947 - Weather by ZIP Code
951 - Yahoo News
*61 - Time of Day
*68 - Wakeup Call
TODAY - Today in History


Now you’re ready to connect to the telephones in the rest of the world. If you live in the U.S., the easiest way (at least for now) is to use an existing (free) Google Voice account. Google has threatened to shut this down but as this is written, it still works with previously set up Google Voice accounts. The more desirable long-term solution is to choose several SIP providers and set up redundant trunks for your incoming and outbound calls. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations to get you started.

If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support Incredible PBX 12. If you want to use the inbound fax capabilities of Incredible Fax, then you’ll need an additional Google Voice line that can be routed to the FAX custom destination using FreePBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So keep this account a secret!

We’ve tested this extensively using an existing Google Voice account, and inbound calling is just not reliable. The reason seems to be that Google always chooses Gmail chat as the inbound call destination if there are multiple registrations from the same IP address. So, be reasonable. Do it our way! Use a previously configured and dedicated Gmail and Google Voice account, and use it exclusively with Incredible PBX 12.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That’s the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. If you don’t see this option, you’re probably out of luck. Google has disabled the option in newly created accounts as well as some old ones that had Google Chat disabled. Now go back to the Google Voice Settings.

While you’re still in Google Voice Settings, click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:

Click Save Changes once you adjust your settings. Under the Voicemail tab, plug in your email address so you get notified of new voicemails. Down the road, receipt of a Google Voice voicemail will be a big hint that something has come unglued on your PBX.

One final word of caution is in order regardless of your choice of providers: Do NOT use special characters in any provider passwords, or nothing will work!

Now you’re ready to set up your Google Voice trunk in FreePBX 12. After logging into FreePBX with your browser, click the Connectivity tab and choose Google Voice/Motif. To Add a new Google Voice account, just fill out the form. If you want unanswered calls to be routed to Google Voice for transcription, check the box. Be advised that IVR calls typically are not "answered" so check that box as well if you plan to use an IVR to respond to incoming Google Voice calls.

IMPORTANT LAST STEP: Google Voice will not work unless you restart Asterisk from the Linux command line at this juncture. Using SSH, log into your server as root and issue the following command: amportal restart.

If you have trouble getting Google Voice to work (especially if you have previously used your Google Voice account from a different IP address), try this Google Voice Reset Procedure. It usually fixes connectivity problems. If it still doesn’t work, enable Less Secure Apps using this Google tool.

You can avoid one-way audio on calls and touchtones that don’t work with these simple settings in FreePBX: Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. Just plug in your public IP address and your private IP subnet. Then set ULAW as the only Audio Codec.

To support many of our applications, Incredible PBX has included Google’s speech recognition service for years. These applications include Weather Reports by City (949), AsteriDex Voice Dialing by Name (411), and Wolfram Alpha for Asterisk (4747), all of which use Lefteris Zafiris’ terrific speech-recog AGI script. Unfortunately (for some), Google now has tightened up the terms of use for their free speech recognition service. Now you can only use it for "personal and development use." If you meet those criteria, keep reading. Here’s how to activate speech recognition on Incredible PBX. Don’t skip any steps!

1. Using an existing Google/Gmail account to join the Chrome-Dev Group.

2. Using the same account, create a new Speech Recognition Project.

3. Click on your newly created project and choose APIs & auth.

4. Turn ON Speech API by clicking on its Status button in the far right margin.

5. Click on Credentials in APIs & auth and choose Create New Key -> Server key. Leave the IP address restriction blank!

6. Write down your new API key or copy it to the clipboard.

7. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

# for Ubuntu and Debian platforms
apt-get clean
apt-get install libjson-perl flac -y
# for RedHat and CentOS platforms
# yum -y install perl-JSON
# for all Linux platforms
cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
mv speech-recog.agi speech-recog.last.agi
wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zaf/asterisk-speech-recog/master/speech-recog.agi
chown asterisk:asterisk speech*
chmod 775 speech*
nano -w speech-recog.agi

8. When the nano editor opens, go to line 70 of speech-recog.agi: my $key = "". Insert your API key from Step #6 above between the quotation marks and save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter.

Now you’re ready to try out the speech recognition apps. Dial 949 and say the name of a city and state/province/country to get a current weather forecast from Yahoo. Dial 411 and say "American Airlines" to be connected to American.

To use Wolfram Alpha by phone, you first must install it. Obtain your free Wolfram Alpha APP-ID here. Then run the one-click installer: /root/wolfram/wolframalpha-oneclick.sh. Insert your APP-ID when prompted. Now dial 4747 to access Wolfram Alpha by phone and enter your query, e.g. "What planes are overhead." Read the Nerd Vittles tutorial for additional examples and tips.

Incredible PBX 12 for Ubuntu 14.04 is an extremely secure turnkey PBX implementation. As configured, it is protected by both Fail2Ban and a hardened configuration of the IPtables Linux firewall. As installed, nobody can access your PBX without your credentials AND an IP address that is either on your private network or that matches the IP address of your server or the PC from which you installed Incredible PBX. Incredible PBX 12 is preconfigured to let you connect to many of the leading SIP hosting providers without additional firewall tweaking.

You can whitelist additional IP addresses for remote access in several ways. First, you can use the command-line utilities: /root/add-ip and /root/add-fqdn. You can also remove whitelisted IP addresses by running /root/del-acct. Second, you can dial into extension 864 (or use a DID pointed to extension 864 aka TM4) and enter an IP address to whitelist. Before Travelin’ Man 4 will work, you’ll need to add credentials for each caller using the tools in /root/tm4. You must add at least one account before dial-in whitelisting will be enabled. Third, you can temporarily whitelist an IP address by successfully executing the PortKnocker 3-knock code established for your server. You’ll find the details and the codes in /root/knock.FAQ. Be advised that IP addresses whitelisted with PortKnocker (only!) go away whenever your server is rebooted or the IPtables firewall is restarted. For further information on the PortKnocker technology and available clients for iOS and Android devices, review the Nerd Vittles tutorial.

HINT: The reason that storing your PortKnocker codes in a safe place is essential is because it may be your only available way to gain access to your server if your IP address changes. You obviously can’t use the command-line tools to whitelist a new IP address if you cannot gain access to your server at the new IP address.

We always recommend you also add an extra layer of protection by running your server behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure, but that’s your call. If you use a hardware-based firewall, be sure to map the three PortKnocker ports to the internal IP address of your server!

The NeoRouter VPN client also is included for rock-solid, secure connectivity for remote users. Read our previous tutorial for setup instructions.

As one would expect, the IPtables firewall is a complex piece of software. If you need assistance configuring it, visit the PIAF Forum for some friendly assistance.

We’re pleased to introduce our latest backup and restore utilities for Incredible PBX. Running /root/incrediblebackup will create a backup image of your server in /tmp. This backup image then can be copied to any other medium desired for storage. To restore it to another Incredible PBX 12 server, simply copy the image to a server running Asterisk 12 and FreePBX 12 and run /root/incrediblerestore. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

FreePBX 12 has implemented a new checksum mechanism to assure that modules are intact. Special thanks to the FreePBX Development Team for their work in extending this feature to modules outside the FreePBX-support modules. If other modules (other than ODBC configuration files) show invalid or missing signatures, you should do some investigating promptly!

Once you’ve completed the Incredible PBX install, log out and log back in to load the latest automatic updates. Then reboot. Now you’re ready to continue your adventure by installing Incredible Fax for Ubuntu. Special thanks to Josh North for all his hard work on this!

cd /root
rm incrediblefax11_ubuntu14.sh
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblefax11_ubuntu14.sh
chmod +x incrediblefax11_ubuntu14.sh
./incrediblefax11_ubuntu14.sh

Just plug in your email address for delivery of your incoming faxes in PDF format. Then accept all of the defaults during the installation process. Once you complete the install, reboot your server. Then log in as root again and set your AvantFax admin password: /root/avantfax-pw-change. Now you can access both FreePBX 12 and AvantFax by pointing your browser to the IP address of your server. Please note that we’ve had problems logging into AvantFax with some versions of the Chrome browser. Works great with Firefox!

Next, log into FreePBX and set an Inbound Route for incoming faxes to Custom Destination: Fax (hylafax). Then try sending a fax to the phone number and be sure it arrives in your email.

You also can try enabling fax detection with any Google Voice number. Just edit the inbound route for the DID and make it look like this:

Every time you log into your server as root, Incredible PBX 12 will ping the IncrediblePBX.com web site to determine whether one or more updates are available to bring your server up to current specs. We recommend you log in at least once a week just in case some new security vulnerability should come along (again).

Once you get Incredible PBX installed, you’ll want to read up on the dozens of applications for Asterisk which are included in the Incredible PBX feature set. We’ve previously covered this in a separate article for the Raspberry Pi platform, but the applications are the same. Here’s a link to the tutorials.

You can follow updates to Incredible PBX 12 in this thread on the PIAF Forum.

We would also encourage you to sign up for an account on the PIAF Forum and join the discussion. In addition to providing first-class, free support, we think you’ll enjoy the camaraderie. Come join us!

Originally published: Monday, November 3, 2014 Updated: Monday, December 1, 2014

Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you’re bound to have questions. Blog comments are a terrible place to handle support issues although we welcome general comments about our articles and software. If you have particular support issues, we encourage you to get actively involved in the PBX in a Flash Forums. It’s the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it’s all free! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 

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