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JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiTaming the Condo Call Box with a Raspberry Pi & Asterisk
If you live in an apartment complex or condominium with a call box to let visitors gain door access by calling your apartment, then today’s column is for you. The way almost all of these call boxes work is the management company programs your name, phone number, and apartment number into the call box after which a visitor can look up your name or enter your apartment number and the call box will call you. When you answer the call and press 9 on your phone, the apartment door will unlock momentarily allowing the visitor to enter the building. But what if you don’t answer the call and a delivery driver needs to drop off your check from Publisher’s Clearinghouse? Or suppose you or a significant other has gone jogging without a cellphone and locked yourself out of the building? Well, worry no more. With Asterisk and a $35 Raspberry Pi running Incredible PBX, you can conquer the call box and let anybody into the building without ever touching your phone. All you need is an access code.
We will assume that you have a functioning Incredible PBX server with at least one incoming phone number. If not, start here. Then provide the management company with your 10-digit DID to assign to the call box. Once it’s set up, use the call box to call yourself and review the call detail records on your PBX to decipher the callbox’s actual phone number.
You do NOT need a dedicated DID to answer Call Box incoming calls. Deploying the script below will tell Asterisk to intercept calls from the Call Box for special processing and pass the rest of your incoming calls to your DID’s preconfigured Inbound Route. When a Call Box call is detected by its CallerID Number, the script will prompt the visitor to enter a security code. If the code entered is valid, a DTMF tone simulating the pressing of 9 on your phone will be sent to the Call Box to open the door, and the visitor will be advised that the door is being unlocked. If the visitor enters an invalid access code three times in a row, Asterisk will hang up the call from the Call Box. Easy peasy!
Now let’s reconfigure your Asterisk PBX to manage incoming calls from the Call Box. You’ll need (1) the 10-digit DID that you provided to the management company for calls from the CallBox. (2) the 10-digit phone number that the Call Box uses to call you, and (3) a security PIN which the visitor must enter to gain door access. In the sample code below, (1) substitute your 10-digit DID for 8881234567 on the 14 lines (twice on lines 3 and 5), (2) substitute the Call Box 10-digit phone number for 9990000000 on line 4, (3) in line 7 replace 90210 with the security PIN you want visitors to enter to gain door access, and (4) enter your email address on line 11 replacing yourname@gmail.com so you’re notified when visitors arrive.
[from-callbox]
exten => 8881234567,1,Answer
exten => 8881234567,n,Wait(1)
exten => 8881234567,n,NoOp(*** Incoming call on 8881234567 DID ***)
exten => 8881234567,n,GotoIf($["${CALLERID(number)}" = "9990000000"]?BUZZMEUP)
exten => 8881234567,n,Goto(from-trunk,8881234567,1)
exten => 8881234567,n,Hangup
exten => 8881234567,n(BUZZMEUP),Authenticate(90210)
exten => 8881234567,n,Playback(access-granted)
exten => 8881234567,n,agi(picotts.agi,"The door is opening. Please come in.")
exten => 8881234567,n,SendDTMF(9,50,2000)
exten => 8881234567,n,system(echo "Condo door opened" | /usr/bin/mail -s ALERT yourname@gmail.com)
exten => 8881234567,n,Wait(3)
exten => 8881234567,n,Playback(goodbye)
exten => 8881234567,n,Hangup
exten => s,1,Hangup
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next, copy the edited code to the end of /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf and reload your dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload".
Finally, using a browser, open the FreePBX GUI. Edit the trunk corresponding to your DID above and change the context to from-callbox. Also make certain you have an Inbound Route for your 10-digit DID to redirect non-CallBox calls to whatever destination is desired.
Now leave your building (with your key) and use the Call Box to test your new setup. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, April 5, 2021
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
Verizon 5G Service for $25/month with Unlimited Everything
It takes a lot to get us excited about a cellular offering these days. One feature that always gets our attention is a plan that offers unlimited texting and unlimited data within the U.S. plus unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. So we’re excited to introduce Visible, Verizon’s very own MVNO. A few disclaimers are in order before we get into the specifics.
First, as with all MVNO’s, your usage is subject to throttling in high usage areas. So, if you regularly attend events with 100,000 other folks such as the Super Bowl, or the World Series, or the Masters, an MVNO cellular plan may prove disappointing. Second, we are an avid Visible user, and we offer a signup link that reduces our bill if you sign up. We do this to defray the costs of bringing you articles such as this one. Third, you only get the $25/month pricing if we can persuade 3 other like-minded readers to sign up for service. Otherwise, the monthly cost is $40. But we’re not too worried about that once you read this article. UPDATE: We now have over 60 people in our plan. Your first month of service is only $5 using our signup link.1 There are no signup fees or long-term contracts of any kind.
While Visible originally worked only with iPhones, most current generation Android phones can now be used as well including the Google Pixel 3 or newer, Samsung Galaxy S9 or newer, the Moto G7 or newer, and most other 4G and 5G phones that can operate on Verizon’s VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) network. Check your phone’s compatibility here.
Now, the good news. Visible uses Verizon’s nationwide state-of-the-art 4G/5G network. Your download speeds are capped at a whopping 200 Mbps. Tethering is unlimited but speed is capped at 5 Mbps unless you do a little educational surfing. When it comes to performance and coverage in the U.S., Verizon is the leader of the pack. AT&T’s Cricket MVNO has a competing plan for $55 a month with a 5 Mbps speed cap. T-Mobile’s MVNOs have no offerings with unlimited high-speed data at the $25 price point. The best deal is probably Mint Mobile with 30GB of high speed data with tethering capped at 5GB for $30 a month.
Finally, let us walk you through how the signup process will work. First, you sign up for new service here. After you register, Visible will send you a SIM via overnight delivery. When you receive the SIM, log into your Visible account with a web browser and follow the setup steps.
Here’s the important part. After your service is up and running either through our signup link or independently, you can then Join the Party Plan Here and then participate in what Visible calls their Party Pay Plan. You’ll get your own bill for $25 each month, and no further interaction from us or other members of the group. Please post a comment below just to let others know this isn’t a scam. We can also send you the signup link if you have problems signing up. We will not share your email address. For those that already have a Visible account and are paying more than $25 a month for service, you, too, are more than welcome to Join the Party. Please post a comment below confirming your interest. What’s the catch? There isn’t one. We all save $15 a month on our Visible bill every month forever, and we all continue to be billed and pay for our own service independently. Think of it as adding kids to your cellphone plan except you never have to pay your kids’ cellphone bills.
Come join the party! You won’t be disappointed.
Originally published: Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
- You’re also eligible for a $100 Mastercard Prepaid Virtual Account if you transfer your existing cellphone number when you sign up. [↩]
Review: The 2021 Cadillac Escalade – Everything a Tesla Isn’t
Happy Valentine’s Day. We’re on our fifth year of our love-hate relationship with Elon and Tesla. After a second purchase of a Tesla with Full Self-Driving (FSD) and no cigar, it’s beginning to smell more like vaporware. Tesla now is morphing FSD into a "feature set" that includes Automatic Lane Changes, Summon from across the garage, AutoPark (maybe and sometimes), Traffic and Stop Sign Alerts, and AutoSteer on City Streets (coming soon). You’ll note that AutoSteer on the highways and interstates now has vanished even though Elon touted sleeping in the back seat while his Tesla drove him from California to New York. To juice end-of-year sales, Tesla even offered buyers a 90-day FSD subscription rather than making buyers fork over $10,000 for vaporware. In case you’re confused by Tesla’s new nomenclature, keep in mind that many vehicles have had most of these "FSD features" for years, but nobody else called it full self-driving much less charging $10,000 for it.
Which brings us to General Motors and the 2021 Cadillac Escalade with SuperCruise for an extra $2,500. Guess what? On all major highways in the United States, it offers hands-free Full Self-Driving so long as you sit in the driver’s seat and keep your eyes on the road. Does it park itself? Yes. Does it have Automatic Lane Change? Yes. Does it have a HUD display? Yes. Does it have Night Vision? Yes. Does the dashboard look like a glorified golf cart? No. In fact, the dashboard sports curved OLED displays measuring more than three feet in total width. Any commercial airline pilot will be drooling. Can it really drive itself without your touching the steering wheel? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Damn near. Will you ever buy a Tesla again? Probably not. This is especially true considering GM’s new electric Hummer EV is just around the corner and will also include SuperCruise.
Want to know more? Well, here you go. There’s a vertical wireless charging holster between the seats that works great with an iPhone or an Android phone. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work perfectly without ever plugging in a cable. The Escalade dash now offers lots of apps and automatic updates. Welcome, Alexa. You now can say, "Open the Garage", or "Lock the Front Door", or "Turn on the Living Room Lights" from the comfort of your car. And our old favorite, Waze, works great to alert you to every speed trap on the road. Got a favorite radio station in a distant city? The Escalade has you covered with TuneIn. And Spotify and Pandora are as close as your dashboard. Every car these days has a backup camera. The Escalade has cameras everywhere, and you can view any of them from your dashboard. There’s even a zoom in and zoom out feature. The car has its own WiFi HotSpot, or you can connect to the Internet via a Personal Hotspot on your smartphone. And, yes, the car slams on its brakes before you hit something or someone in front of or behind your vehicle.
https://youtu.be/MDTmNBGvcUY
Finally, a word about Escalade fuel costs compared to Tesla Superchargers. If you’re planning to buy a Tesla to save money on fuel costs, DON’T. Back in 2016, Tesla touted that its superchargers would "never be a profit center." This may be Tesla’s biggest scam of all. Florida has some of the least expensive electricity rates in the U.S. Yet when you use a Supercharger in Florida, the cost is nearly 8 cents a mile. But that’s a mile according to the Tesla dashboard. Just because a Tesla shows 320 miles of range, don’t believe it. 320 miles of charge actually gets you about 240 miles of driving range at typical interstate highway speeds. When you factor that into the actual cost per mile, the number is closer to 11 cents a mile. For a vehicle such as an Escalade which can use regular fuel and still get 20 miles per gallon even by the EPA highway estimate, that translates into an almost identical cost per mile. Florida regular gas is selling for about $2.20 per gallon. While an Escalade is anything but fuel efficient, your actual cost per mile is nearly the same as driving a Tesla Model X using Tesla’s Superchargers for electricity. Funny how Big Oil has managed to make gazillions of dollars off gasoline sales charging the same prices as Elon’s "non-profit" superchargers.
For those that are wondering, would we buy the new Escalade? Absolutely. In fact, we already have. Put this car on your Bucket List. Or surprise your Valentine. It’s that good.
UPDATE: And now there’s this:
Originally published: Sunday, February 14, 2021 Updated: Wednesday, April 14, 2021
5 Minutes to Paradise: Incredible PBX in the Cloud for $25/Yr.
We’ve been building turnkey Incredible PBX® servers for virtual machine platforms for many years. Because the servers are built from images, typical install times have been 5 minutes or less with Proxmox, VirtualBox, and VMware ESXi. But the missing piece has always been a similar image install on a true cloud-based platform. This limitation was primarily due to the fact that we don’t own or control the available cloud platforms which typically limit image installs to operating systems such as CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, and Windows.
Today we have more very good news. Our favorite low-cost hosting provider, Crown Cloud,1 has agreed to offer 5-minute turnkey installs of Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS and Incredible PBX 2021 for Debian at a jaw-dropping $25 a year. You’ll have a fully-functioning, production-ready KVM platform including a free snapshot with 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD storage, and 1TB of monthly bandwidth in your choice of server locations including Los Angeles and Atlanta in the United States as well as Germany and the Netherlands in Europe. And, unlike all of the other Asterisk® aggregations, Incredible PBX still provides a source code-based platform that can be tailored to meet any special requirements you may need.
We don’t make a nickel on this deal so consider this our special thanks to all of our loyal fans.
Here are the links to sign up for the service and take advantage of these Incredible PBX deals:
- Los Angeles: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=382
- Atlanta: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=487
- Germany: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=399
- Netherlands: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=400
UPDATE: 2GB/40GB KVM plans have now been released.
- LA-2G-40G-SSD: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=666
- ATL-2G-40G-SSD: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=667
- DE-2G-40G-SSD: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=668
- NL-2G-40G-SSD: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=669
When you sign up for the service, choose any operating system as your default install. Then open a support ticket and request either the Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS image or the Incredible PBX 2021 for Debian image be added into your template list of available operating systems. Once your server comes on line, open your CrownPanel and choose Reinstall and select Incredible PBX from either the available CentOS or Debian options. In less than 5 minutes, your server will be ready for you to login. Be sure to use SSH and NOT the VNC utility included in CrownPanel. This will assure that your desktop machine’s IP address gets whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Once you login, the Incredible PBX configurator will prompt you to set passwords for root login, admin login to FreePBX, and admin login credentials for Apache to access AsteriDex and Reminders. After a reboot to initialize your SSH keys, you’ll be ready to go. Add a trunk provider and a softphone, or Incredible PBX SIP phone, or GTI cell phone, and your PBX is fully operational. Check out the CrownCloud Wiki.
Planning Ahead for That Rainy Day
One of our favorite features of Crown Cloud is the free snapshot (a.k.a. backup) at no additional charge. We recommend you take snapshots regularly as you make major changes in your server’s configuration. In this way, if something comes unglued, you can easily restore the snapshot and never miss a beat. You’ll find the Remote Snapshot option in your CrownPanel menu.
Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX
If you’ve decided to go with Skyetel, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service and take advantage of the Nerd Vittles specials. First, complete the Prequalification Form here. You then will be provided a link to the Skyetel site to complete your registration. Once you have registered on the Skyetel site and your account has been activated, open a support ticket and request the $10 credit for your account by referencing the Nerd Vittles special offer. Once you are satisfied with the service, fund your account as desired, and Skyetel will match your deposit of up to $250 simply by opening another ticket. That gets you up to $500 of half-price calling. Credit is limited to one per person/company/address/location. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.
Skyetel does not require SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel can use Endpoint Groups to identify which servers can communicate with the Skyetel service. An Endpoint Group consists of a Name, an IP address, a UDP or TCP port for the connection, and a numerical Priority for the group. For incoming calls destined to your PBX, DIDs are associated with an Endpoint Group to route the calls to your PBX. For outgoing calls from your PBX, a matching Endpoint Group is required to authorize outbound calls through the Skyetel network. Thus, the first step in configuring the Skyetel side for use with your PBX is to set up an Endpoint Group. Here’s a typical setup for Incredible PBX:
- Name: MyPBX
- Priority: 1
- IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
- Port: 5060
- Protocol: UDP
- Description: my.incrediblepbx.com
To receive incoming PSTN calls, you’ll need at least one DID. On the Skyetel site, you acquire DIDs under the Phone Numbers tab. You have the option of Porting in Existing Numbers (free for the first 60 days after you sign up for service) or purchasing new ones under the Buy Phone Numbers menu option.
Once you have acquired one or more DIDs, navigate to the Local Numbers or Toll Free Numbers tab and specify the desired SIP Format and Endpoint Group for each DID. Add SMS/MMS and E911 support, if desired. Call Forwarding and Failover are also supported. That completes the VoIP setup on the Skyetel side. System Status is always available here.
Configuring ClearlyIP SIP Trunking
For the tightest integration with FreePBX, no SIP provider holds a candle to Incredible PBX SIP Trunking with ClearlyIP. The reason is fairly obvious. The ClearlyIP folks were the original developers of FreePBX. In addition to all of the traditional SIP trunking services, you also get CNAM support and state-of-the-art E911 service which can be deployed in full compliance with Kari’s Law and the Ray Baum Act. If you’re a system integrator and don’t know about your financial liability for failure to comply with the new rules, it’s time to do some reading.
Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX
To sign up for VoIP.ms service, may we suggest you use our signup link so that Nerd Vittles gets a referral credit for your signup. Once your account is set up, you’ll need to set up a SIP SubAccount and, for Authentication Type, choose Static IP Authentication and enter your Incredible PBX server’s public IP address. For Transport, choose UDP. For Device Type, choose Asterisk, IP PBX, Gateway or VoIP Switch. Order a DID in their web panel, and then point the DID to the SubAccount you just created. Be sure to specify atlanta1.voip.ms as the POP from which to receive incoming calls. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable the VoIP.ms trunk.
Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX
To sign up for V1VoIP service, sign up on their web site. Then login to your account and order a DID under the DIDs tab. Once the DID has been assigned, choose View DIDs and click on the Forwarding button beside your DID. For Option #1, choose Forward to IP Address/PBX. For the Forwarding Address, enter the public IP address of your server. For the T/O (timeout) value, set it to 2o seconds. Then click the Update button. Under the Termination tab, create a new Endpoint with the public IP address of your server so that you can place outbound calls through V1VoIP. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable all of the V1VoIP trunks.
Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX
To sign up for Anveo Direct service, sign up on their web site and then login. After adding funds to your account, purchase a DID under Inbound Service -> Order DID. Next, choose Configure Destination SIP Trunk. Give the Trunk a name. For the Primary SIP URI, enter $[E164]$@server-IP-address. For Call Options, select your new DID from the list. You also must whitelist your public IP address under Outbound Service -> Configure. Create a new Call Termination Trunk and name it to match your server. For Dialing Prefix, choose six alphanumeric characters beginning with a zero. In Authorized IP Addresses, enter the public IP address of your server. Set an appropriate rate cap. We like $0.01 per minute to be safe. Set a concurrent calls limit. We like 2. For the Call Routing Method, choose Least Cost unless you’re feeling extravagant. For Routes/Carriers, choose Standard Routes. Write down your Dialing Prefix and then click the Save button.
Before you can make outbound calls through Anveo Direct from your PBX, you first must configure the Dialing Prefix that you wrote down in the previous step. Log into the GUI as admin using a web browser and edit the Anveo-Out trunk in Connectivity -> Trunks. Enable the Trunk. Then click on the custom-Settings tab and replace anveo-pin with your actual Dialing Prefix. Click Submit and Apply Config to complete the setup. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable all of the remaining Anveo trunks.
By default, incoming Anveo Direct calls will be processed by the Default inbound route on your PBX. If you wish to redirect incoming Anveo Direct calls using DID-specific inbound routes, then you’ve got a bit more work to do. In addition to creating the inbound route using the 11-digit Anveo Direct DID, enter the following commands after logging into your server as root using SSH/Putty:
cd /etc/asterisk
echo "[from-anveo]" >> extensions_custom.conf
echo "exten => _.,1,Ringing" >> extensions_custom.conf
echo "exten => _.,n,Goto(from-trunk,\${SIP_HEADER(X-anveo-e164)},1)" >> extensions_custom.conf
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
Configuring a SIP Phone for Incredible PBX
We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which is a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. We obviously recommend the Incredible PBX IP phones from ClearlyIP which are the most versatile.
If you’ve been keeping up with recent Nerd Vittles developments, then you already know that we have just introduced a new Cellular Phone which connects directly to your PBX and serves as a perfect remote extension and traveling companion. You can read all about it here.
Software devices such as the YateClient softphone are another option for desktop machines. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the VoIP-Info.org Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.
We recommend YateClient for Windows 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 can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.
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:
DEMO - Apps Demo 123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News TODAY - Today in History LENNY - The Telemarketer's Worst Nightmare
If you are a Mac user, another great no-frills softphone is Telephone. Just download and install it from the Mac App Store. For Android users, check out the terrific new VitalPBX Communicator. Works flawlessly with Incredible PBX.
For smartphone solutions, visit the Incredible PBX Wiki for our softphone recommendations.
Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX
In order to receive voicemails by email delivery, outbound mail functionality from your server obviously is required. We strongly recommend configuring SendMail using either your ISP or Gmail as an SMTP Relay Host. NOTE: If you are using a Gmail account with 2-step verification enabled, you MUST use a Gmail App Key instead of your Gmail account password. You also must enable Less Secure Apps access to the Gmail account.
Configuring a Gmail account with Incredible PBX 2021 is as simple as entering your Gmail credentials. Just run this script: /root/enable-gmail-smarthost-for-sendmail.
Here are the steps using a Gmail account with Incredible PBX 2020:
cd /etc/mail yum -y install sendmail-cf hostname -f > genericsdomain touch genericstable cd /usr/bin rm -f makemap ln -s ../sbin/makemap.sendmail makemap cd /etc/mail makemap -r hash genericstable.db < genericstable mv sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.original wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmail.mc.gmail cp sendmail.mc.gmail sendmail.mc mkdir -p auth chmod 700 auth cd auth echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" > client-info echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:587 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:465 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info # Stop here and edit client-info (nano -w client-info) in all three lines. # Replace user_id with your gMail account name without @gmail.com # Replace password with your real gMail password OR # use your Gmail App Key if 2-step verification is enabled # Be sure to replace the double-quotes shown above if they don't appear in the file!!! # Save your changes (Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter) chmod 600 client-info makemap -r hash client-info.db < client-info cd .. make systemctl restart sendmail
Even though these servers are hosted in the cloud, we still recommend using a SmartHost to minimize email delivery problems.
Test outbound mail using this command with your actual email address:
echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@youremaildomain.com
On some implementations, you may notice in the FreePBX GUI that the mail queue has failed. Here's the fix:
chmod 777 /var/spool/mqueue service sendmail restart
Once you are sure your emails are being delivered reliably, here's a sample GUI voicemail configuration for an extension:
Incredible PBX Administration
We've eased the pain of administering your new PBX with a collection of scripts which you will find in the /root folder after logging in with SSH or Putty. Here's a quick summary of what each of the scripts does.
add-fqdn is used to whitelist a fully-qualified domain name in the firewall. Because Incredible PBX blocks all traffic from IP addresses that are not whitelisted, this is what you use to authorize an external user for your PBX. The advantage of an FQDN is that you can use a dynamic DNS service to automatically update the IP address associated with an FQDN so that you never lose connectivity.
add-ip is used to whitelist a public IP address in the firewall. See the add-fqdn explanation as to why this matters.
del-acct is used to remove an IP address or FQDN from the firewall's whitelist.
admin-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to the FreePBX/Incredible PBX web GUI using a browser pointed to the local IP address of your server.
apache-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to Apache/Incredible PBX apps including AsteriDex and Reminders. This provides a password layer of protection for access to these applications.
reset-conference-pins is a script that automatically and randomly resets the user and admin pins for access to the preconfigured conferencing application. Dial C-O-N-F from any registered SIP phone to connect to the conference.
reset-extension-passwords is a script that automatically and randomly resets ALL of the SIP passwords for extensions 701-705. Be careful using this one, or you may disable existing registered phones and cause Fail2Ban to blacklist the IP addresses of those users. HINT: You can place a call to the Ring Group associated with all five extensions by dialing 777.
reset-reminders-pin is a script that automatically and randomly resets the pin required to access the Telephone Reminders application by dialing 123. It's important to protect this application because a nefarious user could set up a reminder to call a number anywhere in the world assuming your SIP provider's account was configured to allow such calls.
show-feature-codes is a cheat sheet for all of the feature codes which can be dialed from any registered SIP phone. It documents how powerful a platform Incredible PBX actually is. A similar listing is available in the GUI at Admin -> Feature Codes.
show-passwords is a script that displays most of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX. This includes SIP extension passwords, voicemail pins, conference pins, telephone reminders pin, and your Anveo Direct outbound calling pin (if configured). Note that voicemail pins are configured by the user of a SIP extension the first time the user accesses the voicemail system by dialing *97.
update-asterisk16 is a script that updates your server to the very latest release of Asterisk 16. You can run it periodically to keep your server up to date with the latest and greatest features.
update-IncrediblePBX is the Automatic Update Utility which checks for server updates from incrediblepbx.com every time you log into your server as root using SSH or Putty. Do NOT disable it as it is used to load important fixes and security updates when necessary. We recommend logging into your server at least once a week.
pbxstatus (shown above) displays status of all major components of Incredible PBX.
Forwarding Calls to Your Cellphone. Keep in mind that inbound calls to your DIDs automatically ring all five SIP extensions, 701-705. The easiest way to also ring your cellphone is to set one of these five extensions to forward incoming calls to your cellphone. After logging into your PBX as root, issue the following command to forward calls from extension 705 to your cellphone: asterisk -rx "database put CF 705 6781234567"
To remove call forwarding: asterisk -rx "database del CF 705"
Getting Started with Incredible Fax
Believe it or not, there still are lots of folks that use faxes in their everyday lives. If you're one of them, Incredible PBX has your back. With Incredible PBX 2021, Incredible Fax is already installed. Simply set your email address for delivery of your faxes in PDF format, and you're all set: /root/avantfax-email-change. With Incredible PBX 2020, begin by logging into your server as root and running incrediblefax2020.sh to install HylaFax and AvantFax on your server. You'll be prompted a dozen or more times for information. Answer no to the secure fax question. For the rest of the prompts, just press ENTER to accept the default entries. Rebooting your server is required when the install finishes.
Once your server is back on line, there will be a new AvantFax tab in the GUI. The default credentials are admin:password. After you enter the username and password, you will be prompted to change your admin password. The old password is still password. Then enter your desired password twice and save the setting. The AvantFax dashboard then will display. If nothing has come unglued, you should see four green Idle icons:
You can Send Faxes from within AvantFax by choosing the Send Fax tab, or you can use one of many HylaFax clients. Google is your friend.
Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current
We strongly recommend that you periodically update all of your FreePBX modules to eliminate bugs and to reduce security vulnerabilities. From the Linux CLI, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:
rm -f /tmp/* fwconsole ma upgradeall fwconsole reload /root/sig-fix systemctl restart apache2 /root/sig-fix
Where To Go From Here
For a limited time, check out Lenny on our Atlanta demo server by dialing 404-999-0010.
Complete documentation on the ClearlyIP Devices Module is available here.
Complete documentation on the FreePBX GPL Modules is available here.
Complete documentation on the Incredible PBX additions is available here.
An introduction to configuring extensions, trunks, and routes is available here.
Free voicemail transcription with email delivery. Tutorial available here.
Setting Up a VPN for Your PBX: OpenVPN or NeoRouter
Originally published: Monday, July 6, 2020 Updated: Saturday, January 16, 2021
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
- It has been reported that Norton AntiVirus currently gives a security alert on the Crown Cloud web site. Don't be alarmed. It's a false positive. [↩]
Groundwire for Android & iOS: The Best $10 You’ll Ever Spend
Now we’re getting down to the tough choices in VoIP softphones. You certainly need the Linphone app to make free SIP URI calls worldwide from your mobile phone. But you also need a softphone that connects to Incredible PBX® so that you never miss a traditional call to your home or office PBX. If you want tight integration with Asterisk® and FreePBX®, Clearly Anywhere is the hands-down winner, and you’ve still got until October 31 to take advantage of the $9.99 per year introductory offer. But some folks just bristle at the thought of annual fees for software licenses. If you fall into that category but still want the incoming call reliability offered by Clearly Anywhere, then the one-time $9.99 payment for Acrobits Groundwire on either the Android or iOS platform is your baby.1 Here’s the setup process.
Configuring Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC for Acrobits
Before you deploy Acrobits Groundwire on your smartphones, you first must set things up on the PBX side. Here’s how the process works. First, you will need to deploy the PUBLIC version of Incredible PBX 2020 on the Internet. It requires assignment of a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) for server access. We’ll also need to reconfigure the IPtables firewall and Fail2Ban to support Acrobits Groundwire.
Begin by choosing a cloud provider to host your public server. Here are some of our favorites starting at only a couple bucks a month with an annual subscription. CrownCloud is highly recommended. You’ll need a KVM CentOS 7 platform with at least 1GB of RAM and 10GB of storage. Once your server is operational, log in as root and follow our Incredible PBX 2020 tutorial to begin. When the install finishes, reboot your server and log back in to get the latest updates with the Automatic Update Utility.
Now you’re ready to convert your PBX into a PUBLIC-facing server. You’ll need a fully-qualified domain name for the server. If you don’t have your own domain, you can always obtain a free FQDN from a service such as NoIP.com. With your FQDN in hand, switch over to the Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC tutorial to complete the setup. It only takes a few minutes.
Next, we need to whitelist the Acrobits server IP addresses in the IPtables firewall. Begin by editing iptables-custom in the /usr/local/sbin folder. Just above the "# End of Trusted Provider Section" marker, add the following block of code. Then save the file and restart IPtables with the following command: iptables-restart
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.167.207 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.186.176 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.251.173 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.252.186 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.253.49 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.252.186 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.65.253.49 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 159.89.179.103 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 162.243.226.164 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.65.164 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.115.186 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.182.9 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.184.188 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.190.186 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.210.221 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 165.227.223.68 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 167.99.48.91 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 167.99.119.203 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -s 167.99.119.244 -p udp -m udp --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -s 165.227.103.7 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 7343 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 4998 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 24998 -j ACCEPT /usr/sbin/iptables -I INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 4998 -j ACCEPT
Finally, we need to whitelist the Acrobits server IP addresses in Fail2Ban to be sure your server doesn’t block any of the Acrobits servers attempting to contact your PBX. Ask us how we know.2 Edit /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf and scroll down to line 34 which begins with ignoreip. Add a space at the end of the existing line and then add the following string of IP addresses without a line break. Save the file and restart Fail2Ban: service fail2ban restart
159.65.167.207 159.65.186.176 159.65.251.173 159.65.252.186 159.65.253.49 159.89.179.103 162.243.226.164 165.227.65.164 165.227.115.186 165.227.182.9 165.227.184.188 165.227.190.186 165.227.210.221 165.227.223.68 167.99.48.91 167.99.119.203 167.99.119.244
Configuring FreePBX for Acrobits Groundwire Access
For every Acrobits Groundwire user, you’ll need to have a PJsip extension to which to register their softphone(s). Keep in mind that multiple softphones of a single user or multiple users can register to the same extension. The first phone to answer an incoming call gets connected to the calling party. Using a web browser, access the FreePBX GUI using your admin credentials. Navigate to Applications -> Extensions -> Add PJsip Extension. Choose a Name and Number for the Extension. Click on the Advanced tab, increase the Max Contacts entry by two for each Acrobits Groundwire softphone that will be connecting to this PJsip extension. Save your PJsip extension setup by clicking Submit. Then Reload the Dialplan.
Acrobits Groundwire Setup on Smartphones
The setup process on the smartphone side is simple. Begin by purchasing the Acrobits Groundwire app from either the App Store or Google Play for your device. Once the client softphone is installed, run the app. You will be prompted for the Username (extension), Password, and Domain:Port of your PBX. If your server is sitting behind a router and you’ve elected to use OpenVPN for your connection, then you’ll need to add the actual Public IP address of your server as the Proxy in Advanced Settings. Don’t forget the :5061 suffix if you’re using a PJsip extension on your PBX.
Once connected, click on the Settings icon in Acrobits Groundwire. Verify that Push Notifications are enabled for Incoming Calls. In setting up your connection to a PJsip extension on your PUBLIC server, don’t forget to tack :5061 onto the server’s FQDN. In the Preferences tab, set a Ring Tone for incoming calls and decide whether to record calls. The Network preference by default will choose WiFi and then Cellular with automatic roll-over when needed. If you want 911 calls routed through your cell carrier instead of through your PBX, choose Number Rewriting. Then click +. For Conditions, choose Equals 911. For Actions, choose Override Dial Action and select gsmCall. Click Done.
We hope you enjoy using the Acrobits Groundwire softphone with Incredible PBX 2020.
Originally published: Monday, October 26, 2020 Updated: February 6, 2023
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
- As with Vitelity, Acrobits is an Inteliquent company which provides financial support for Nerd Vittles and our Incredible PBX open source project. [↩]
- TRUE STORY: We couldn’t get Groundwire to answer incoming calls and finally opened a ticket withe Acrobits. Within 15 minutes, we got a response from Gabriel Baker, who requested a log which was easily generated from the app itself. About 15 minutes after we sent Gabriel the log, he responded noting that our server was blocking the Acrobits IP address which he provided. Issuing the
iptables -nLcommand on our end quickly revealed that Fail2Ban had blacklisted the address. Whitelisting the Acrobits IP addresses in Fail2Ban instantly solved the problem. One would have to conclude that Acrobits has some of the best tech support in the industry based upon our first-hand experience. [↩]
Linphone Rocks: Free SIP Calling to Anybody, Anywhere
We’re rounding out our softphone series today with the perfect complement to Clearly Anywhere for Asterisk® and FreePBX®. Let’s face it. SIP URI dialing from extensions is not Asterisk’s strong suit which is disappointing since SIP URI calling is free. If you’ve been following Incredible PBX® 2020 developments this year, you already know that we’ve pushed everyone to move their VoIP servers to the cloud. You not only get a more flexible PUBLIC platform that lets you go virtually anywhere while preserving home base connectivity for a few bucks a month. A public Asterisk server also lets anyone in the world call your PBX via a SIP URI, and the calls are free from any SIP phone. HINT: Linphone softphones are free!
Today we want to take a fresh look at one of our favorites, Linphone. We call it the perfect complement to Clearly Anywhere because it installs on almost every platform and provides SIP URI communications without any dependence upon a PBX at all. And, just like Clearly Anywhere, multiple devices can connect to the same Linphone account to make and receive calls. Linphone offers free SIP clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and many browsers. There’s even GPL source code if that’s your thing. Here are the download links:
- Windows
- Mac
- Linux
- iOS via App Store
- Android via Google Play
- Web Browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari)
- GPL v3 Source Code
To get started, sign up for a free Linphone account. Now simply download the app of your choice from the links above and run it. Then choose the Assistant option and plug in your username and password. Be sure to Allow Push Notifications so that your phone will ring whenever you get an incoming call. Now all you need is a cellular data plan or a wired or wireless network connection. Anyone can reach you at yourname@sip.linphone.org. When friends sign up, their calls also will be free. You can talk as often and as long as you like.
Should you ever lose or forget your password. here’s a link that will let you reset it.
The Linphone feature set is downright impressive. Here’s what you and your friends will be using at zero cost:
CONFIGURATION TIPS: Missing audio or one-way audio is a common problem on SIP calls especially if your phone is sitting behind a NAT-based router. For best results, configure your account in the Linphone app to use UDP for the Transport, Disable the Outbound Proxy, configure stun.linphone.org as the Stun Server, and enable ICE. In Network settings, turn off IPv6 and Media Encryption. In Audio Settings, enable Opus, G.722, PCMU, and PCMA only. In Video Settings, enable both VP8 and H.264. Then close the app and reopen it.
Once you have your Linphone credentials, another option in addition to using one of the SIP clients above is to acquire a stand-alone SIP telephone which can easily be connected to your Linphone SIP account. While there are literally hundreds of SIP telephones from which to choose, here’s a $40 offering from Grandstream that we like. It’s available from Amazon.1 Also consider Incredible PBX phones which take SIP communications to a whole new level.
Unlike other proprietary communications apps, the beauty of using Linphone with its native SIP URI support is you can call any SIP phone in the world for free whether the recipient uses Linphone or not. For example, to annoy your friends and spammers, you can transfer their calls to Lenny: 2233435945@sip2sip.info. And here are some other SIP URI calls you might want to try. Store any or all of them in your Linphone Phonebook.
Your Linphone Friend - friend-name@sip.linphone.org Yahoo News Headlines - news@demo.nerdvittles.com Yahoo News Headlines - 951@demo.nerdvittles.com Weather by Zip Code - weather@demo.nerdvittles.com Weather by Zip Code - 947@demo.nerdvittles.com Directory Assistance - information@demo.nerdvittles.com Directory Assistance - 411@demo.nerdvittles.com Call Any TollFree # - **1800XXXXXXX@tollfree.future-nine.com
There are now more than 2,000 VoIP networks worldwide that support SIP URI access. Any person or organization with an account on any of these networks can be reached at no cost via SIP URI or via several hundred PSTN numbers. Using a SIP URI dialing prefix, you can call any referenced network@sipbroker.com. For example, *656news@sipbroker.com would reach the Nerd Vittles News Headlines from Yahoo. Or, from a PSTN phone, choose a local access number from the SipBroker worldwide directory, e.g. 702-789-0530 and then dial *656951 at the prompt for Yahoo News from Nerd Vittles. Call enabled PBX extensions the same way.
If you want to associate a phone number with your Linphone SIP URI, you can do it in a couple of ways. First, using a smartphone, you can link your cell number to Linphone within the Linphone app itself. If you have a free DID from IPComms, you can point it to your Linphone SIP URI. If you have a $1/month CallCentric DID, it can also be pointed to your Linphone SIP URI.
There’s one more nice surprise. Linphone accounts work much like the old key telephones and Google Voice setup that we all knew and loved. What that means is you can register the same Linphone account on multiple phones in different places.
Calling Linphone Users from Incredible PBX
Since Linphone doesn’t technically assign phone numbers to users’ accounts, you still need a way for PBX extensions to contact Linphone users. The easiest way is to create a Custom Extension for every Linphone user account you need to reach. In the FreePBX GUI, navigate to Applications -> Extensions -> Add Extension -> Custom Extension. Assign an Extension Number and Name to the custom extension. Then click on the Advanced tab. In the Dial field, enter the SIP URI for the Linphone user, e.g. SIP/username@sip.linphone.org. Click Submit and then Reload the Dialplan.
Originally published: Monday, October 19, 2020
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
- This phone requires a wired network connection. Some of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. [↩]
The Ultimate Android Phone: Just $99 if you hurry
If you follow Nerd Vittles, you already know all of the benefits of using an Android phone in the VoIP-centric world. You can make free calls without a cellular provider by connecting to any WiFi network with Android’s Google Voice app. You can connect to Incredible PBX® or any Asterisk® PBX and function as if you were sitting at your desk in your Covid-free office. You can join a virtual private network using OpenVPN without spending a dime. And you can play an endless collection of games for almost nothing.
Now there’s more. Suppose there was a recyclable Android phone with a replaceable battery that could be repaired or replaced even with a cracked screen for just $59 including free shipping in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Singapore. Suppose it came with a 4-year warranty and 3 full years of free Android updates plus Google Play Store support. Suppose it included NFC Google Pay compatibility, dual SIM support, USB-C charging, and a microSD slot for expansion. Did we mention an Octa Core processor, dual cameras, a 6.1″ HD+ display, and a headphone jack? Meet the Teracube 2e.
The icing on the cake is you can snag one of these babies for $99 if you hurry. Here’s the link.
Originally published: Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors
FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.
BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.
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.
Deploying an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC Server
With the almost overnight popularity of the new Clearly Anywhere softphone which provides Incredible PBX connectivity from virtually anywhere, we wanted to revisit our Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC tutorial to document some additional tips and tricks. And, because softphones need connectivity on both cellular networks and using Wi-Fi with dynamic IP addresses in multiple locations, exclusive whitelist-based access to Incredible PBX simply was no longer feasible. Additionally, due to Clearly Anywhere’s tight integration with the FreePBX® User Control Panel (UCP), remote access to UCP for mobile users has become more important particularly with the new QR Code auto-configuration option for Clearly Anywhere clients.
Safely deploying a public-facing Asterisk® server with full FreePBX functionality has become the Holy Grail for Nerd Vittles in 2019. Today we tackle it on the new Incredible PBX® 2020 platform featuring the latest releases of Asterisk 16 and FreePBX 15. The icing on today’s cake is an additional offer from Skyetel that supplements the current Nerd Vittles BOGO offer of up to $500 in half-priced VoIP services. Skyetel now starts you off with a $10 credit just for opening an account here. Then, after you have had an opportunity to kick the tires and perhaps purchase a DID for a buck, you can make $9 worth of phone calls before deciding whether to take advantage of the BOGO special by making a purchase of up to $250 and having Skyetel match your contribution. Once you have funded your account, you then can also take advantage of Skyetel’s free number porting offer for the next 60 days. To get your $10 credit, just open a ticket and request the $10 Nerd Vittles credit once you’ve signed up. To get the Nerd Vittles BOGO price match and take advantage of free number porting, simply open another ticket once you have added up to $250 to your account. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.
Making the Case for a Public-Facing PBX
We’ve had some of our pioneers trying out the Incredible PBX PUBLIC implementations for almost a year. Early on, the first question we got was why anyone would want to do this. After all, PBX in a Flash 3 and Incredible PBX for the better part of a decade have been deployed with a whitelist using the Travelin’ Man 3 firewall, and there’s never been a security issue. So why switch horses now? The short answer is mobile users with dynamic IP addresses. If all the users of your PBX are sitting behind the same NAT-based router with static IP addresses, the Travelin’ Man 3 design is perfect. The bad guys could never even see your server. But if some of your users either reside or travel outside your home base or if you want calls to follow you on your smartphone with Clearly Anywhere when you leave home or the office, then Travelin’ Man 3 blocked SIP access from these remote phones until their new IP addresses were whitelisted. Multiply this by dozens or hundreds of users, and network management suddenly became a full-time job. Yes, we’ve had tools such as dynamic DNS and PortKnocker to ease the pain, but it still was a knuckle-drill for mobile users. And, in today’s Covid world, much of the workforce is quickly morphing into mobile users without a traditional desk at any office. What we were also beginning to see were homegrown "improvements" to the IPtables firewall where users that didn’t appreciate the risks were exposing their servers to SIP attacks simply to ease the pain of connecting remotely.
The world also is becoming more SIP savvy. Just as folks are learning that a $35 antenna can provide an awesome collection of 4K Ultra HD TV channels without the expense of a monthly cable bill, others are learning that a SIP telephone or softphone app on your smartphone can provide free calls to and from anybody with a SIP URI without sharing your communications with Facebook or Microsoft. A public-facing PBX makes free worldwide SIP calling a reality.
Building the Base Platform for Incredible PBX PUBLIC
To get started today, begin by installing Incredible PBX 2020 using our latest tutorial. We strongly recommend a cloud-based KVM platform with a static IP address on the public Internet. We’ve even built an Incredible PBX 2020 image for our friends at CrownCloud. You won’t beat their pricing of $25/year which is about the same expense you will incur for electricity hosting your own server on premise. And you even get a snapshot backup at no additional cost.
Once you have set up your Incredible PBX 2020 server, the next step is to assign one or two fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) to your server. You can have one FQDN for registering SIP extensions and a different one for anonymous SIP (invites) access to your server, or you can use the same FQDN for both. Security through obscurity provides an extra layer of protection for your server so choose your FQDNs carefully. sip.yourname.com provides almost no protection while f246g.yourname.com pretty much assures that nobody is going to guess your domain name. This is particularly important with the FQDN for SIP registrations because registered extensions on your PBX can obviously make phone calls that cost money. If you don’t have your own domain, you can always obtain a free FQDN from a service such as NoIP.com.
By default, Incredible PBX 2020 configures five extensions (701-705) and a Ring Group for those extensions (777) as well as four trunks. With Skyetel, your PBX is ready to make and receive calls as soon as you sign up. With the other three trunk providers, you only need to enable the trunk. You can add as many additional providers and extensions as you like and modify the ring group to meet your needs. To get started, be sure to configure the correct time zone for your server as this affects delivery of reminders. Run /root/timezone-setup. Next, set a secure password for admin access to the FreePBX GUI modules. Run /root/admin-pw-change. Then set a secure password for admin access to web applications such as AsteriDex, Reminders, and User Control Panel. Run /root/apache-pw-change. In addition to reviewing your extensions and ring group, review the default inbound route and choose the destination for the incoming calls from your provider. Finally, configure the outbound route to use the provider sequence desired. By default, it uses Skyetel for outbound calls.
If you plan to use Clearly Anywhere, you’ll need to add at least one PJsip extension on your PBX. Simply navigate to Applications -> Extensions in the FreePBX GUI. Choose Add Extension -> Add PJsip Extension. In the General tab, insert an extension number in User Extension and Display Name, e.g. 707. In the Advanced tab, set Max Contacts to 11 which will let you connect up to 5 Clearly Anywhere softphones to the extension. Click Submit and Reload Dialplan when prompted. Go back into the new extension and make note of your new credentials for User Manager. You’ll need these for Clearly Anywhere. Remember to also add the PJsip extension to the Inbound Route for your incoming calls.
Going Public with Incredible PBX 2020
Once you’ve tested making and receiving calls with your new server, you’re ready to convert it into a public-facing PBX. Before proceeding, remove any whitelist entries you’ve added using add-ip and add-fqdn by running del-acct. These can be added back after the GO-PUBLIC-2020 install script is run. In order to run the install script below, you’ll need your FQDNs that you chose above, plus a port number for future SSH/Putty access to your server, plus a list of the extensions you wish to make available for public access to your PBX. These whitelisted extensions can be reached via SIP URI from anywhere in the world by anybody. It works just like your old MaBell phone. Anybody, anywhere can dial your number. What’s changed is now the calls are free. So choose your list carefully. We recommend using the year you were born for your SSH port to keep things simple for you. Once the GO-PUBLIC-2020 script has been run, you can only access your PBX via SSH/Putty at the new port, for example: ssh -p 1990 root@yourFQDN.com
Now we’re ready to run the install script. It takes less than a minute. Before you begin, log out of ALL SIP extensions you have previously registered with Incredible PBX 2020 and change the server destination from an IP address to the FQDN you plan to assign to SIP registrations. Otherwise, these IP addresses will get banned while the install script is running below!
cd /root wget http://incrediblepbx.com/go-public-2020.tar.gz tar zxvf go-public-2020.tar.gz rm -f go-public-2020.tar.gz ./GO-PUBLIC-2020
A Few Words About Incredible PBX PUBLIC Security
As with all Incredible PBX servers, Incredible PBX 2020-PUBLIC includes the Automatic Update Utility. Please don’t disable it. It’s our only way to push updates to you if some vulnerability is discovered down the road. It gets run whenever you login to your server as root using SSH/Putty. Do so regularly and follow us on Twitter for security alerts. There’s also an Incredible PBX RSS Feed that is displayed when you login to the Incredible PBX GUI with a browser. It, too, includes security alerts and should be checked regularly. It’s your phone bill.
Incredible PBX 2020-PUBLIC uses the ipset utility in conjunction with the IPtables firewall to block several countries that have inordinately high concentrations of folks that try to break into VoIP servers. In addition, your public PBX includes the VoIP Blacklist which includes another 100,000 bad guys from around the globe. These blacklists get updated every night by a script which is run from /etc/crontab. For your own safety, don’t disable or delete /etc/update-voipbl.sh or the other components upon which it relies.
Here are some other things you should do regularly to assure that your server remains secure. Login via SSH/Putty as root and check pbxstatus after the Automatic Update Utility is run. With the exception of the fax components, all the other items should be green all the time. From the Linux CLI, run: iptables -nL. This will show your firewall rules and whether any IP addresses have been banned by Fail2Ban. If there are banned IP addresses that are not your own, please open a thread on the VoIP-Info Forum and let us know about it. If there are dozens of banned IP addresses, shutdown your server immediately until the problem is identified and resolved. If the IP addresses happen to be your own users because of using incorrect passwords or because of using a server IP address instead of its FQDN for SIP registrations, unban the IP address:
fail2ban-client set asterisk unbanip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Finally, watch the Asterisk CLI periodically for abnormal activity: asterisk -rvvvvvvvvvv
Tightening Up SSH Server Access
You obviously need a very secure root password for access to your server using SSH/Putty. Changing the TCP port for SSH access avoids the script kiddies, but it doesn’t offer much protection from a determined cracker. SSH login attempts are monitored by Fail2Ban, but Fail2Ban has issues when a determined intruder is using a powerful computing platform such as Amazon EC2. The more prudent solution is to disable SSH port access and use SSH Public Key Authentication as documented in the linked tutorial. Always, always use ssh-copy-id to copy your credentials to more than one desktop machine so that you don’t inadvertently lock yourself out of your PBX in the case of a hardware failure.
Web Access to Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC
By default, web access to all apps including FreePBX, UCP, AvantFax, AsteriDex, and Reminders is limited to whitelisted IP addresses. For some implementations, particularly those using Clearly Anywhere, this may not be ideal as UCP can assist with user management of the PBX as well as QR code provisioning of Clearly Anywhere. The Apache web server can be used to manage web access so long as you understand the need to apply Apache security patches in a timely manner.
Assign the same FQDN that you use for SIP access to port 80 for the UCP application. Deploy OpenVPN on your server and use the PBX’s OpenVPN IP address for general access to all web applications we listed above. If you’d like public access to the FreePBX GUI, assign web access for it to another random port, e.g. 8080 in our example below. Block web access to your server from the public IP address of your PBX on both port 80 and 8080 in our example below. Here’s how to accomplish that. Create a new file in /etc/pbx/httpdconf. Create public.conf with the following contents:
Listen 8080 <virtualhost *:80> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName 111.112.113.114 Redirect 403 / UseCanonicalName Off UserDir disabled </virtualhost> <virtualhost *:8080> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName 111.112.113.114 Redirect 403 / UseCanonicalName Off UserDir disabled </virtualhost> <virtualhost *:80> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName server-fqdn.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html/ucp ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error_log CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access_log common </virtualhost> <virtualhost *:80> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName 10.8.0.123 DocumentRoot /var/www/html ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error_log CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access_log common </virtualhost> <virtualhost *:8080> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName server-fqdn.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error_log CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access_log common </virtualhost> <virtualhost 127.0.0.1:80> ServerAdmin you@gmail.com ServerName 127.0.0.1 ServerAlias localhost DocumentRoot /var/www/html </virtualhost>
In the ServerAdmin lines, insert your email address. Replace 111.112.113.114 with the public IP address of your server. Replace server-fqdn.com with the FQDN assigned for SIP registration access to your PBX. Replace 10.8.0.123 with the OpenVPN private IP address of your PBX. Replace 8080 with the port you chose for FreePBX access to your server. Save the file and then restart Apache: systemctl restart httpd.
Now it should be safe to open TCP port 80 and 8080 (or whatever port you chose) for web access to your server. Let’s also whitelist TCP 2267 for Clearly Anywhere access while we’re at it:
cd /etc/sysconfig sed -i 's/10000:20000 -j ACCEPT/&\\n-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT/' iptables sed -i 's/10000:20000 -j ACCEPT/&\\n-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT/' iptables sed -i 's/10000:20000 -j ACCEPT/&\\n-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 2267 -j ACCEPT/' iptables iptables-restart
Be sure to test all three access methods to verify that you haven’t left a security hole.
Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current
We strongly recommend that you periodically update all of your FreePBX modules to eliminate bugs and to reduce security vulnerabilities. From the Linux CLI, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:
rm -f /tmp/* fwconsole ma upgradeall fwconsole reload /root/sig-fix systemctl restart apache2 /root/sig-fix
Special Thanks: We want to give an extra special tip of the hat to the VoIP-Info Forum members who assisted in working the kinks out of the Incredible PBX PUBLIC offering. We also wish to thank JavaPipe LLC for a number of DDOS tips and tricks in securing CentOS 7 with IPtables.
Originally published: Monday, December 30, 2019 Updated: Monday, September 28. 2020
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
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