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JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiCoping with Coronavirus: Working from Home with Asterisk
If one can only claim to be an expert in one subject matter, ours would be working from home building and deploying Asterisk®-based VoIP servers. We’ve been doing it for more than a decade. And, as the need for social distancing becomes imperative with the spread of COVID-19, working from home is by far the best antidote. For those with jobs in an actual office, you still need your computer and you still need transparent office phone call access. With an Internet connection, we will assume you can handle setting up a home computer on your own. So our focus today will be on showing you how to add your office phone to your home with VoIP to make and receive business calls with less pain than a WalMart checkout lane.
Here’s what you need:
- Home Internet Connection (15DN/5UP Mbps or faster)
- WiFi Router (Google Nest strongly recommended)
- Desktop or Notebook Computer (recent vintage)
- SIP Telephone (Incredible PBX SIP Phone recommended)
- Incredible PBX 2020 platform (VirtualBox or Raspberry Pi – both are free)
- VirtualBox software for your PC/Mac or a Raspberry Pi 4 for stand-alone PBX
- A quiet room at home with no screaming kids or barking dogs
- Smartphone with SIP software (optional for those that continue to travel)
We’ve written extensively about most of the components listed above so we will refer you to appropriate articles as we proceed. The plan is to build a free Incredible PBX® platform in your home and use it to receive calls from your office number and to make calls spoofing your office number so that those on the other end of the calls never know you’re not sitting at your desk in the office but are instead working from home.
Choosing an Incredible PBX Platform for Home Use
Once you have your network and desktop PC, Mac, or notebook computer set up at home, you have a decision to make. You can either run Incredible PBX as a task on this computer using VirtualBox, which means the computer needs to be operational all the time, or you can elect to build your Incredible PBX platform on a $35 Raspberry Pi 4 in which case your PBX is independent from your desktop or notebook computer. If you elect to run Incredible PBX on your home computer as a VirtualBox virtual machine, then follow this tutorial to install VirtualBox and the Incredible PBX 2020 virtual machine. If you decide to go the stand-alone route using a Raspberry Pi 4 as a dedicated platform for Incredible PBX 2020, then follow this tutorial to put all the pieces in place.
We typically run our remote systems using a Raspberry Pi 4 and a SIP phone, both with Wi-Fi connections. This means you can find a quiet place in your home to set up your office without worrying about network cables. Assuming you have good Internet service and a modern WiFi router such as the Google Nest device, you’ll never miss a beat. You can even drink on the job.
Choosing a VoIP Provider To Make & To Receive Calls
Even with your own PBX, you still need a connection to one or more VoIP service providers before you can communicate with those outside your network. Because we want to emulate your office phone environment, you probably will want a dedicated phone number and separate telephone to receive incoming calls from your office. This preserves the caller’s perception that he or she is dealing with you in your business capacity. We don’t want Junior answering incoming calls and shouting, "Daddy, somebody wants to talk to you."
We’re assuming that most business phone systems have the capacity to forward incoming calls to an external number. In this case, we recommend a new phone number known as a DID in the VoIP world. For outbound calls from your dedicated SIP phone, we will show you how to reset the outbound CallerID number to match your existing office phone number. Thus, both incoming and outgoing calls will appear to be emanating from your office.
As some of you know, in the VoIP world with Incredible PBX, the VoIP merchant providing your DID for incoming calls need not be the same as the company providing outbound call service. The cost of DIDs typically ranges from a few cents a month to a dollar or more. Most impose a per minute charge of about a penny a minute or less for both incoming and outgoing calls. The only mandatory requirement is that you choose an outbound call service that allows you to spoof your office’s CallerID number on the outbound calls. You probably will also want a CallerID Name (CNAM) service that associates names with incoming calls.
Both the Incredible PBX for VirtualBox and IncrediblePBX for the Raspberry Pi articles (links above) have extensive tutorials to deploy the various VoIP providers that we recommend. Just keep in mind that you usually get what you pay for. Cheaper isn’t always better when it comes to business communications.
Setting Up a SIP Phone for Incredible PBX 2020
You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. You don’t want callers and people you call to think you’re living in a tunnel so we recommend dedicated hardware for your SIP phone. The Incredible PBX SIP Phones are second to none and are very reasonably priced. In the FreePBX® GUI, simply navigate to Settings -> Clearly Devices. Here’s a tutorial to get you started and link your phone to the preconfigured SIP extension 701 on your PBX.
If price is your primary consideration, take a look at the Grandstream WiFi SIP phones. Refurbished Grandstream GXV3240 phones (a favorite of ours) are available for under $120.
Configuring an Inbound Route for Your Business Calls
For purposes of this tutorial, we will assume that you connected your new SIP phone to extension 701 on your PBX. Now we need to tell the PBX to route incoming calls from your office to your newly registered SIP phone on extension 701. Using a web browser, open the FreePBX GUI by pointing to the IP address of your PBX. Login as admin using the password you configured with /root/admin-pw-change. Once the FreePBX Dashboard displays, navigate to Connectivity -> Inbound Routes. Add a new route using the 10-digit number of the DID you acquired. As the Destination for the calls, choose Extension: 701. Click SAVE and reload your dialplan when prompted. Be sure you have also forwarded your office number to the new DID. Then place a test call to your office to verify everything is working properly.
Configuring an Outbound Route for Your Business Calls
A Default Outbound Route is automatically configured for Incredible PBX 2020. We need to modify it to route calls to your preferred trunk provider AND to specify the Outbound CallerID number for the calls as your 10-digit office number. In the FreePBX GUI, navigate to Connectivity -> Outbound Routes. Click on the pencil icon to the right of the Default route. In the Route CID field, enter the 10-digit number of your office. Change the Override Extension field from NO to YES. In the top entry of Trunk Sequences, use the pulldown menu to choose the Trunk Provider you want to use for outbound calls. Then click Submit and reload the dialplan when prompted. Place a test call from your SIP phone to a smartphone and make certain the incoming call displays your office phone number. If not, check with your SIP provider for the necessary steps to enable CallerID number spoofing.
Taking The Show On The Road
Once your home PBX is operational, there’s no reason you have to be tied to your desk at home all day. It’s easy to take the show on the road with an Android phone to make and receive your office calls. We use Android phone advisedly. Our experience with VoIP softphone connections using iPhones has always been hit and miss. And, with your business calls, we don’t think the platform is sufficiently reliable to recommend it. When you get incoming calls from your PBX, you want your smartphone to ring. When you make or receive calls on your smartphone, you want both ends of the conversation to be crystal clear. On the Android platform using the VitalPBX Communicator (free), it just works. We’ve had very different results using an iPhone.
If all you care about is receiving business calls (not making them) when away from your home, then an iPhone will work just as well as an Android phone. To set this up, just add your 10-digit cellphone number plus a # symbol after the number to the 777 Ring Group and make that ring group the destination for the Inbound Route for your office number in the FreePBX GUI. But if you prefer to make calls in both directions just as if you were sitting at your office desk, you’ll need a softphone on an Android device. Keep reading to learn how to set this up.
To get started, you’ll need to set up an OpenVPN server on some platform with a static IP address. Many businesses already have an OpenVPN server in which case you can ride on that one. Our OpenVPN tutorial will walk you through setting up your own and adding OpenVPN clients to both your Raspberry Pi and your Android smartphone. Once you have the clients installed, write down the private VPN addresses of both the Raspberry Pi and your Android phone. Next, on your Android phone, download and install the VitalPBX Communicator from the Google Play Store. In the FreePBX GUI, choose one of your preinstalled extensions to host the Android softphone and make note of the extension number and its password. Then use the Account Assistant in the Communicator to configure the connection on the smartphone end. Once it is registered, place a test call to make sure everything is working. Next we recommend changing the destination of the inbound calls to Ring Group 777 which will attempt to ring all five of the default extensions. Place a call to your office number and make sure that both your SIP phone and VitalPBX Communicator on your Android phone ring.
Continue Reading: Interconnecting a Mobile PBX to the Asterisk Mothership
Originally published: March 15, 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.
Travelin’ Man 3: A Plug-and-Play Firewall for Incredible PBX
Seven years ago we introduced Travelin’ Man 3 to simplify the task of securing the Incredible PBX® VoIP platforms. Today we want to reexamine the Travelin’ Man 3 firewall design for the benefit of those that are new to Asterisk® and FreePBX®. In the old days, FreePBX-based VoIP servers were notoriously vulnerable because of numerous bugs in the original FreePBX code which was developed by dozens of developers around the world with very different skill sets. Not only did you risk having your server compromised, but there also was a very real risk of receiving a staggering phone bill for calls that neither you nor your users made.
Travelin’ Man 3 introduced a new security model by providing a whitelist-based, plug-and-play firewall for Incredible PBX servers using the Linux IPtables firewall platform. If the IP address of a device wasn’t listed in the firewall, then that device could not even see your PBX much less access it. SSH access, web access, SIP and IAX2 access all were blocked.
The whitelist design worked great so long as your PBX and all of your phones shared the same private network. But then came deployment of PBXs in the cloud on the wide open Internet. And, of course, there were traveling salesmen that moved from place to place with new IP addresses at every new hotel. And then there were the users with dynamic IP addresses whose IP address identity changed without much warning.
To address these limitations, Travelin’ Man 3 provided the add-ip script to whitelist new IP addresses. The setup included the ability to limit IP addresses to a certain group of features on the PBX such as SIP, IAX2, SSH, and web access. Or the administrator could enable full access to the PBX for a given IP address.
That solved the new IP address issue, but it wasn’t of much use to those with ever-changing dynamic IP addresses. Thus was born the add-fqdn addition which could be used in combination with a dynamic DNS provider to assign a fully-qualified domain name to a device and keep it regularly updated. An additional ipchecker script was also added as a cron job to pass IP address changes along to the IPtables firewall every 10 minutes.
To round out the Incredible PBX whitelist design, we added PortKnocker to protect administrators from locking themselves out of their own server. We added Travelin’ Man 4, OpenVPN and the NeoRouter VPN to facilitate easy access without resorting to the add-ip and add-fqdn utilities. Private LAN addresses are automatically whitelisted with Travelin’ Man 3 so deploying SIP phones with native VPN capability remains the simplest and safest connectivity option.
One key feature that sets Travelin’ Man 3 apart from other firewall alternatives is the fact that it’s plug-and-play. When you install any of the Incredible PBX 2020 platforms, your IPtables firewall and whitelist are automatically configured. The only requirement is that you perform the second phase of the Incredible PBX install using SSH or Putty from a desktop machine that will be used to manage your PBX. In that way, your desktop PC gets automatically whitelisted as part of the install process. And, as previously noted, all devices on the same private LAN or VPN as your Incredible PBX server have total access without jumping through any additional configuration hoops.
Let’s take a moment to examine how Travelin’ Man 3 works under the covers. First, it’s important to note that IPtables does not support FQDNs, only IP addresses. So, if you add an FQDN entry to the IPtables startup file, it gets translated into a static IP address when IPtables is started. More importantly, if that FQDN happens to be unresolvable when IPtables is started because the remote computer is off-line for some reason, then IPtables crashes and never deploys any of its other rules leaving your PBX totally exposed. For this reason, Travelin’ Man 3 handles firewall startup in a unique way. First, it loads some basic firewall rules, all of which have static IP addresses. These rules are found in the startup script: /etc/sysconfig/iptables on RedHat and CentOS platforms and /etc/iptables/rules.v4 on Debian, Ubuntu, and Raspbian platforms. Then, once IPtables is running, it executes the /usr/local/sbin/iptables-custom script with individual IPtables commands to deploy the remaining whitelist entries including FQDNs. When an individual IPtables command fails in this BASH script, the script simply moves on to the next rule without burning down the house. The only damage is an individual FQDN is not whitelisted. But the computer with this FQDN was off-line anyway so there’s no impact on the operation of your PBX. Once that computer comes back on line, it’s simple enough to whitelist the FQDN again. This is a long-winded explanation of why it’s important on Incredible PBX platforms to start and restart IPtables with the iptables-restart script rather than using systemctl restart iptables. The latter would only load the basic IPtables rules in the startup script and not iptables-custom.
Now that you know how Travelin’ Man 3 works, you may be wondering why FQDN support was never integrated into the IPtables design. We’ve wondered much the same thing and never got much of an answer from the developers other than a cryptic response that IPtables worked as designed. Oh well. What we also have found is there is substantial institutional resistance to whitelist firewall implementations even though they provide the most secure computing environment for most deployments. Blacklists, standing alone, simply don’t work because either the bad guys poison the blacklist with legitimate IP addresses (such as the DNS servers upon which you rely) or the bad guys move on to a new IP address which has not yet been added to the blacklist.
We’d be the first to admit that additional flexibility may be desirable in certain edge cases particularly where end-users must rely upon a smartphone on the road with little more than a softphone app available to connect back to the mothership. But, again, we would strongly recommend deploying OpenVPN on all your devices and sticking with a whitelist solution for most scenarios. For those that can’t or won’t, take a look at the Incredible PBX PUBLIC offering as an alternative. It strikes a good balance using a combination of blacklists, some security through obscurity tricks, and implementation of rules blocking most script kiddies.
Originally published: Monday, March 9, 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.
An Incredible PBX Cloud Platform That’s Second to None
With mixed results, we’ve invested a lot of time scouring the Internet for reasonably priced cloud platform solutions for Incredible PBX®. The fatal flaw with many of the low-cost providers was bankruptcy. But today we have a winning solution that we’ve used for many years with excellent results. Vultr’s latest offer of a 30-day $100 credit means you can test out the performance levels of various Vultr instances to determine which best meets your needs. You can also try out their automatic backup service. In addition to providing a terrific platform for your VoIP server, this latest Vultr deal also provides financial assistance to Nerd Vittles to assist with future development of the Incredible PBX project. When the dust settles for most users, we think you’ll find their $5/month plan is more than adequate to host Incredible PBX and another $1/month buys you automatic backups. Setup takes 30 minutes.
To get started, follow our Vultr referral link and sign up for a new account with your email address. Then deploy a new Cloud Compute instance in your choice of the locations shown above. Next choose 64-bit CentOS 7 as your Server Type. Then select the $5/month 25GB Server Size with 1GB RAM and 1TB monthly bandwidth. Choose a Server Hostname and click Deploy Now. CAUTION: Make sure you select CentOS 7 and not the default CentOS 8 platform!
Penny for Your Thoughts. One of the real beauties of Vultr is you pay by the hour for your instances. It only takes a minute or so to delete an instance and create a new one. If you’re new to Incredible PBX and VoIP servers, this makes it easy to experiment with the setup process until you are happy with the results. And the setup cost for a functioning Incredible PBX platform is about a penny. You’ll be hard-pressed to use up your $100 credit.
Installing Incredible PBX. Once your instance has been created, open an SSH or Putty session on your desktop PC and login to the IP address of your instance as root. You can copy-and-paste your default password from the Vultr dashboard. When you’ve successfully logged in, immediately change your default root password and follow the steps below to install Incredible PBX. It takes about 30 minutes to complete the process.
passwd yum -y update yum -y install net-tools nano wget tar cd /root wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz tar zxvf incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz rm -f incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz # add a swap file for your instance ./create-swapfile-DO # kick off Phase I install ./IncrediblePBX2020.sh # after reboot, kick off Phase II install ./IncrediblePBX2020.sh # set desired timezone ./timezone-setup # set FreePBX admin password ./admin-pw-change # set Apache admin password for AsteriDex and Reminders ./apache-pw-change # display your passwords ./show-passwords # optionally install Incredible Fax 2020 ./incrediblefax2020.sh # set up NeoRouter VPN client, if desired nrclientcmd # check network speed and smile wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest.py chmod +x speedtest-cli ./speedtest-cli
Getting Started with Incredible PBX. Before you can actually make and receive calls using Incredible PBX, you’ll need to sign up with a SIP provider and configure a trunk, define how your PBX should route incoming and outgoing calls, and finally install and configure at least one softphone or SIP phone. All of this is accomplished using the FreePBX® GUI and your favorite web browser. Begin by pointing your browser to the IP address of your server. Login as admin using the password you configured with admin-pw-change above.
The way a PBX works is straight-forward. For incoming calls, the PBX identifies the Trunk delivering the incoming call, looks up the Inbound Route for that Trunk, and delivers the call to a destination specified in that route. This could be a phone registered to an Extension on your PBX, or it could be a group of phones known as a Ring Group, or it could be some other destination such as an IVR or AutoAttendant which answers the incoming call and provides the caller with a choice of options that define how the incoming call should be routed.
For outgoing calls, someone with a phone registered to the PBX picks up the phone and dials a number. The PBX looks through its defined Outbound Routes to identify how calls matching that Dial String should be handled. For example, 3-digit and 4-digit calls might be routed to an internal extension, 7-digit calls might have an area code automatically added as a prefix before sending the call to a specified Trunk provider, 10-digit calls might be routed to a different Trunk provider, and calls beginning with 01144 might be routed to yet another Trunk provider that offers inexpensive calling rates to the United Kingdom. Unlike traditional Ma Bell phone service, with VoIP calling, there is rarely a penalty for deploying multiple Trunk providers since most of the services offered are on a pay-as-you-go basis. If you don’t make any calls on a particular trunk in a given month, you don’t get a bill even though most providers require at least a minimal deposit to cover the costs of any calls you actually make.
Choosing a SIP Provider. Incredible PBX 2020 comes preconfigured with support for five SIP extensions and five of the major SIP providers: Skyetel, VoIP.ms, V1VoIP, Anveo Direct, and ClearlyIP. Both Skyetel and ClearlyIP financially support Nerd Vittles and our open source projects, and both offer clearly superior platforms with crystal-clear communications and redundancy so you never miss a call. Both also set themselves apart from the other providers in the support department. They actually respond to issues, and there’s never a charge. As the old saying goes, they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Even without taking advantage of Nerd Vittles half-price offer on up to $500 of Skyetel services, both are still dirt cheap compared to the Bell Sisters and cable companies. Skyetel is so sure you’ll love their service that they give you a $10 credit to kick the tires before you ever spend a dime. Traditional DIDs are $1 per month. Outbound conversational calls are $0.012 per minute. Incoming conversational calls are a penny a minute, and CallerID lookups are $0.004. You only pay for minutes you use. Once you’re satisfied with the service and fund your account, you can port in your existing DIDs at no cost for 60 days after signup with Skyetel.
Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020
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 use SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel utilizes 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 2020:
- 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 for Incredible PBX 2020
ClealyIP Trunking is perhaps the easiest to configure because the entire setup including registration is managed in the FreePBX GUI. Choose Connectivity -> Clearly Trunking -> Sign Up. Next click Login/Signup then Home then Start Your Free Trial to get started.
ClearlyIP Trunking provides E911 features that enable your organization to be Kari’s Law and Ray Baum Act compliant out of the box. You also have a choice of buckets of minutes providing expandable call paths or pay-by-the-minute service or a combination of the two. Unlike others, CNAM lookups and E911 support are included in the price of all their services.
Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2020
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 2020 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 2020
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 2020
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 Softphone for Incredible PBX 2020
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 can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be 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. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. 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 PIAF 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.
Audio Issues with Incredible PBX 2020
If you experience one-way or no audio on some calls, add your external IP address and LAN subnet in the GUI by navigating to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. In the NAT Settings section, click Detect Network Settings. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.
Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX 2020
In order to receive voicemails by email delivery, outbound mail functionality from your server obviously is required. If you’ve deployed your server in your home, your Internet Service Provider probably blocks downstream mail servers such as Incredible PBX from sending mail. This is done to reduce SPAM. In this case, you will need to configure 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. Here are the steps using a Gmail account:
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
At Vultr, you may need to open a ticket and request that TCP port 25 be unblocked. Then you can send mail without using a SmartHost; however, your server's hostname must actually be real or downstream mail servers will reject your mail. You can set your server's hostname like this: hostname noreply.incrediblepbx.com. This is usually sufficient; however, it's a good idea to also add the hostname in /etc/hostname and in /etc/hosts as the first entry on 127.0.0.1 line:
127.0.0.1 noreply.incrediblepbx.com pbx.local localhost
Next, test outbound mail using this command with your actual email address:
echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@youremaildomain.com
Once you are sure your emails are being delivered reliably, here's a sample GUI voicemail configuration for an extension:
Getting Started with Incredible Fax 2020
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. 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. Before proceeding, be sure to set an Apache web apps password by running /root/apache-pw-change. Next, login to AvantFax with your browser. You first will be prompted for your Apache credentials. Enter admin for the username and whatever password you set up in the previous step. Then you will be prompted for your AvantFax credentials. The default is 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.
Where To Go From Here
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.
HINT: An Incredible PBX server on Vultr makes an ideal platform for your OpenVPN server.
Originally published: Monday, March 2, 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.
Future-Proofing FreePBX Distro with Incredible PBX Skin
If you’ve been following along on Sangoma’s FreePBX® power grab and are waiting for the next shoe to drop on the PBX that your users depend upon to conduct business and make emergency calls, we now have a non-intrusive solution for those on the FreePBX Distro platform. By installing the Incredible PBX branding module and updating to the patched Framework module on your PBX, you can insulate yourself from future Sangoma surprises including potential ramifications arising from revocation of the original FreePBX signing key.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A FORK OF THE FREEPBX PROJECT. IT IS AN EMERGENCY PATCH TO NEUTRALIZE THE DAMAGE POSED BY SANGOMA’S PUBLIC THREAT TO DISRUPT THE COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES OF APPROPRIATELY LICENSED INCREDIBLE PBX 2020 TRUNKING PLATFORMS ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2020. See 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(7).
The Incredible PBX branding module is owned by Clearly IP and, with their permission, it is being offered at no cost for use on FreePBX Distro platforms pursuant to the terms of the AGPLv3 license. What does it do? In a nutshell, it gets you out from under the yoke of Sangoma for module administration and unauthorized tampering with your PBX.
Here are the specifics on what deployment of the Incredible PBX branding module will do:
- Rebrands FreePBX with Incredible PBX logos and artwork.
- Adds Incredible PBX and Nerd Vittles RSS Feeds to the FreePBX Dashboard.
- Disables the flow of proprietary info about your phones, trunks, and usage to Sangoma.
- Offers multiple module repository setups (soon) for sites with varying technical skillsets.
- Links Incredible PBX to ClearlyIP stores for Trunking and Incredible Phone purchases.
- Supports multiple GPG key signatures including the original FreePBX GPG key.
- Connects Module Admin to ClearlyIP Module Repos for future FreePBX updates.
As if the last few weeks haven’t provided enough reasons for any administrator to separate their PBX from the whims of Sangoma, here are some other factors which, we believe, make this migration compelling:
- Future-proofs your PBX from future Sangoma surprises that may damage your PBX.
- Provides a more redundant repository platform unlike Sangoma’s fragile repository.
- Provides instant access to all ClearlyIP-developed modules moving forward.
- Provides instant access to all existing and future FreePBX module releases.
- Addition of future Incredible PBX components is exclusively on an opt-in basis.
- Provides access to ClearlyIP Trunking module with integrated SMS and Kari’s Law 911.
- Provides access to Incredible IP Phone store for plug-and-play SIP telephones.
- Provides a revenue stream for Incredible PBX and ClearlyIP future development.
Deploying the Incredible PBX Branding Module
This deployment guide assumes you have a functioning FreePBX Distro platform with FreePBX 15, Linux 7.x, and Asterisk 16. If not, start here. Otherwise, login to the FreePBX web GUI as an administrator and perform the following steps:
- Make a Backup (Admin • Backup & Restore • Add Backup)
- Download the Incredible PBX Module to your Desktop PC
- Install the Module (Admin • Module Admin • Upload Module from Hard Disk)
- Update the patched Framework Module (Admin • Module Admin • Check Online)
- Install Clearly Devices and Trunking Module, if desired
- Verify all is well by viewing FreePBX Dashboard (see screenshot above)
Originally published: Tuesday, February 11, 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.
Sangoma Developments Affecting All FreePBX Users
On Friday evening, Sangoma announced that they would be revoking the FreePBX® signing key of Clearly IP. The key was independently developed and copyrighted by Rob Thomas, who was the original developer of FreePBX. As we indicated in a previous article, we suspect that this is merely the first step in a process to replace Rob Thomas’s GPG key with a Sangoma-proprietary key. Indeed, tired_runner on the DSL Reports forum has reported that he "installed Framework 15.0.16.38 which apparently refreshes GPG keys before reading this thread. Dashboard kept complaining that version 15.0.16.30 I was running was vulnerable." Further surprises may be in store for FreePBX users tomorrow which is the day Sangoma indicated on Friday that they would be revoking the Clearly IP signing key. You can read all sides of the dispute in this thread on the FreePBX Forum. You should also review Rob Thomas’ comments on the PIAF Forum.
Unfortunately, this is an outcome we predicted about five years ago when Rob was first developing the signature checking module. While Rob intended it to be nothing more than an integrity check, it has been transformed into a commercial weapon just as we predicted. It’s the primary reason that Incredible PBX servers have always been shipped with module signature checking disabled. Pretty sad day for the open source community and a company that professed to care deeply for its users.
For those who already have deployed Incredible PBX 2020, you should immediately log into your server as root and allow the Automatic Update Utility to load the necessary patches to assure that your server still will be operational tomorrow on February 17. There are serious legal penalties, both state and federal, for anyone that tampers with the operation of a computer system which they do not own. Should this happen to you, please let us know, and we will assemble the necessary information to provide to any future legal counsel that may be retained to represent the class of affected users.
For those considering a new PBX and for your own peace of mind, we would encourage you to choose one of the Incredible PBX 2020 platforms, all of which have now been patched to provide a smooth transition to the ClearlyIP mirror servers for FreePBX module updates. Versions are available for CentOS 7, Raspbian 10, and VirtualBox.
We want to take a moment to express our sincere thanks to the Clearly IP development team which worked around the clock this weekend to assure that nobody would be needlessly harmed by Sangoma’s conduct. THANK YOU!
We will provide further details in coming days. So stay tuned for updates.
7 p.m. Sunday UPDATE: Sangoma reportedly has granted a one-week reprieve. Generous.
Valentine’s Day UPDATE: Without addressing whether revocation of the FreePBX Master Key was under consideration, Sangoma now denies any plan to revoke the FreePBX Master Key:
Continue reading: Future-Proofing FreePBX Distro with Incredible PBX Skin
Originally published: Sunday, February 9, 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.
Sangoma’s New FreePBX Gotchas With Module Signatures
The ink was barely dry on Bill Wignall’s December Ode to Open Source in which the CEO sang the praises of Sangoma’s commitment to open source development and extolled the virtues of "reinventing the ways in which we foster relationships with you, our open source community." We’ve now learned that Sangoma is planning to revoke the master key used to sign every FreePBX® module. It will be replaced with a new master key. This affects every developer with an existing GPG key signed by the soon-to-be revoked master key. The practical effect is that every existing FreePBX module will either cease to function or trigger security alerts in the Dashboard of your PBX until every module is updated. In addition, it means every developer will have to apply to have their GPG key resigned with the new master key. We were curious why Sangoma would take such a Draconian step until we read the Module Signature Checking Wiki which was modified by the Sangoma General Counsel yesterday. Here’s the new language that will trigger key revocation from open source developers of FreePBX products:
You have developed and/or are utlizing a module with FreePBX for which you are directly or indirectly generating revenue or commercial advantage and you have not entered into a commercial agreement with Sangoma that protects its commercial interests and its intellectual property
UPDATE: Without addressing whether revocation of the FreePBX Master Key was under consideration, Sangoma now denies any plan to revoke the FreePBX Master Key. See this thread on the FreePBX Forum.
You may recall that AstriCon this year featured zero outside commercial products and organizations. Now it appears Sangoma is taking much the same monopolistic approach on the open source side of the house. And you wonder why Incredible PBX® has always disabled module signature checking.
Fortunately, for those who have deployed Incredible PBX 2020, you have nothing to worry about because every new release of Incredible PBX 2020 utilizes the Clearly IP repository. This assures no interruption in the operation of your PBX.
Before your PBX self-destructs, there’s a simple fix for those using Incredible PBX 13-13 and Incredible PBX 16-15 releases. Although we haven’t tested other distributions, this fix should work fine with all other FreePBX 13 and 15 implementations. Other than rebranding your PBX and changing the destination for module updates, this update makes no other changes to your PBX. Deploying the IncrediblePBX module will also make the Clearly IP Trunking and Phones modules available in the new repository. We’ll be covering these in detail in coming weeks. For those updating a non-Incredible PBX platform, remember to make a backup before proceeding. If you experience problems, post a comment and we’ll get you a quick fix.
Here’s how to download and install the new IncrediblePBX module which will enable the Clearly IP repository on any FreePBX 13 or 15-based server:
cd /var/www/html/admin/modules wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx-13.03.tgz tar zxvf incrediblepbx-13.03.tgz rm -f incrediblepbx-13.03.tgz fwconsole ma install incrediblepbx fwconsole reload fwconsole restart
If you also wish to add support for the new Incredible PBX IP phones including plug-and-play endpoint management and configuration, here’s how. If your system still uses FreePBX 13, be advised that phone apps such as follow-me are not supported because of system limitations on the FreePBX 13 platform.
cd /var/www/html/admin/modules wget http://incrediblepbx.com/clearlydevices.tgz tar zxvf clearlydevices.tgz rm -f clearlydevices.tgz fwconsole ma install clearlydevices fwconsole reload fwconsole restart
These latest developments suggest that perhaps the time has come for a new steward for the FreePBX GPL modules, an organization that actually respects the interests of the open source development community. Stay tuned.
Sangoma Blinks: Here is a belated response from the FreePBX developers.
Originally published: Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Return of Free Voicemail Transcription & Voice Dialing
It’s been a bumpy road for Speech-to-Text solutions with Asterisk® since Google pulled the rug out from under their (formerly) free offering. We found a partial solution with IBM’s offering which now provides 500 free minutes a month on their LITE plan, or you can choose their Standard Pricing Plan and pay 2¢ a minute for all you can eat. Be advised that the IBM offerings have changed three times in the last year. But we’ve been searching for turnkey voicemail transcription and voice dialer offerings that could be incorporated into Incredible PBX 2020 at no cost. And now we’ve found one thanks to Mozilla Machine Learning Group’s DeepSpeech project. Details here. We also want to thank @Stepan Novotill and @jerrm on the PIAF Forum for their work in bringing this project to fruition for the Asterisk community.
The instructions which follow should work fine with existing Incredible PBX 2020, Incredible PBX 16-15, and Incredible PBX 13-13 platforms running on CentOS 7. We haven’t tested on other platforms, but @jerrm has offered some tips for those using Debian/Raspbian.
Deploying Voicemail Transcription with DeepSpeech
Log into your server as root and issue these commands to install DeepSpeech components:
(NOTE: Lines 4, 5, and 6 below are actually part of a single line of code)
cd /usr/local/sbin yum -y install python3-pip wget pip3 install deepspeech wget -O - https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech/releases/download/v0.6.1/deepspeech-0.6.1-models.tar.gz | tar xzv --no-same-owner chown -R asterisk:asterisk deepspeech-0.6.1-models wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmail-deepspeech.tar.gz tar zxvf sendmail-deepspeech.tar.gz rm -f sendmail-deepspeech.tar.gz cp -p sendmailmp3.deepspeech sendmailmp3
In the FreePBX GUI, edit your extensions and enable voicemail with settings like these:
For delivery of transcribed voicemail messages to arrive in your email, you obviously must have outbound email working on your PBX. You can test this using the following command with your actual email address:
echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@gmail.com
If the email never arrives, first check your spam folder. If it’s not there, then chances are you have not configured an FQDN for your PBX properly. Try the following tips.
hostname noreply.incrediblepbx.com nano -w /etc/hosts
Make certain the 127.0.0.1 line in /etc/hosts begins like this:
127.0.0.1 noreply.incrediblepbx.com pbx.local
Deploying a Free Voice Dialer with DeepSpeech
Once you complete the steps above, it’s easy to deploy a free Voice Dialer for Asterisk on any Incredible PBX platform. This allows you to pick up a phone connected to your PBX, dial 411, and call any individual or company listed in your AsteriDex database by saying their name.
Issue the following commands to replace the default Incredible PBX Voice Dialer setup:
(NOTE: Lines 6 and 7 below are actually part of a single line of code)
cd /usr/local/sbin mv deepspeech-411.txt /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin mv getnumber2.sh /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin cd /etc/asterisk sed -i '\:// BEGIN Call by Name:,\:// END Call by Name:d' extensions_custom.conf sed -i '/\[from-internal-custom\]/r /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/deepspeech-411.txt' extensions_custom.conf asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
Now pick up a phone on your PBX and dial 411. When prompted, say "American Airlines" and then press the pound (#) key. You’ll be connected to American Airlines reservations. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, January 20, 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.
Introducing Plug-and-Play Incredible PBX IP Phones
Let’s face it. One of the most tedious tasks in setting up a new PBX is configuring all of the buttons on all of the SIP phones connected to your PBX. Finally, there’s a one-click solution with the new Incredible IP Phones from ClearlyIP. Using the Clearly IP Devices module included in every Incredible PBX 2020 platform, you can use a web browser to point-and-click your way through setting up one or multiple phone configurations which can be pushed to every phone by simply entering its MAC address and extension number. When changes are needed, simply modify the web configuration for the desired phones and the modifications are immediately pushed to the affected devices without ever rebooting any of the affected phones. If you only have a couple extensions attached to your PBX, this may not sound like a big deal; however, if you have hundreds of phones in dozens of locations, you’ve just saved yourself hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in labor costs.
Unlike the Sangoma "solution" there’s no costly FreePBX module required to auto-provision Incredible PBX phones. It’s an integral component of Incredible PBX 2020.
But don’t take our word for it. Watch Chris Sherwood’s YouTube video above and chuckle to yourself knowing that the first two of the four setup steps are already in place with every new Incredible PBX 2020 install.
Better yet, sign up for one of the (free) Tony Lewis webinars currently scheduled for this Tuesday, January 7, at 2 p.m. Eastern time or Friday, January 10 at 9 a.m. Eastern time. You may remember Tony as the former Chief Operating Officer at Sangoma until he resigned and started the new ClearlyIP organization in which he now serves as the CEO. Come join us!
We’ll hold off the tutorial for a bit to give everyone an opportunity to watch the video and attend one of the webinars on Tuesday. Be sure to sign up to reserve your place. Then check back here soon for the Incredible IP Phones tutorial.
Continue reading: ClearlyIP Introduces New Features for Incredible PBX Phones
Originally published: Sunday, January 5, 2020
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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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