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IBM’s Speech Recognition Engine Comes to Asterisk

Monday, March 20, 2017 / 1 Comment on IBM’s Speech Recognition Engine Comes to Asterisk



Eight years ago, we introduced transcription for Asterisk® voicemail messages. When the messages were delivered by email, you got both a recording and the transcribed text courtesy of Google. As with most things Google, the licensing terms changed regularly and voicemail transcription became more convoluted until it became next to worthless. Today we begin our new exploration of IBM’s Watson Developer Cloud. It offers a rich collection of services at unbelievably low price points. We’re kicking things off by introducing a better Speech-to-Text (STT) solution with IBM’s Bluemix. The STT API performs better than any speech recognition engine in the world. And you won’t have to worry about Google breaking our middleware every month. On the Lite plan, up to 100 minutes per month are free. Or you can opt for the Standard pay-as-you-go plan for 2¢ per minute and let your customers yack all they like. That works out to $1.20 an hour which still is pretty cheap secretarial help. In coming weeks, we will introduce IBM’s Text-to-Speech (TTS) offering and Lisa. Up to a million characters of TTS service monthly are free. Here’s a sample to give you a taste of the voice quality:

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/312693441″ params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="350″ iframe="true" /]

NOV. 1 UPDATE: IBM has moved the goal posts effective December 1, 2018:

For new deployments, your API Username will be apikey, and your API Password will be your actual APIkey.

Overview. What we’ve done today is integrate the STT Bluemix API directly into existing Asterisk voicemail systems. We started with Nicolas Bernaerts’ terrific sendmailmp3 script. It works on both the Wazo and FreePBX® platforms. If you have deployed Incredible PBX, then the setup takes a couple of minutes. For everyone else, there’s an additional configuration step using your favorite GUI. To get started, you’ll sign up for a Bluemix account and obtain your credentials. Next, you download today’s script for your platform and insert your credentials. Finally, you set up voicemail on the extensions desired and insert an email address for each voicemail account. On generic FreePBX systems, you’ll need to add the name of our script to manage your voicemail recordings.

What About the Quality? Here’s the bottom line. Speech recognition isn’t all that useful if it fails miserably in recognizing everyday speech. The good news is that IBM Watson’s speech recognition engine is now the best in the business. If you want more details, read the article below which will walk you through IBM’s latest speech recognition breakthrough:


Creating an IBM Bluemix Speech to Text Account

Follow this link to set up your IBM account and obtain credentials for both Speech to Text (STT) and Text to Speech (TTS) services. Please note that your STT and TTS API keys will NOT be the same. So don’t accidentally use the wrong one.
 

Installing STT Engine with Incredible PBX for Wazo

1. After logging into your Incredible PBX for Wazo server as root using SSH/Putty:

cd /usr/sbin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmailibm.tar.gz
tar zxvf sendmailibm.tar.gz
rm -f sendmailibm.tar.gz

2. Edit sendmailibm and insert Bluemix STT credentials on lines 29 and 30. Save the file.

3. Edit bluemix-test and insert Bluemix STT credentials on first two lines. Save the file.

4. Copy the updated sendmailibm file to sendmail:

cd /usr/sbin
cp -p sendmailibm sendmail

5. Test your Bluemix STT setup: bluemix-test

6. Result should be: please record your message after the beep

7. Set up voicemail account for a Wazo extension with your email address.

8. Place a test call to the extension and record a voicemail when prompted.

9. Your message will be transcribed and delivered via email.

 

Installing STT Engine with Incredible PBX for RasPi

1. After logging into your Raspberry Pi server as root using SSH/Putty:

cd /usr/sbin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmailibm-raspi.tar.gz
tar zxvf sendmailibm-raspi.tar.gz
rm -f sendmailibm-raspi.tar.gz

2. Edit sendmailmp3.ibm and insert Bluemix STT credentials on lines 28 and 29. Save file.

3. Edit bluemix-test and insert Bluemix STT credentials on first two lines. Save the file.

4. Copy the updated sendmailmp3.ibm file to sendmailmp3:

cd /usr/sbin
cp -p sendmailmp3.ibm sendmailmp3

5. Test your Bluemix STT setup: bluemix-test

6. Result should be: your dictation is now being processed and emailed please wait

7. Set up voicemail for a RasPi extension with your email address.

8. Place a test call to the extension and record a voicemail when prompted.

9. Your message will be transcribed and delivered via email.

 

Installing STT Engine with Incredible PBX 13

1. After logging into your Incredible PBX 13 server as root using SSH/Putty:

cd /usr/local/sbin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmailibm-13.tar.gz
tar zxvf sendmailibm-13.tar.gz
rm -f sendmailibm-13.tar.gz

2. Edit sendmailmp3.ibm and insert Bluemix STT credentials on lines 28 and 29. Save file.

3. Edit bluemix-test and insert Bluemix STT credentials on first two lines. Save the file.

4. Copy the updated sendmailmp3.ibm file to sendmailmp3:

cd /usr/local/sbin
cp -p sendmailmp3.ibm sendmailmp3

5. Test your Bluemix STT setup: bluemix-test

6. Result should be: we are now transferring you out of the company directory…

7. Set up voicemail for an extension and include your email address.

8. Place a test call to the extension and record a voicemail when prompted.

9. Your message will be transcribed and delivered via email.

 

Installing STT Engine with Legacy FreePBX® Servers

1. Follow steps #1 through #7 from the Incredible PBX 13 tutorial above.

2. Choose Settings -> Voicemail Admin -> Settings in the GUI.

3. In the format field, insert: wav|wav49

4. In the mailcmd field, insert: /usr/local/sbin/sendmailmp3

5. Click Submit to save your settings and then Reload the FreePBX Dialplan.

6. Place a test call to the extension and record a voicemail when prompted.

7. Your message will be transcribed and delivered via email.

Update: Matt Darnell reports that, depending upon your existing setup, you may need to add the unix2dos and lame packages with legacy FreePBX servers to get MP3 messages delivered correctly.

 

Originally published: Monday, March 20, 2017



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.
 

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Best of Both Worlds: Marrying Asterisk to 3CX’s Free PBX with a $35 Raspberry Pi

Monday, March 6, 2017 / 1 Comment on Best of Both Worlds: Marrying Asterisk to 3CX’s Free PBX with a $35 Raspberry Pi


One of the real beauties of Asterisk® has always been its flexibility in talking to other PBXs, both commercial and open source. There are numerous reasons why you might want to try this. First, it makes it easy to migrate to a commercial platform where you can get support for mission critical telephony requirements. Second, you may want a hybrid setup where servers with on-site support personnel can run Asterisk while remote satellite offices can take advantage of a commercial PBX and the support options it offers. Third, you may want to take advantage of specific features that are only available by relying upon multiple PBX solutions. In the case of 3CX, their integrated softphone clients with one-click setup simplicity, conferencing and WebRTC apps, and Call Center offerings are the best in the business while providing unmatched VoIP security. Asterisk on the other hand is light-years ahead of almost everybody in the text-to-speech and voice recognition fields while offering the most powerful VoIP toolkit to build any custom VoIP application imaginable.

Today we thought it would be fun to walk you through the easy way to tie an Incredible PBX server with all its features to a powerful (free) 3CX platform with its virtually flawless softphone clients.1 When we’re finished, you’ll have a free 3CX server in the Cloud at a one-time total cost of $17.50. And you’ll be able to place and receive free U.S./Canada calls from any iPhone, Android phone, or PC using the 3CX client from anywhere in the world with nothing more than a WiFi connection. The Google Voice trunk supporting the calls will reside on Incredible PBX for the Raspberry Pi. When you’re sold on the power of the 3CX platform, you can upgrade to the 3CX 4-simultaneous call commercial offering with unlimited users and trunks at an annual cost of just $149. Maintenance and upgrades are included. Large organizations have relied upon back office servers for custom applications forever. And now you can take advantage of the same flexibility using a tiny $35 Raspberry Pi and our free (as in really free) Incredible PBX software. No Gotchas!

Initial Raspberry Pi Platform Setup

Before we can interconnect 3CX’s Free PBX with a Raspberry Pi, you obviously have to set up both PBX platforms. For the Raspberry Pi, our recent Nerd Vittles tutorial will walk you through the setup process. In lieu of a Raspberry Pi, you can use any legacy FreePBX®-based Asterisk platform including Incredible PBX 13, PIAF3, Elastix®, AsteriskNOW®, or FreePBX Distro®. The setup procedure is exactly the same.

Building a 3CX Server in the Cloud

Building a 3CX server in the Cloud is equally easy. Let’s go through the process once again. If you’re just experimenting, a lifetime Cloud-based server at CloudAtCost for a one-time charge of $17.50 cannot be beat. We would hasten to add that we don’t recommend this platform for production use, but it’s a terrific proof-of-concept option. When you’re actually ready to deploy 3CX for production use, the least costly Cloud solution is the $3.49 per month OVH RAID offering with 2GB of RAM and 10GB storage. The $5 per month offerings from Digital Ocean and Vultr are other alternatives worth a look. Both of these platforms come with free credits ($10 and $20, respectively) to let you try things out.

To get started, sign up for a $17.50 server at Cloud at Cost. They will send you credentials to log into the Cloud at Cost Management Portal. Change your password IMMEDIATELY after logging in. Just go to SETTINGS and follow your nose.

To build your free 3CX PBX, create a virtual machine by clicking on the CLOUDPRO button in the CloudAtCost control panel. Then click Add New Server. Choose 1 CPU, 512MB RAM, and 10GB storage for your server. Choose Debian 8 64bit as the OS Type and click Complete.

While CloudAtCost is building your server platform, obtain a free license key for 3CX.

Once the Debian 8 server appears in your Control Panel, it will look something like what’s shown above, not CentOS obviously. The red arrow points to the i button you’ll need to click to decipher the password for your new virtual machine. You’ll need both the IP address and the password for your new virtual machine in order to log into the server which is now up and running with a barebones Debian 8 operating system. Note the yellow caution flag. That’s telling you that Cloud at Cost will automatically shut down your server in a week to save (them) computing resources. You can change the setting to keep your server running 24/7. Click Modify, Change Run Mode, and select Normal – Leave Powered On. Click Continue and OK to save your new settings.

Finally, you’ll want to change the Host Name for your server to something more descriptive than c7…cloudpro.92… Click the Modify button again and click Rename Server to make the change. Your management portal then will show the new server name as shown above.

Next, log in to your new Debian server as root using SSH or Putty and issue the commands below. Step #1 is to change your root password. What appears as the fourth line below is actually part of the third line and needs to be run as a single command. The last line to install SendMail will actually be run after you elect to use the Web Interface Wizard to configure 3CX. Just run it from the SSH command line before you switch to a browser to complete the 3CX setup.

passwd
wget -O- http://downloads.3cx.com/downloads/3cxpbx/public.key | apt-key add -
echo "deb http://downloads.3cx.com/downloads/3cxpbx/ /" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/3cxpbx.list
apt-get update
rm -f /zang-debian.sh
apt-get -y install 3cxpbx
apt-get -y install sendmail sendmail-bin

When the initial setup finishes, choose the Web Interface Wizard and complete the install using your favorite web browser. Enter your 3CX license key when prompted. Make up a very secure Username and Password to access your 3CX portal. Specify that your IP address is Dynamic when prompted (even though it isn’t). This tells 3CX to generate an FQDN for your server. Accept the default ports for HTTP (5000) and HTTPS (5001) access to your server. We recommend choosing 4-digit extensions numbers which will make it easy to distinguish 3CX extension numbers from 3-digit extension numbers of the RasPi platform. While logged into the 3CX management portal, adjust Settings → Email to Mail Server → 127.0.0.1 and Reply to → noreply@YourActual3CX-FQDN. Leave the other settings blank and click TEST then OK. Now download your favorite 3CX smartphone client, send yourself the Welcome Email for your default extension, and your 3CX initial setup is complete.

Server Interconnection Overview

Now we’re ready to interconnect the two servers. What we’ll be doing is creating Trunks on both the Raspberry Pi and the 3CX server and tying them together. We’ll use this trunk to handle the call traffic between the two PBXs. Then we’ll add incoming and outgoing call routes on both servers to specify how the individual calls should be routed. Because the free version of 3CX limits the administrator to a single trunk, we’ll offload all of the provider trunks to the Raspberry Pi and reserve the one available 3CX trunk as the interconnect path to the Raspberry Pi. For today’s setup, we’ll use 3CX’s free softphone clients as the actual phone devices for end-users. Of course, you could also use your favorite SIP phones, and 3CX provides automatic configuration for dozens of devices. But we want to introduce the 3CX smartphone clients because they provide an incredibly easy way to get users connected without having to worry about punching holes in firewalls.

To place outbound calls on the 3CX side, 3CX provides enormous flexibility in call routing. Because we chose 4-digit local extensions when we set up the 3CX server, it will make it easy to route other calls through the outbound trunk to the Raspberry Pi using nothing more than the length of the dial string. For example, 3-digit calls line up perfectly with extension numbers on the Incredible PBX for RasPi platform. So 3CX users can easily reach extensions connected directly to the Raspberry Pi. And 10-digit 3CX calls will be forwarded to the Raspberry Pi as traditional outbound calls. They will be processed just as if you had dialed a 10-digit call from a Raspberry Pi extension. For example, if you have a registered Google Voice trunk to handle 10-digit calls on the Raspberry Pi, then the same call path would be used for calls originating from 3CX extensions. And, yes, calls to the U.S. and Canada would still be free and would display the CallerID associated with the Raspberry Pi’s Google Voice trunk. You could get more creative and add an additional dialing prefix on the 3CX side to route specific types of calls to a designated outbound trunk on the Raspberry Pi side based upon the dialing prefix, but we’ll leave that as a homework project for you.

For incoming calls on the 3CX side, in addition to 4-digit local extension-to-extension calling, we can define the destination for incoming calls that originate from either a Raspberry Pi extension or from outside calls coming in from one of the Raspberry Pi’s provider trunks. These are managed by assigning one or more DIDs in the 3CX trunk configuration and then creating 3CX Inbound DID Rules that tell 3CX where to route calls to each defined DID. For 3CX softphone clients registered to extensions, it means your cellphone will ring whenever a call is routed to that particular extension. On the Raspberry Pi side, we create Incoming Call Routes for each DID to be routed to 3CX and specify our defined 3CX trunk as the destination for incoming calls from those DIDs. Not all DIDs on the Raspberry Pi have to be routed to the 3CX server obviously. That is merely one of many call destination options available to the administrator on the Raspberry Pi server.

Here’s a typical call path for an outside call that is placed to a Google Voice number registered with your Raspberry Pi. The Asterisk server running on the Raspberry Pi would answer the call placed to the Google Voice Trunk. Asterisk then would check for an Incoming Route on the Raspberry Pi with a DID matching the number of your Google Voice trunk. Finding a match, Asterisk would check for the desired destination of the call and would note that it is listed as the registered 3CX trunk. Asterisk would pass the call through this trunk to the 3CX server including its associated DID and CallerID info. The 3CX server would answer the incoming call and would check for an Incoming Route matching the DID passed from Asterisk. Finding a match, it would pass the call to the Extension specified in the Incoming Route. When 3CX rings the extension, it would also detect that a softphone was registered to that extension and would also ring the 3CX client on the user’s smartphone. The user answers the call on the 3CX client of their smartphone and begins a conversation. The free version of the 3CX server supports 8 simultaneous calls so you are unlikely to ever run out of call paths for calls in the home and small office environment.

Firewall Setup for Server Interconnection

Because the 3CX server is sitting in the Cloud, its firewall is configured automatically as part of the setup process. If your Raspberry Pi is sitting behind a NAT-based firewall, then you would need to map port UDP 5060 from the router on your public IP address to the private IP address of your Raspberry Pi. In addition, login to your Raspberry Pi as root using SSH and run /root/add-ip to whitelist the public IP address of your 3CX server in the cloud. Otherwise, the 3CX server cannot establish a connection to your Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi Trunk Configuration

Using a browser, login to the web interface for FreePBX on your Raspberry Pi and choose Connectivity → Trunks → Add SIP (chan_sip) Trunk. Name the trunk remote. In the Outgoing Settings, make the entries shown below naming the trunk remote and using a secure secret that will be used to interconnect the two servers. The Register String looks like the following: main:secret@3CX-IP-Address where main is the 3CX server trunk name, secret is your secure secret, and 3CX-IP-Address is the 3CX public IP address.

3CX Trunk Configuration

Using a browser, login to your 3CX server: https://3CX-IP-Address:5001 or http://3CX-IP-Address:5000. From your Dashboard, choose SIP Trunks → Add SIP Trunk. Create a Generic SIP Trunk and then fill in the blanks as shown below. For Registrar/Server/Gateway Hostname or IP, use the public IP address or FQDN of your Raspberry Pi. For Type of Authentication choose Outbound. The authentication credentials should be remote and the secure secret you chose, and the Main Trunk No should match the DID of the Google Voice trunk you set up on your Raspberry Pi. Then pick a default Destination for incoming calls.

3CX Outbound Rules Configuration

Next, we need to tell 3CX which outgoing calls to send out through the Raspberry Pi trunk we just set up. In our example today, we’re going to send all 10-digit calls and 3-digit calls. The 10-digit calls will be routed out the Google Voice trunk on the Raspberry Pi side. And the 3-digit calls will be sent directly to Raspberry Pi extensions. So we’ll need two Outbound Rules.

For the first rule, choose Outbound Rules → Add. For the Rule Name, specify StandardOut. Apply the rule to Calls to Numbers with a length: 10. For Route 1, choose Generic SIP Trunk as the Destination. Click OK to save the new rule.

For the second rule, choose Outbound Rules → Add. For Rule Name, specify StandardInt. Apply the rule to Calls to Numbers with a length: 3. For Route 1, choose Generic SIP Trunk as the Destination. Click OK to save the new rule.

If you already have configured a 3CX smartphone client for one of your 3CX extensions, you now should be able to dial any 3-digit or 10-digit number and have the call processed through your new 3CX→RasPi trunk without any further setup assuming you’ve created a Google Voice trunk on the Raspberry Pi side. That wasn’t too hard, was it?

Routing Incoming Google Voice Calls to 3CX

Depending upon your own requirements, you may want to route incoming Google Voice calls or other trunks directly to an extension and/or softphone on your 3CX server. You obviously could set up multiple trunks of any type on the Raspberry Pi side and have the calls to each trunk routed to a different extension or softphone on the 3CX side. To enable this on the 3CX side, edit your Generic SIP Trunk and click the DIDs tab. Then Add each of the 10-digit DIDs of the Raspberry Pi trunks you wish to redirect. Next, create an Inbound Rule for every DID and tell 3CX where to route the calls.

On the Raspberry Pi side, add each of your Google Voice Trunks. Then create an Inbound Route for each DID and specify the Destination as Trunks → Remote (sip). The 3CX server will take care of routing the various incoming calls to each of the Google Voice trunks to its predefined extension and/or softphone. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, March 6, 2017



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.
 

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. A simpler Bridge setup is available in the paid versions of 3CX. [↩]

VoIPtopia 2017: Choosing the Best, Free VoIP Platform

Sunday, January 1, 2017




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Once a year we like to step back and survey the latest and greatest VoIP developments for the coming year. And 2016 was certainly filled with surprises including the release of free versions of 3CX sporting the PIAF5 and Elastix 5.0 monikers. That, in turn, produced a wave of FUD from our friends at Sangoma® urging users to return to their open source roots. But guess what? Sangoma was pitching their FreePBX Distro®, another closed source product just like 3CX. Sure, the Sangoma distro has open source components… just like 3CX and your car for that matter. But it’s disingenuous to diss other products because they’re closed source platforms when yours is too. So today we want to cut through the sales pitches and compare apples to apples while offering our Elastix friends this New Year’s Day Resolution:

Ignore the Hype! Look Before You Leap and Avoid Jumping from the Kettle into the Fire.


NEWS FLASH: For PIAF3 and Incredible PBX users who have registered on the PIAF Forum, you’ll be getting an invitation to upgrade to the 8-simultaneous-call 3CX commercial platform at no cost. In addition to unlimited extensions, this one-year license adds unlimited SIP trunks and gateways, 10-participant conferencing, G.729 support, custom FQDNs, BLF support, Call Parking, Call Queueing, Call Pickup, Call Recordings and Management, Call Reporting, Intercom/Paging, remote 3CX bridging support, as well as an integrated fax server and Office 365 and Microsoft Outlook integration. If you haven’t already joined the PIAF Forum, there’s still time. But you’d better hurry.

Choosing a VoIP platform is partially a subjective decision, but there also are some glaring red flags to consider. We suggest you begin by deciding whether your preferences include any must-have’s. Do your requirements mandate an open source solution? Do you need text-to-speech and voice recognition? Does the platform have to include Asterisk®, or are you open to alternatives? Does the operating system have to be Linux-based and, if so, must it be CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu? If you’ll be using SIP phones, must the platform include phone provisioning software for your phones, or is the ability to purchase it as an add-on sufficient? Is paid support important in making your platform decision and how much are you prepared to pay? Are automatic or pain-free software updates critical in making your selection? Is migration from an existing platform a factor? Does a preconfigured, secure firewall matter, or are you prepared to do it yourself or take your chances? Before choosing to ignore security, read last month’s RIPS analysis of FreePBX®. Here’s a snippet from the article. Read it carefully. It’s your phone bill.

Since FreePBX is written completely in PHP, we decided to throw it into our code analysis tool RIPS. The results were more than surprising…

The total amount of detected vulnerabilities is very high. Luckily, the majority of the detected vulnerabilities are inside the administration control panel, such that attackers either need to steal a valid account or they have to trick an administrator into visiting a malicious website that triggers one of the critical vulnerabilities. For example, a remote command execution vulnerability could be triggered by a less critical cross-site scripting vulnerability. By chaining both vulnerabilities, the severity is increased drastically and can lead to full server compromise.

In choosing which platforms to include today, we eliminated platforms which we considered too complicated for the average new user to configure. We also eliminated any platform that did not offer at least a free tier of service with a reasonably complete feature set as part of their offering. If we’ve inadvertently missed one of your favorites, please feel free to leave a comment, and we will consider including it as well. Happy Hunting!

VoIP Platform Feature Summary

Aggregation: FreePBX Distro a.k.a. AsteriskNOW
License: Closed Source
VoIP Platform: Asterisk 13/14
GUI: FreePBX GPL and Commercial modules
O/S: CentOS-clone
Phone Provisioning: Open Source (minimal) or Commercial
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: Optional/No
Software Updates: Manual
Migration Tools: Yes
Security: Fail2Ban + User-Configured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): see above
Comments: Extensive commercial NagWare preinstalled

Aggregation: Incredible PBX for Wazo
License: GPL3 Open Source
VoIP Platform: Asterisk 14 RealTime
GUI: Wazo GPL3 modules
O/S: Debian 8
Phone Provisioning: Extensive Open Source
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: Yes/Yes
Software Updates: Automatic or 2-minute Manual
Migration Tools: No
Security: Fail2Ban + Preconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Secure WhiteList
Comments: High Availability & Call Center GPL3 Modules

Aggregation: Ombutel
License: Closed Source
VoIP Platform: Asterisk 13
GUI: Ombutel with external module support
O/S: Debian 8
Phone Provisioning: Closed Source
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: No/No
Software Updates: Manual
Migration Tools: No
Security: FaiL2Ban + Do-It-Yourself Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Insecure

Aggregation: PIAF5 powered by 3CX
License: Closed Source
VoIP Platform: 3CX
GUI: 3CX
O/S: Debian 8
Phone Provisioning: Extensive Closed Source
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: No/No
Software Updates: Semi-Automatic
Migration Tools: Yes
Security: Fail2Ban + Preconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Secure
Comments: Free upgrade provides unlimited SIP trunks with 8 simultaneous calls

Aggregation: Elastix 5.0 powered by 3CX
License: Closed Source
VoIP Platform: 3CX
GUI: 3CX
O/S: Debian 8
Phone Provisioning: Extensive Closed Source
Software Updates: Semi-Automatic
Migration Tools: Yes
Security: Fail2Ban + Preconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Secure
Comments: Free version limited to one SIP trunk & 8 simultaneous calls

Aggregation: Incredible PBX 3
License: GPL2 Open Source
VoIP Platform: Asterisk 13
GUI: FreePBX GPL modules only
O/S: CentOS 6/7, Ubuntu 14, or Raspbian 8
Phone Provisioning: Open Source (minimal)
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: Yes/Yes
Software Updates: Automatic
Migration Tools: Yes
Security: Fail2Ban + Preconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Secure WhiteList
Comments: FreePBX GPL modules only; module signature verification disabled1

Aggregation: Elastix 4.0
License: Open Source GPL
Platform: Asterisk 13
O/S: CentOS 7
Phone Provisioning: Open Source
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: No/No
Software Updates: Semi-Automatic
Migration Tools: No
Security: Fail2Ban + Unconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Insecure
Comments: Currently unavailable but fork announced

Aggregation: PIAF3
License: Open Source GPL with Closed Source Installer
Platform: Asterisk 11/13
O/S: CentOS 6
Phone Provisioning: Open Source (minimal)
Text-to-Speech/Voice Recognition: No/No
Software Updates: Manual
Migration Tools: No
Security: Fail2Ban + Unconfigured Firewall
Security Rating (as delivered): Insecure
Comments: No longer maintained

Published: Sunday, January 1, 2017


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.
 

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. See RIPStech article explaining why FreePBX module signature verification is a very dangerous methodology. [↩]

Raspberry Pi One-Minute Wonder: A Turnkey and Truly Incredible PBX for XiVO

Monday, August 29, 2016 / 1 Comment on Raspberry Pi One-Minute Wonder: A Turnkey and Truly Incredible PBX for XiVO


Hard to believe it’s been 4½ years since the introduction of the original Raspberry Pi®. We love half-birthdays, and we’ve got a blockbuster gift for you today as we celebrate the fact that almost 10 million RasPi’s have been shipped. Yes, our love affair with the Raspberry Pi lives on. The sensational Raspberry Pi 3 sports a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU with ten times the performance of the original Raspberry Pi. Of particular interest to the VoIP community will be the RasPi 3’s integrated 802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1 hardware. And, of course, the RasPi 3 retains its compatibility with the Raspberry Pi 1 and 2. Did we mention it’s still just $35? Because we like to celebrate half birthdays, too, we’re pleased to introduce a brand new Incredible PBX™ for XiVO image for the Raspberry Pi 3 featuring Raspbian 8, the latest release of Asterisk® 13, and XiVO. This one installs in under a minute. And, yes, it’s still FREE with pure open source GPL code.

Special Thanks. First things first. We want to extend our extra special thanks to Iris-Network for their awesome Raspivo – XiVO build. Without it and their repositories, none of this would have been possible.

Raspberry Pi 3 Performance. Gone are the days of worrying about Raspberry Pi performance. Both the user interface and call quality now match what you’d expect to find on a $300-$500 VoIP server. For best results, we recommend 32GB Class 10 microSD cards which now are plentiful at the $10 price point.1

Raspberry Pi 3 Shopping List. Before you can install Incredible PBX for XiVO, you’ll need a compatible Raspberry Pi 3 platform. Here’s the short list that, when coupled with the Incredible PBX image, turns today’s adventure into kid’s play:

  • $35* Raspberry Pi 3 from MCM or Newark or Amazon
  • $10 Power Adapter (2.5 amps minimum!)
  • $10 32GB microSDHC Class 10 card (Don’t use SanDisk Ultra!)
  • £12.95 Pibow 3 case or $7.50 Official RasPi 3 case

    • About That Asterisk. We write about Asterisk® regularly, but the asterisk we’re talking about is the one accompanying the $35* price tag for the Raspberry Pi 3. Yes, that’s the advertised price. And, no, if you want one quickly, you may pay a bit more. Right now you can snag one on Amazon for $35.99 with two-day Prime shipping. We’re assuming you already own a USB keyboard and an HDMI-compatible monitor. If so, today’s going rate for all of our recommended pieces is under $65, not bad for a fully-equipped, quad-core computer. Did we mention that Incredible PBX for XiVO is FREE with NoGotchas!

    Incredible PBX Feature Set. Where to begin? Let’s start with the Alphabet Stew: IAX, SIP, SMS, FAX, SRTP, and OAuth functionality. Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech VoIP application support using Festival and Google. Free calling with Google Voice, Simonics SIP gateway, or RingPlus cellular service. And all of your Nerd Vittles favorites: AsteriDex, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Reminders, and even an Alarm Clock. Plus hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Simultaneous Ringing on your Smartphone, Email Delivery of Voicemail, Voicemail Blasting, Automatic Backups, High Availability Support, Automatic Phone Setups, and much more…

    Incredible PBX Network Security Model. Most phone calls cost money. Unlike many of the other "free" VoIP solutions, our most important criteria for VoIP is rock-solid security. If your free server ends up costing you thousands of dollars in phone bills due to fraud, it isn’t free at all. Once you plug in that network cable, you’ve painted a bullseye on your checkbook.

    No single network security system can protect you against zero-day vulnerabilities that no one has ever seen. Deploying multiple layers of security is not only smart, it’s essential with today’s Internet topology. It works much like the Bundle of Sticks from Aesop’s Fables. The more sticks there are in your bundle, the more difficult it is to break them apart. If a vulnerability suddenly appears in the Linux kernel, or in Asterisk, or in your web server, or in your favorite web GUI, you can continue to sleep well knowing that other layers of security have your back. No one else in the telecommunications industry has anything close. You can’t hack what you can’t see, and the Incredible PBX automatically configures a WhiteList as part of the one-minute setup. And it’s all open source GPL code that you can share with anybody and everybody unlike the so-called "freeware" products. Freeware with Asterisks is anything but free!

    Do your part and do your homework. Comparison shop as if your phone bill matters! 😉 Incredible PBX provides:

    1. Preconfigured IPtables Linux Firewall
    2. Preconfigured Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteLists
    3. Randomized Port Knocker for Remote Access
    4. Fail2Ban Log Monitoring for SSH, Apache, Asterisk
    5. Randomized Ultra-Secure Passwords
    6. Automatic Update Utility for Security & Bug Fixes
    7. Asterisk Manager Lockdown to localhost
    8. Security Alerts via the PIAF Forum

    Incredible PBX for XiVO Installation & Setup Tutorial

    Here’s everything need to know about installation and setup of Incredible PBX for XiVO. "Automatic" means you just watch.

    1. Download and unzip Incredible PBX for XiVO image from SourceForge (includes GV OAuth support)
    2. Transfer Incredible PBX image to microSD card
    3. Boot Raspberry Pi from new microSD card
    4. Login to RasPi console as root:password to initialize your server (Automatic) and expand image to match SD card
    5. Reboot after writing down your server IP address (Automatic)
    6. Login via SSH as root:password to set up passwords (You Pick ’em) & configure firewall (Automatic)
    7. Enjoy!

    Running Incredible PBX for XiVO on the Raspberry Pi

    The standard XiVO boot procedure will begin once you insert your microSD card into the Raspberry Pi 3 and apply power. Within a short time, you’ll get the familiar Linux login prompt. Login as root with a password of password.

    Once you log in, a startup script will briefly configure a few things and then advise you that it’s time to reboot. Write down the IP address provided because for Phase 2 of the setup, we need to use SSH or Putty on the desktop that you will actually be using to manage your server. The reason for this is that Incredible PBX automatically creates a whitelist of IP addresses that the firewall will allow to access your server. If the IP address isn’t in your whitelist, you may lock yourself out except from the RasPi’s console window.

    Once the console window shows that your server has rebooted by displaying the Linux login prompt, switch to SSH or Putty and login as root using the IP address you wrote down. You’ll then be prompted to change your root password for Linux as well as your root password for XiVO GUI access using a web browser. You’ll also need to set a PIN that will be used to authorize access to extension 123 to schedule Telephone Reminders on your server. This completes the configuration. You’ll get a final screen showing the credentials for the preconfigured extension 701 as well as a reminder that your PortKnocker credentials are stored in /root/knock.FAQ in the event you ever lock yourself out of your machine. It’s a good idea to leave this screen displayed while you install and configure a softphone since you can cut-and-paste your extension 701 credentials without having to type anything.

    Once you complete the SIP softphone setup below, you can return to the SSH window and press ENTER to finish the install. The Incredible PBX Automatic Update Utility will run, and then you will be presented with the pbxstatus display. You can access the Asterisk CLI by typing: asterisk -rvvvvvvvvvv. Exit from the CLI by typing quit. As mentioned previously, always shut down your server gracefully by typing halt. When prompted for the hostname, type xivo. Once the shutdown procedure finishes, it’s safe to disconnect the power cord from your Raspberry Pi.

    Beginning with the September 1 release, many of the log files have been disabled to help prolong the life of microSD cards since XiVO tends to be very chatty. If you are running an earlier release, you can follow this tutorial to disable most logging on your Raspberry Pi.

    Enabling WiFi on the Raspberry Pi 3

    With the Raspberry Pi 3, wi-fi hardware is included. The next step is configuring it to connect to your WiFi router. Simply open /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with nano and (1) edit the SSID name and password fields to authorize access to your local, password-protected WiFi router as well as any open WiFi network. (2) Also update the country code for your WiFi region, e.g. country=US. Then (3) save your changes: Ctrl-X, Y, then press ENTER.

    network={
 ssid="YourSSID"
 psk="YourSSIDpassword"
 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
 scan_ssid=1
 priority=5
}

network={
 key_mgmt=NONE
 priority=1
}

    Next, enable automatic startup of the wlan0 network interface:

    sed -i 's|#allow-hotplug wlan0|allow-hotplug wlan0|' /etc/network/interfaces

    Finally, stop and restart the wlan0 interface, count to 15, and check pbxstatus to decipher the added private IP address for your WiFi connection:

    ifdown wlan0
ifup wlan0
pbxstatus

    If you want to run your Raspberry Pi exclusively off the WiFi connection going forward, simply unplug the network cable from your RasPi and reboot your server.

    Choosing a SIP Softphone for Incredible PBX for XiVO

    Softphones tend to be a matter of taste for most folks so we’ll keep our suggestions to a minimum. On the Windows platform, it’s hard to go wrong with X-Lite. It works out of the box by simply plugging in the IP address of your server and your SIP username and password. It also happens to be free. The only downside is that X-Lite has a nasty habit of embedding time bombs in their free software so you may have to reinstall it from time to time. If you know what you’re doing Zoiper is another alternative but be advised that it doesn’t work out of the box on servers behind NAT-based routers.

    On the Mac platform, our favorite free softphone is Telephone. It’s a barebones SIP client that just works. As with X-Lite, you plug in your server’s IP address and SIP credentials, and you’re in business.

    On the Linux or Solaris platforms, we assume that you know what you’re doing and that you are perfectly capable of choosing and installing a SIP phone that meets your requirements.

    Incredible PBX Application Quick Start Guide

    We’ve finished the basic Incredible PBX for XiVO setup. You now have a functioning PBX with dozens of applications for Asterisk that work out of the box. It’s probably a good idea to spend a little time getting acquainted with Incredible PBX for XiVO before you add trunks to communicate with the outside world.

    Here’s a handy cheat sheet for some of the Incredible PBX applications that have been installed or are available as add-ons. There’s also a link for more information. This remains a work-in-progress so expect more applications in coming weeks.

    How To Make Easily Compressed Backups of Incredible PBX

    MicroSD cards WILL wear out especially on XiVO servers with lots of activity. So it’s important to make regular backups of your media so you don’t get surprised when things come unglued down the road. After considerable discussion on the PIAF Forum, here’s the collective wisdom.

    You’ll need another machine (such as a Mac or Linux box) on which to plug in the microSD card in order to make a backup image of it since you can’t back up a card that is actually providing the live platform for your PBX. The recommended methodology goes like this. Before shutting down your PBX and removing the microSD card to make the backup, convert all of the unused space on the card to zeros so that the unused space can be easily compressed when you create the backup image. You do this by issuing the following command after logging into the Linux CLI as root on your RasPi 3. Be sure to do it during a period of inactivity on your PBX as it is processor intensive. Then halt the machine and remove the microSD card.

    xivo-service stop
cat /dev/zero > wipe.it ; rm wipe.it
halt

    Insert the card into an SD card slot on the machine you will use to make the backup image and issue the following commands after deciphering the correct device name for your card (/dev/disk4 in this example) using the df utility:

    sudo df -h
sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/disk4 | gzip -c > incrediblepbx-xivo.img.gz
sudo sync
sudo diskutil eject /dev/disk4s1
echo "It's safe to remove the microSD card now."

    Now return the microSD card to your Raspberry Pi 3 and boot. Store your backups in a safe place!

    Configuring Trunks and Routes with Incredible PBX for XiVO

    The next step in your XiVO adventure is connecting your PBX to the outside world so that you can make and receive phone calls from anywhere in the world. For this you’ll need one or more trunks. Unlike the Ma Bell world, there’s no reason to put all your eggs in one basket. You can use one or more trunk providers for incoming calls with separate phone numbers for each. And you can use one or more trunk providers for outgoing calls and save money on calls to certain countries by choosing the best provider for where you want to call. And, of course, if you live in the United States, you can set up one or more Google Voice trunks and make calls to the U.S. and Canada for free. We’ve written a number of tutorials to make it easy to set up these trunks.

    To get started, point a web browser to the IP address of your PBX. Login as root with the XiVO GUI password you set up above. If you ever forget your password, you can run /root/admin-pw-change to reconfigure it.

    XIVO Trunk Implementation Tutorials

    Once you’ve added one or more trunks, you’ll need to tell XiVO how to route outgoing and incoming calls. Here are our step-by-step tutorials on setting up Outbound Calling Routes and Incoming Call Routes:

    XIVO Call Routing Tutorials

    Enabling Bluetooth & Proximity Detection on the Raspberry Pi


    Where To Go Next with Incredible PBX for XiVO

    Now you’re ready to explore. We recommend you pick up here in our Incredible PBX for XiVO tutorial. And be sure to check out the Last Minute Fixes that didn’t make it into the current build. Enjoy the ride!

    Originally published: Monday, August 29, 2016



    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.
     

    Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

    1. Many 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. [↩]
    2. Vitelity is a platinum sponsor of Nerd Vittles, and they also happen to be the best in the business. You’ll find a discount coupon to get a great deal on a DID and 4-channel trunk toward the end of this article. [↩]

    Taking a Fresh Look at the Asterisk, FreePBX, and Incredible PBX Security Models

    Monday, April 18, 2016

    About once a year, we try to shine the spotlight on Asterisk® security in hopes of saving lots of organizations and individuals a little bit (or a lot) of money. In light of last week’s major security lapse in the Asterisk® dialplan of those using FreePBX® since the Asterisk@Home days, now seemed like a good time for a review. As we’ve noted before, the problem with open source phone systems is they’re open source phone systems. So the bad guys can figure out how they work just like the good guys. Unfortunately, some of the bad guys are paying particular attention to Asterisk and FreePBX so it behooves all of us to remain vigilant and patch vulnerabilities quickly. The FreePBX Devs have done an admirable job in responding quickly to this issue.

    Last week’s vulnerability involves the call transfer methodology that has been incorporated into FreePBX-based Asterisk servers for at least a decade. In a nutshell, it allows an internal or outside caller or called party to transfer a call using touchtones instead of a dedicated transfer button or hook flash. ## performs a blind transfer while *2 sets up an attended transfer where the person transferring the call can actually talk to the transfer recipient before executing the call transfer. Some of our foreign friends used this *2 methodology to initiate calls to Asterisk servers and then to transfer those calls to expensive destinations while the other party to the call listened to music on hold. Worse yet, it could be performed within an answering IVR on some servers so the administrator never knew the call transfer took place other than reviewing the call detail records. As with some previous vulnerabilities, this one had lain dormant since the inception of call transfer technology in Asterisk. The default settings in FreePBX permitted outside calling or called parties to initiate transfers using these feature codes. We’re reminded of a similar vulnerability that used to exist in many Asterisk voicemail systems that allowed callers to dialout to another number from within the voicemail system.

    We hope to persuade you today that allowing transfer of calls using touch tones is a very bad idea to begin with. Even when you don’t get a surprise phone bill, it often results in unanticipated consequences such as depicted in this video shared on DSL Reports:


    https://youtu.be/bnMVebywX6Y

    Here’s how you can protect any server that uses all or some of the FreePBX GUI. First, be aware that the FreePBX developers are working on a rewrite of the Core component in versions 13 and 12. The fix would limit use of this technology to those on the internal side of a PBX. In other words, remote callers would be blocked from calling into an Asterisk server and transferring themselves to a phone on a cruise ship sailing in the Indian Ocean. In the meantime, issuing the following commands will patch things up:

    mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd asterisk -e "update freepbx_settings set value = 'tr' where keyword = 'DIAL_OPTIONS' limit 1"
mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd asterisk -e "update freepbx_settings set value = '' where keyword = 'TRUNK_OPTIONS' limit 1"
amportal a r

    For those using Incredible PBX™, the Automatic Update Utility will patch your server the next time you log in as root.

    Olle Johansson has been one of the primary shakers and movers when it comes to educating folks on Asterisk security and inspiring developers to do a better job designing these systems. If you didn’t attend AstriCon 2013 and haven’t watched the Security Master Class, put these videos on your Bucket List. They’re all free and well worth your time.

    When we began building out Incredible PBX on other platforms several years ago, we decided it was an opportune time to revisit our Asterisk security model and make it as bullet-proof as possible given the number of people now deploying Asterisk servers in the cloud. As a practical matter, there are no hardware-based firewalls to protect you with many of the cloud-based systems. So you literally live or die based upon the strength of your own software-based security model.

    As in the past, security is all about layers of protection. A bundle of sticks is harder to break than a single stick. There now are Incredible PBX builds for CentOS, Scientific Linux, Ubuntu 14, and the latest Raspbian 8 for the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. All of these releases include the new Incredible PBX security model. Here’s how it works…

    The 7 Security Layers include the following, and we will go into the details below:

    1. Preconfigured IPtables Linux Firewall
    2. Preconfigured Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteLists
    3. Randomized Port Knocker for Remote Access
    4. TM4 WhiteListing by Telephone (optional)
    5. Fail2Ban
    6. Randomized Ultra-Secure Passwords
    7. Automatic Security Updates & Bug Fixes

    1. IPtables Linux Firewall. Yes, we’ve had IPtables in place with PBX in a Flash for many years. And, yes, it was partially locked down in previous Incredible PBX releases if you chose to deploy Travelin’ Man 3. Now it’s automatically installed AND locked down, period. As installed, the new Incredible PBX limits login access to your server to those on your private LAN (if any) and anyone logging in from the server’s public or private IP address and the public IP address of the desktop machine used to install the Incredible PBX software. If you or your users need access from other computers or phones, those addresses can be added quickly using either the Travelin’ Man 3 tools (add-ip and add-fqdn) or using the Port Knocker application running on your desktop or smartphone. All you need is your randomized 3 codes for the knock. You can also enable a remote IP address by telephone. Keep reading!

    2. Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteLists. As in the past, many of the major SIP providers have been whitelisted in the default setup so that you can quickly add new service without worrying about firewall access. These are providers that we’ve used over the years. The preconfigured providers include Vitelity (outbound1.vitelity.net and inbound1.vitelity.net), Google Voice (talk.google.com), VoIP.ms (city.voip.ms), DIDforsale (209.216.2.211), CallCentric (callcentric.com), and also VoIPStreet.com (chi-out.voipstreet.com plus chi-in.voipstreet.com), Les.net (did.voip.les.net), Future-Nine, AxVoice (magnum.axvoice.com), SIP2SIP (proxy.sipthor.net), VoIPMyWay (sip.voipwelcome.com), Obivoice/Vestalink (sms.intelafone.com), Teliax, and IPkall. You are, of course, free to add other providers or users using the whitelist tools being provided. add-ip lets you add an IP address to your whitelist. add-fqdn lets you add a fully-qualified domain name to your whitelist. del-acct lets you remove an entry from your whitelist. Because FQDNs cause problems with IPtables if the FQDN happens to be invalid or non-functional, we’ve provided a customized iptables-restart tool which will filter out bad FQDNs and start up IPtables without the problematic entries.

    Be advised that whitelist entries created with PortKnocker are stored in RAM, not in your IPtables file. These RAM entries will get blown out of the water whenever your system is restarted OR if IPtables is restarted. Stated another way, PortKnocker should be used as a stopgap tool to get new IP addresses qualified quickly. If these addresses need access for more than a few hours, then the Travelin’ Man 3 tools should be used to add them to your IPtables whitelist. If your whitelist setup includes dynamic IP addresses, be aware that using ipchecker in a cron job to test for changing dynamic IP addresses will remove PortKnocker whitelist RAM entries whenever an IP address change triggers an iptables-restart.

    For more detail on Travelin’ Man 3, review our original tutorial.

    3. PortKnocker WhiteListing. We’ve previously written about PortKnocker so we won’t repeat the article here. Simply stated, it lets you knock on three ports on a host machine in the proper order to gain access. If you get the timing and sequence right, the IP address from which you knocked gets whitelisted for access to the server… with appropriate admin or root passwords, of course. The knocking can be accomplished with either a command line tool or an iOS or Android app using your smartphone or tablet. As noted above, it’s a terrific stopgap tool to let you or your users gain quick access to your server. For the reasons we’ve documented, don’t forget that it’s a stopgap tool. Don’t use it as a replacement for Travelin’ Man 3 whitelists unless you don’t plan to deploy dynamic IP address automatic updating. Just to repeat, PortKnocker whitelists get destroyed whenever IPtables is restarted or your server is rebooted. You’ve been warned.

    4. TM4 WhiteListing by Telephone. Newer releases of Incredible PBX are preconfigured with ODBC support for telephony applications. One worth mentioning is our new Travelin’ Man 4 utility which lets a remote user dial into a dedicated DID and register an IP address to be whitelisted on the server. Within a couple minutes, the user will be sent an email confirming that the IP address has been whitelisted and remote access is now enabled. For phone systems and administrators supporting hundreds of remote users, this new feature will be a welcome addition. It can be configured in a couple minutes by following the Installation instructions in the Travelin’ Man 4 tutorial. Unlike PortKnocker, whitelisted IP addresses added with TM4 are permanent until modified by the remote user or deleted by the administrator.

    5. Fail2Ban. We’ve never been a big fan of Fail2Ban which scans your logs and blacklists IP addresses after several failed attempts to log in or register with SSH or Apache or Asterisk. The reason is because of documented cases where attacks from powerful servers (think: Amazon) completely overpower a machine and delay execution of Fail2Ban log scanning until tens of thousands of registration attempts have been launched. The FreePBX folks are working on a methodology to move failed login attempts to a separate (smaller) log which would go a long way toward eliminating the log scanning bottleneck. In the the meantime, Fail2Ban is included, and it works when it works. But don’t count on it as your only security layer.

    6. Randomized Passwords. With the new security model described above, we’ve dispensed with Apache security to protect FreePBX® access. These new Incredible PBX releases rely upon the FreePBX security model which uses encrypted passwords stored in MySQL or MariaDB. As part of the installation process, Incredible PBX randomizes ALL FreePBX passwords including those for the default 701 extension as well as the admin password. When your new Incredible PBX install completes, the most important things to remember are your (randomized) FreePBX admin password AND the (randomized) 3 ports required for Port Knocker access. Put them in a safe place. Sooner or later, you’ll need them. You can review your PortKnocker settings in /root/knock.FAQ. We’ve also included admin-pw-change in the /root folder for those that are too lazy to heed our advice. With the new security model, there is no way to look up your admin password. All you can do is change it… assuming you haven’t also forgotten your root password. 😉

    7. Automatic Update Service. All new Incredible PBX builds include an automatic update service to provide security patches and bug fixes whenever you log into your server as root. It saved you just last week! If you don’t want the updates for some reason, you can delete the /root/update* file from your server. If the cost of maintaining this service becomes prohibitive, we may implement a pay-for-service fee, but it presently is supported by voluntary contributions from our users. It has worked extremely well and provided a vehicle for pushing out updates that affect the reliability and security of your server.

    A Word About IPv6. Sooner or later Internet Protocol version 6 will be upon us because of the exhaustion of IPv4 IP addresses. Incredible PBX is IPv6-aware and IPtables has been configured to support it as well. As deployed, outbound IPv6 is not restricted. Inbound access is limited to localhost. You, of course, are free to modify it in any way desired. Be advised that disabling IPv6 localhost inbound access will block access to the FreePBX GUI. Don’t ask us how we know. 🙂

    Originally published: Monday, April 18, 2016



    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.
     

    Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

    The Sensational Raspberry Pi 3 Featuring Incredible PBX GUI with Raspbian 8 Jessie

    Saturday, March 26, 2016 / 13 Comments on The Sensational Raspberry Pi 3 Featuring Incredible PBX GUI with Raspbian 8 Jessie


    [iframe-popup id="3″]
    Hard to believe it’s been four years since the introduction of the original Raspberry Pi®. Over eight million RasPi’s have been shipped. To celebrate its fourth birthday, Eben Upton has done it again. Meet the sensational Raspberry Pi 3 sporting a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU with ten times the performance of the original Raspberry Pi. Of particular interest to the VoIP community will be the RasPi 3’s integrated 802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1 hardware. And, of course, the RasPi 3 retains its compatibility with the Raspberry Pi 1 and 2. Did we mention it’s still just $35? Because we like to celebrate birthdays, too, we’re pleased to introduce a brand new Incredible PBX™ image for the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 featuring Raspbian 8 and the latest release of Asterisk® 13. Unlike previous builds, this one installs in under a minute. Yes, it’s still FREE and features pure open source GPL code. No Gotchas!

    07/01/2019 NEWS FLASH: Just released Incredible PBX LITE for the Raspberry Pi 2, 3, and 4 featuring Raspbian 10 Buster. Tutorial here.

    Raspberry Pi 3 Performance. Gone are the days of worrying about Raspberry Pi performance. Both the user interface and call quality now match what you’d expect to find on a $300-$500 VoIP server. Even with a Raspberry Pi 2, we have detected no performance degradation thanks to the latest Raspbian 8 OS and a virtually flawless Asterisk 13 platform. For best results, we recommend 32GB Class 10 microSD cards which now are plentiful at the $10 price point.1

    Raspberry Pi 3 Shopping List. Before you can install Incredible PBX, you’ll need a compatible Raspberry Pi 3 platform. Here’s the short list:

  • $35* Raspberry Pi 3 from MCM or Newark or Amazon
  • $10 Power Adapter (2.5 amps minimum!)
  • $9 32GB microSDHC Class 10 card
  • £12.95 Rainbow Pibow case or $9.50 Official RasPi case

    • About That Asterisk. We write about Asterisk® regularly, but the asterisk we’re talking about is the one accompanying the $35* price tag for the Raspberry Pi 3. Yes, that’s the advertised price. And, no, if you want one this year, you’re not going to pay that. There are the marked up shipping prices, the bundled add-on’s that you don’t need or want, and the must-have accessories like a power adapter. We’re assuming you already own a USB keyboard and an HDMI-compatible monitor. If so, just plan on $100 and consider yourself lucky if you get all the pieces for less. Our order from Pimoroni in the U.K. with a case and 3-day shipping was £59.36 or $82.95 U.S. Our order from MCM for just the RasPi 3 with shipping was $46.99.

    Incredible PBX Feature Set. Where to begin? Let’s start with the Alphabet Stew: IAX, SIP, GVSIP, SMS, and SRTP functionality. Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech VoIP application support using FLITE, GoogleTTS, and PicoTTS. Free calling with Google Voice, Simonics SIP gateway, or RingPlus cellular service. And all of your Nerd Vittles favorites: Fax, AsteriDex, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Reminders, and Wakeup Calls. Plus hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Email Delivery of Voicemail, Voicemail Blasting, and more…

    10-Layer Network Security Model. Most phone calls cost money. Unlike many of the other "free" VoIP solutions, our most important criteria for VoIP is rock-solid security. If your free server ends up costing you thousands of dollars in phone bills due to fraud, it isn’t free at all. Once you plug in that network cable, you’ve painted a bullseye on your checkbook.

    No single network security system can protect you against zero-day vulnerabilities that no one has ever seen. Deploying multiple layers of security is not only smart, it’s essential with today’s Internet topology. It works much like the Bundle of Sticks from Aesop’s Fables. The more sticks there are in your bundle, the more difficult it is to break them apart. If a vulnerability suddenly appears in the Linux kernel, or in Asterisk, or in Apache, or in your favorite web GUI, you can continue to sleep well knowing that other layers of security have your back. No one else in the telecommunications industry has anything close. Ours is all open source GPL code so we would encourage everyone to get on board and do their part to make the Internet a safer place!

    Do your part and do your homework. Comparison shop as if your phone bill matters! 😉 Incredible PBX provides:

    1. Preconfigured IPtables Linux Firewall
    2. Preconfigured Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteLists
    3. Randomized Port Knocker for Remote Access
    4. TM4 WhiteListing by Telephone (optional)
    5. Fail2Ban Log Monitoring for SSH, Apache, Asterisk
    6. Randomized Ultra-Secure Passwords
    7. Automatic Update Utility for Security & Bug Fixes
    8. Asterisk Manager Lockdown to localhost
    9. Apache htaccess Security for Vulnerable Web Apps
    10. Security Alerts via RSS Feeds in Kennonsoft and Incredible PBX GUIs

    Installation Tutorial. Here’s everything need to know about installation and setup. "Automatic" means you just watch.

    1. Download and unzip Incredible PBX image from SourceForge (with or without GV OAuth support)
    2. Transfer Incredible PBX image to microSD card
    3. Boot Raspberry Pi from new microSD card
    4. Login to RasPi console as pi:raspberry to initialize your server (Automatic)
    5. Reboot after writing down your server IP address (Automatic)
    6. Login via SSH as root:password to randomize passwords & configure firewall (Automatic)
    7. Optionally, install Incredible Fax: /root/incrediblefax13_raspi3.sh (Credentials: admin:password)
    8. Enjoy!

    Configuring Trunks with Incredible PBX

    Before you can actually make and receive calls, you’ll need to add one or more VoIP trunks with providers, create extensions for your phones, and add inbound and outbound routes that link your extensions to your trunks. Here’s how a PBX works. Phones connect to extensions. Extensions connect to outbound routes that direct calls to specific trunks, a.k.a. commercial providers that complete your outbound calls to any phone in the world. Coming the other way, incoming calls are directed to your phone number, otherwise known as a DID. DIDs are assigned by providers and you register your trunks using credentials handed out by these providers. Incoming calls are routed to your DIDs which use inbound routes telling the PBX how to direct the calls internally. A call could go to an extension to ring a phone, or it could go to a group of extensions known as a ring group to ring a group of phones. It could also go to a conference that joins multiple people into a single call. Finally, it could be routed to an IVR or AutoAttendant providing a list of options from which callers could choose by pressing various keys on their phone.

    We’ve done most of the prep work for you with Incredible PBX. We’ve set up an Extension to which you can connect a SIP phone or softphone. We’ve set up an Inbound Route that, by default, sends all incoming calls to a Demo IVR. And we’ve built a dozen trunks for some of the best providers in the business. Sign up with the ones you prefer, plug in your credentials, and you’re good to go.

    Unlike traditional telephone service, you need not and probably should not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to telephone providers. In order to connect to Plain Old Telephones, you still need at least one provider. But there is nothing wrong with having several. And a provider that handles an outbound call (termination) need not be the same one that handles an incoming call (origination) and provides your phone number (DID). We cannot recommend Vitelity highly enough, and it’s not just because they have financially supported our projects for almost a decade. They’re as good as VoIP providers get, and we use lots of them. If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S., you’d be crazy not to set up a Google Voice account. It’s free as are all phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining preconfigured providers included in Incredible PBX are equally good, and we’ve used and continue to use almost all of them. So pick a few and sign up. You only pay for the calls you make with each provider so you have little to lose by choosing several. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations on VoIP providers if you want additional information.

    With the preconfigured trunks in Incredible PBX, all you need are your credentials for each provider and the domain name of their server. Log into Incredible PBX GUI Administration as admin using a browser. From the System Status menu, click Connectivity -> Trunks. Click on each provider you have chosen and fill in your credentials including the host entry. Be sure to uncheck the Disable Trunk checkbox! Fill in the appropriate information for the Register String. Save your settings by clicking Submit Changes. Then click the red Apply Config button.

    Configuring a Softphone 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 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 which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. Choose Applications _> Extensions -> 701 and write down your SIP/IAX Password. You can also find it in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password you 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
    *61 - Time of Day
    TODAY - Today in History

    If you are a Mac user, another great no-frills softphone is Telephone. Just download and install it from the Mac App Store.

    Configuring Google Voice

    If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support Incredible PBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So keep this account a secret!

    IMPORTANT: Do NOT under any circumstances take Google’s bait to switch from Google Chat to Hangouts, or you will forever lose the ability to use Google Chat with Incredible PBX. Also be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That’s the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. Good News! You’re in luck. Google has apparently had a change of heart on discontinuing Google Chat support so it’s enabled by default in all new Google Voice accounts. Once you’ve created a Gmail and Google Voice account, go to Google Voice Settings and click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:

    • Call Screening – OFF
    • Call Presentation – OFF
    • Caller ID (In) – Display Caller’s Number
    • Caller ID (Out) – Don’t Change Anything
    • Do Not Disturb – OFF
    • Call Options (Enable Recording) – OFF
    • Global Spam Filtering – ON

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

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

    Now you’re ready to configure your Google Voice account in Incredible PBX. You can do it from within the Incredible PBX GUI by choosing Connectivity -> Google Voice. How you enter your credentials depends upon whether you have chosen the Incredible PBX image with OAuth 2 support. For a complete Google Voice OAuth tutorial, follow steps 8-10 in this Nerd Vittles tutorial. Once you’ve entered your credentials, you MUST restart Asterisk from the command line, or Google Voice calls will fail.

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

    If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

    Another option is to use an inexpensive SIP Gateway to Google Voice. The Simonics trunk in the Incredible PBX GUI is preconfigured for this purpose. All you’ll need is your Google Voice credentials. Get started with this tutorial.

    Adding Speech Recognition Support to Incredible PBX

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

    To use Wolfram Alpha by phone, you first must obtain a free Wolfram Alpha APP-ID. Then issue the following command replacing APP-ID with your actual ID. Do NOT change the yourID portion of the command: 

    sed -i "s|yourID|APP-ID|" /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/4747

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

    To access Wolfram Alpha by phone, dial 4747 and enter your query, e.g. "What planes are overhead." Read the Nerd Vittles tutorial for additional examples and tips.

    Enabling WiFi on the Raspberry Pi

    With the Raspberry Pi 3, wi-fi hardware is included. With the Raspberry Pi 2, you’ll need to add an inexpensive wifi dongle. The next step is connecting to your WiFi router. Simply open /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with your favorite editor and insert the following code using the actual SSID name and password to access your local, password-protected WiFi router or any open WiFi network:

    network={
 ssid="YourSSID"
 psk="YourSSIDpassword"
 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
 scan_ssid=1
 priority=5
}

network={
 key_mgmt=NONE
 priority=1
}

    Finally, stop and restart the wlan0 interface, count to 15, and check the status of your server to decipher the new IP address for your WiFi connection:

    ifdown wlan0
ifup wlan0
pbxstatus

    If you want to run your Raspberry Pi exclusively off the WiFi connection, simply unplug the network cable from your RasPi and reboot your server.

    UPDATE: There still is a quirk with the wireless LAN driver on the Raspberry Pi 3. The problem has to do with the default power management of the wlan0 interface which results in it being powered off after very brief periods of inactivity. Special thanks to Matt Gemmell for this fix. Just cut-and-paste the lines below into a terminal window, and you’ll be good to go.

    WARNING: Run pbxstatus first. If the top line shows Raspberry Pi 3, the following WiFi patch is already installed.

    echo "options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0 rtw_ips_mode=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf
sed -i '/exit 0/d' /etc/rc.local
echo "sleep 10" >> /etc/rc.local
echo "iwconfig wlan0 power off" >> /etc/rc.local
echo "exit 0" >> /etc/rc.local
echo "[Unit]" > /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "Description=Turn off wlan power management" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "After=suspend.target" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "[Service]" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "Type=simple" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "ExecStartPre= /bin/sleep 10" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "ExecStart= /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "[Install]" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
echo "WantedBy=suspend.target" >> /etc/systemd/system/root-resume.service
systemctl enable root-resume
reboot

    After rebooting, if you issue the iwconfig wlan0 command, it should show: Power Management:off.

    Update: Lessons Learned for Raspberry Pi 3 Road Warriors

    As with all new devices, you learn some things as you go along. So we’re providing an update to our original article to offer a couple of additional tips and tricks for those that want to travel with a RasPi…

    Alternative Power Sources. If you’re like us, you have a number of devices around the house or office that all require 5V power adapters of various amperages. The Raspberry Pi has traditionally been one of the most temperamental when it came to power adapters and, with the Raspberry Pi 3, the developers specifically mention a 2.5 amp minimum. If you travel and want to take devices such as the Raspberry Pi with you, the last thing you want to do is approach airport security with a bunch of wires hanging out of your carry-on bag. Well, there’s good news. The Anker device shown in the Amazon ad in the right column of Nerd Vittles can supply power to 6 devices including a Raspberry Pi 3. And we’ve given the RasPi a healthy workout with no adverse effects.

    Deciphering the RasPi IP Address. As we mentioned, we travel a lot so obtaining a DHCP address for your RasPi in WiFi mode is not always the easiest thing to accomplish. If your smartphone supports tethering, that’s the easiest way to get connectivity on the road. A better way is to stick a WiFi HotSpot in your luggage and it, too, can be powered using the Anker device. See our recent article for WiFi HotSpot choices. Regardless of which option you choose, it will require some planning to use your RasPi sans monitor and keyboard. First, you need to preconfigure /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with the SSID of the device you’ll be using to hand out DHCP addresses. You’ll note from the discussion above that each entry in this file has a priority with higher numbers having higher priority. The way we typically do this is to assign our home network as the highest priority. Below that, we set up credentials for our MiFi Hotspot, then our smartphones, and finally open networks. So it looks like this:

    • Home Network – 6
    • MiFi HotSpot – 5
    • Android phone – 4
    • iPhone (AT&T) – 3
    • Open Network – 1

    Keep in mind that the Incredible PBX firewall probably will block you from accessing the RasPi from a computer on the public network. So you also must connect your computer to the same private WiFi network because private LAN addresses are whitelisted in the firewall by default.

    Once you have connectivity for your RasPi and your laptop, the other wrinkle is figuring out the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. Our recommended approach goes like this. First, configure SendMail on the RasPi to use a Gmail account that you own as an SMTP smarthost to send emails. That should work almost anywhere you go. Second, modify /etc/rc.local to automatically send you an email with the IP address and SSID of your wireless network whenever the RasPi boots. Again, this takes some advance planning because you need to set all of this up and test it before you go on the road.

    Here are the steps to modify SendMail to use an existing Gmail account as a SmartHost. Log into your RasPi as root and issue the following commands:

    cd /etc/mail
hostname -f > genericsdomain
touch genericstable
makemap -r hash genericstable.db < genericstable
mv sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.original
wget http://nerdvittles.dreamhosters.com/pbxinaflash/source/sendmail/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
nano -w client-info

    When the nano editor opens the client-info file, change the 3 user_id entries to your Gmail account name without @gmail.com and change the 3 password entries to your actual Gmail password. Save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then ENTER.

    Now issue the following commands. In the last step, press ENTER to accept all of the default prompts:

    chmod 600 client-info
makemap -r hash client-info.db < client-info
cd ..
make
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf' /etc/mail/sendmail.mc
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/sendmail.mc
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/Makefile
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/databases
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/sendmail.mc.gmail
sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail\/cf|' /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.errors
sendmailconfig

    Next, edit /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname. Change the raspberypi3 entries to: raspberrypi3.incrediblepbx.com.

    Finally, stop and restart SendMail and then send yourself a test message. Be sure to check your spam folder!

    /etc/init.d/sendmail stop
/etc/init.d/sendmail start
apt-get install mailutils -y
echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@yourdomain.com

    The last step is to add these commands to /etc/rc.local to send you an email with your IP address and SSID whenever the RasPi is rebooted. Insert the following commands just above the exit 0 line at the end of the file. Use an email address to which you have access on the road!

    ESSID=`iwconfig | grep ESSID | tail -1 | cut -f 9 -d " "`
echo "IP address: $(hostname -I) on $ESSID" | mail -s "RaspberryPi3 IP Address" yourname@yourdomain.com

    Enabling Bluetooth on the Raspberry Pi


    Incredible Fax Returns for the Raspberry Pi


    Mastering the Incredible PBX Feature Set

    Now would be a good time to explore the Incredible PBX applications. Continue reading there. If you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There's an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it's absolutely free. Enjoy!

    Originally published: Monday, March 7, 2016  Updated: Saturday, March 26, 2016

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


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

     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


    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.
     

    Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest...

    1. Many 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. [↩]

    VoIP at Your Fingertips: Incredible PBX GUI for Raspberry Pi 2 with Asterisk 13

    Monday, September 7, 2015 / 6 Comments on VoIP at Your Fingertips: Incredible PBX GUI for Raspberry Pi 2 with Asterisk 13



    [iframe-popup id="3″]
    NEWS FLASH: New Incredible PBX release with Raspbian 8 Jessie supports BOTH the Raspberry Pi 3 and the Raspberry Pi 2. Much improved installer and overall performance! Check out the new tutorial and download the new image here.

    07/01/2019 NEWS FLASH: Just released Incredible PBX LITE for the Raspberry Pi 2, 3, and 4 featuring Raspbian 10 Buster. Tutorial here.

    Today we’re pleased to introduce the ultimate hobbyist platform to learn about and then to deploy and use VoIP and unified communications in your home, home office, or small business. You’ll need a couple hours and a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 with its quad-core processor and gig of RAM.1 Everything else is free… as in beer. And what a collection it is. You’ll get the very latest, production-ready version of Asterisk® 13, the new Incredible PBX GUI featuring a superset of FreePBX®-compatible modules, the newest Google Voice refinements with secure OAUTH 2 authentication for free calling and faxing in the U.S. and Canada, a rock-solid, preconfigured, Linux firewall, a free virtual private network client for NeoRouter that’s ready for your credentials, preconfigured trunks for the very best SIP providers in the world, a turnkey GPL fax solution featuring a HylaFax/AvantFax combination that delivers incoming faxes in PDF format using the included SendMail email server, free SMS messaging, a free conference bridge, SCCP encrypted communications support, and literally dozens of free applications for Asterisk including a news service, weather reports, the world’s best on-line almanac, telephone reminders, voice recognition for hands-free calling, and more. Do you need to be a Linux, network, or communications engineer? Not at all. If you can read, you’ve met the only prerequisite to implement Incredible PBX. The sky’s the limit on where to go next. Enjoy!

    Target Audience: Home or SOHO/SBO seeking a GPL PBX with a web-based Graphical User Interface

    Default Configuration: Asterisk 13 with Incredible PBX GUI, Kennonsoft GUI, and NANPA dialplan

    Platform: Raspbian 7 running on a Raspberry Pi 2

    Standard Memory: 1024MB

    Recommended Disk: 16GB+

    Default Trunks: Google Voice, CallCentric, DIDlogic, Future-Nine, IPcomms, Les.net, Vitelity, VoIP.ms2

    Feature Set: SMS messaging, VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, Email, IVR, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, OpenCNAM CallerID lookups, DISA, Call Forwarding, SCCP, CDRs

    Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, Asterisk Upgrader, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, Plug-and-Play Trunk Configurator, WebMin, External IP Setup, Firewall WhiteList Tools

    As with all Incredible PBX products, your server is protected out of the box by our 10-Layer Network Security Model:

    1. Preconfigured IPtables Linux Firewall (IPv4)
    2. Preconfigured Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteLists
    3. Randomized Port Knocker for Remote Access
    4. TM4 WhiteListing by Telephone (optional)
    5. Fail2Ban Log Monitoring for SSH, Apache, Asterisk
    6. Randomized Ultra-Secure Passwords
    7. Automatic Security Updates & Bug Fixes
    8. Asterisk Manager Lockdown to localhost
    9. Apache htaccess Security for Vulnerable Web Apps
    10. Security Alerts via RSS Feeds in Kennonsoft and Incredible PBX GUIs

    Getting Started with Incredible PBX and Incredible PBX GUI (RasPi 2 Edition)

    Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX featuring the Incredible PBX GUI:

    1. Install the Raspberry Pi 2 OS in text mode (No GUI) – Raspbian Wheezy
    2. Configure Raspbian 7 – Optimize Raspbian Wheezy for Incredible PBX
    3. Download and Install Incredible PBX + Incredible PBX GUI
    4. Install Incredible Fax with HylaFax/AvantFax (optional)
    5. Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX
    6. Configure Trunks using Incredible PBX GUI
    7. Connect a Softphone using Incredible PBX GUI

    1. Install Raspbian 7 Platform for Raspberry Pi 2

    For those with Raspberry Pi experience, this is the same drill you’ve performed a dozen times before. For newbies, here’s the procedure. You’ll need a microSD card of at least 8GB, and we strongly recommend a 16GB or 32GB Type 10 card for Incredible PBX. We’ve tested both the SanDisk and Transcend cards, and they both work great.

    Begin by downloading the latest RASPBIAN Wheezy image from RaspberryPi.org to your desktop. For the time being, DO NOT USE Raspbian Jessie! After you’ve unzipped the image, you need to get it moved to your microSD card. RaspberryPi.org has excellent tutorials that will walk you through the process using a Linux, Mac, or Windows desktop platform. Don’t forget to unmount the card before removing it. Building the SD card with Raspbian 7 takes about 30 minutes.

    Once you have your microSD card ready to go, plug it into the slot on the back of the Raspberry Pi 2 and then plug in the power cord. On your attached monitor, you can follow the boot up process. If a login prompt appears, log in as user pi with the password raspberry and run: raspi-config. Usually this isn’t necessary.

    2. Optimizing Raspbian 7 for Incredible PBX

    The first time you boot up your Raspberry Pi 2 with Raspbian 7, it will run the raspi-config script. This allows you to make a number of changes to your Raspberry Pi environment to maximize performance. Let’s take advantage of it. Choose text mode for the bootup since we don’t need the RasPi GUI at all.

    Advanced Options. Enable Remote SSH access to your Raspberry Pi 2.

    Option 1. Expand the File System to fill your SD card. Otherwise, there’s insufficient disk space to complete the install.

    Tab to the Finish option and press ENTER. Then choose Reboot and NO.

    At the Linux command prompt, set a very secure root password: sudo passwd root. Decipher your IP address so that you can log in as root via SSH: ifconfig. Now reboot the system: sudo reboot.

    We strongly recommend completing the rest of the install by logging in as root using a desktop computer via SSH or Putty (for Windows). This gives you the ability to scroll back up and find errors if something happens to come unglued during the install. It also assures that your desktop computer will be whitelisted in the automated setup of the IPtables firewall for IPv4.

    3. Install Incredible PBX on Your Raspberry Pi 2

    Adding Incredible PBX to the Raspberry Pi 2 is easy. To restate the obvious, your server needs a reliable Internet connection to proceed. Using SSH (or Putty on a Windows machine), log into your Raspberry Pi 2 as root at the IP address you deciphered in the ifconfig step at the end of the Raspbian install procedure above.

    Now let’s begin the Incredible PBX install. After logging in as root, issue the following commands. The install takes an hour or more and runs unattended so there’s no need to watch unless you’re curious about how sausage is made. Remember, as part of the build process, we compile all of the major components for Incredible PBX from source. That takes some time. If you’re curious, you can review the open source GPL script to see how it’s done or to embellish it. Incredible PBX is GPL open source, 100% Gotcha-Free code so go for it and share your discoveries. That’s what open source is all about!

    cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx13-12.3.raspbian.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx13-12.3.raspbian.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblepbx13-12.3.raspbian.tar.gz
./IncrediblePBX13-12.3-raspbian.sh

    4. Install Incredible Fax for Incredible PBX (optional)

    Administrators have been trying to stomp out faxing for at least two decades. Here’s a hint. It ain’t gonna happen. So go with the flow and add Gotcha-Free Faxing to your server. It’ll be there when you need it. And sooner or later, you’ll need it. This install script is simple enough for any monkey to complete. Run the script and enter the email address for delivery of your faxes. Then, press the Enter key to accept every default entry during the HylaFax and AvantFax installation steps. 

    cd /root
./incrediblefax11_raspi2.sh

    When the installation finishes, reboot your server to bring faxing on line. After rebooting, you can access the AvantFax GUI with your browser by logging in as admin with the default password: password. Follow the prompts to update your admin password. You also can log into AvantFax from within the Incredible PBX GUI itself by clicking on the Other tab and choosing AvantFax.

    Outgoing faxes using standard document attachments can be created using the AvantFax GUI. The faxes will be sent out using your default outbound dial rules. You can add a dial prefix for sending a fax with AvantFax to force the call out a particular trunk that has been preconfigured in the Incredible PBX GUI.

    Incoming faxes will be delivered to the email address you specified when installing Incredible Fax; however, incoming faxes will be ignored until you configure a destination DID to accept the faxes. You’ll want a dedicated line for incoming faxes! A free Google Voice trunk works fine. Keep reading for DID setup instructions. For the incoming route of the destination DID for your faxes, specify:

    If you ever forget your admin password for AvantFax, you can reset it by running the script: /root/avantfax-pw-change.

    5. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX

    Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IP4tables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to private LANs, your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for our web applications. And the Incredible PBX GUI has its own security methodology. Finally, we randomize extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial install process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

    Even with all of these layers of security, here are 10 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

    First, log into your server as root with your root password and do the following:

    Make your root password very secure: passwd
    Set your correct time zone: /root/timezone-setup
    Restart Asterisk: amportal restart
    Create admin password for Incredible GUI: /root/admin-pw-change
    Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
    Make a copy of your Knock codes: cat /root/knock.FAQ
    Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

    Second, use a web browser pointed to your server’s IP address. Click on the Users tab (bottom left below RSS Feed in Main Menu) to bring up the Administrator Menu. Click the Incredible GUI Administration button (bottom left). When the Incredible GUI Menu appears (shown above), click the Server Administration icon on the left. Login as admin with the password you set using admin-pw-change above. Now change your extension 701 extension and voicemail passwords.

    Click Applications tab
    Choose Extensions from the pull-down menu
    Click on 701 in the far-right Extensions list

    Don’t forget to click Submit and then Apply Settings to save your new entries.

    Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes an Automatic Update Utility which downloads important updates whenever you log into your server as root. We recommend you log in once a week to keep your server current. Now would be a good time to log out and back into your server at the Linux command line to bring your Raspberry Pi 2 up to current specs.

    6. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX

    Now for the fun part. If this is your first VoIP adventure, be advised that this ain’t your grandma’s phone system. You need not and should not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to telephone providers. In order to connect to Plain Old Telephones, you still need at least one provider. But there is nothing wrong with having several. And a provider that handles an outbound call (termination) need not be the same one that handles an incoming call (origination) and provides your phone number (DID). We cannot recommend Vitelity highly enough, and it’s not just because they have financially supported our projects for almost a decade. They’re as good as VoIP providers get, and we use lots of them. If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S., you’d be crazy not to set up a Google Voice account. It’s free as are all phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining preconfigured providers included in Incredible PBX are equally good, and we’ve used and continue to use almost all of them. So pick a few and sign up. You only pay for the calls you make with each provider so you have little to lose by choosing several. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations on VoIP providers if you want additional information.

    With the preconfigured trunks in Incredible PBX, all you need are your credentials for each provider and the FQDN of their server. Log into Incredible PBX GUI Administration as admin using a browser. From the System Status menu, click Connectivity -> Trunks. Click on each provider you have chosen and fill in your credentials including the host entry. Be sure to uncheck the Disable Trunk checkbox! Fill in the appropriate information for the Register String. Save your settings by clicking Submit Changes. Then click the red Apply Config button.

    7. Configure a Softphone 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 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 which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. Choose Applications _> Extensions -> 701 and write down your SIP/IAX Password. You can also find it in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 701 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. 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 City and State or Country*
    951 - Yahoo News
    *61 - Time of Day
    TODAY - Today in History

    * Voice recognition apps require Google credentials. Keep reading.

    If you are a Mac user, another great no-frills softphone is Telephone. Just download and install it from the Mac App Store.

    8. Configuring Google Voice on the Google Side

    If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support Incredible PBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So keep this account a secret!

    IMPORTANT: Do NOT under any circumstances take Google’s bait to switch from Google Chat to Hangouts, or you will forever lose the ability to use Google Chat with Incredible PBX. Also be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That’s the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. Good News! You’re in luck. Google has apparently had a change of heart on discontinuing Google Chat support so it’s enabled by default in all new Google Voice accounts. Once you’ve created a Gmail and Google Voice account, go to Google Voice Settings and click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:

    • Call Screening – OFF
    • Call Presentation – OFF
    • Caller ID (In) – Display Caller’s Number
    • Caller ID (Out) – Don’t Change Anything
    • Do Not Disturb – OFF
    • Call Options (Enable Recording) – OFF
    • Global Spam Filtering – ON

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

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

    This release of Incredible PBX implements OAUTH2 authentication for Google Voice trunks. Even though it’s a bit more work on the front end, the good news is you won’t have to worry about your Google Voice trunks failing when Google phases out plain-text passwords. The other good news is you won’t be passing your plain-text Google Voice credentials across the open Internet for everyone in the world to see.

    While you’re still logged into your Google Voice account, you need to obtain a refresh_token which is what you’ll use instead of a password when setting up your Google Voice account in the GUI. Here’s how.

    1. Be sure you are still logged into your Google Voice account. If not, log back in at https://www.google.com/voice.

    2. Go to the Google OAUTH Playground using your browser while still logged into your Google Voice account.

    3. Once logged in to Google OAUTH Playground, click on the Gear icon in upper right corner (as shown below).

      3a. Check the box: Use your own OAuth credentials
      3b. Enter Incredible PBX OAuth Client ID: 

    466295438629-prpknsovs0b8gjfcrs0sn04s9hgn8j3d.apps.googleusercontent.com

      3c. Enter Incredible PBX OAuth Client secret: 4ewzJaCx275clcT4i4Hfxqo2
      3d. Click Close

    4. Click Step 1: Select and Authorize APIs (as shown below)

      4a. In OAUTH Scope field, enter: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/googletalk
      4b. Click Authorize APIs (blue) button.

    5. Click Step 2: Exchange authorization code for tokens

      5a. Click Exchange authorization code for tokens (blue) button

      5b. When the tokens have been generated, Step 2 will close.

    6. Reopen Step 2 and copy your Refresh_Token. This is the "password" you will need to enter (together with your Gmail account name and 10-digit GV phone number) when you add your GV trunk in the Incredible PBX GUI. Store this refresh_token in a safe place. Google doesn’t permanently store it!

    7. Authorization tokens NEVER expire! If you ever need to remove your authorization tokens, go here and delete Incredible PBX Google Voice OAUTH entry by clicking on it and choosing DELETE option.

    Yes, this is a convoluted process. Setting up a secure computing environment often is. Just follow the steps and don’t skip any. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. And you’ll sleep better.

    9. Configuring Google Voice in the Incredible PBX GUI

    Now you’re ready to configure your Google Voice account in Incredible PBX. You do it from within the Incredible PBX GUI by choosing Connectivity -> Google Voice. Just plug in your Google Voice Username, enter your refresh_token from Step #6 above as your Google Voice Password, enter your 10-digit Google Voice Phone Number, and check the first two boxes: Add Trunk and Add Outbound Routes. Then click Submit and Apply Settings to save your new entries.

    IMPORTANT: Once you’ve entered your credentials, you MUST restart Asterisk from the Linux command line, or Google Voice calls will fail: amportal restart

    10. Troubleshooting Google Voice Connectivity Problems

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

    If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

    Another option is to use one of the inexpensive SIP Gateways to Google Voice. HINT: The Simonics trunk in the Incredible PBX GUI is preconfigured. All you’ll need are your credentials.

    Adding Speech Recognition Support to Incredible PBX

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

    To use Wolfram Alpha by phone, you first must obtain a free Wolfram Alpha APP-ID. Then issue the following command replacing APP-ID with your actual ID. Do NOT change the yourID portion of the command: 

    sed -i "s|yourID|APP-ID|" /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/4747

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

    To access Wolfram Alpha by phone, dial 4747 and enter your query, e.g. "What planes are overhead." Read the Nerd Vittles tutorial for additional examples and tips.

    Implementing WiFi on the Raspberry Pi 2

    You don’t need to rely upon a wired network connection once you get your Raspberry Pi 2. WiFi works just as well. You’ll need a compatible USB WiFi Dongle. We recommend the AirLink 101 from Amazon or the Adafruit 814. Insert it into a free USB slot on your RasPi and boot up. Log in as root and edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. Add the following lines to the bottom of the file using your actual SSID and password. Then reboot after disconnecting your LAN cable.

    network={
 ssid="your-SSID"
 psk="SSID-password"
}

    You can test the performance of your WiFi connection by installing speedtest-cli and then running it:

    easy_install speedtest-cli
speedtest-cli


    Implementing SCCP for Secure, Encrypted Communications with Asterisk

    Today marks our first effort to include and support the extended SCCP Channel Driver for Asterisk 13. All you’ll need to do is add the SCCP and device configuration files, and the rest should work. For a good overview of SCCP, start here. For excellent documentation on SCCP setup, go here. For PIAF Forum support, start here.

    Homework Assignment: Mastering the Incredible PBX Feature Set

    Now would be a good time to explore the Incredible PBX applications. Continue reading there. If you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free.

    Originally published: Monday, September 7, 2015

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


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

     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


    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.
     

    Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

    1. If you don’t have an HDMI-compatible monitor, you now can add the official Raspberry Pi 7″ touch display for $60. [↩]
    2. Vitelity and Google provide financial support to Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX projects. [↩]

    Why Reinvent the Wheel: Incredible PBX GUI Application User’s Guide

    Wednesday, August 26, 2015

    We’ve spent the last two months introducing a half dozen new flavors of Incredible PBX™ featuring the new GPL-compliant Incredible PBX GUI. We hope you’re enjoying the new builds. But it’s Back-to-School Time in the United States so today we’re shifting gears and providing a refresher course on the three dozen or so applications for Asterisk® that accompany every Incredible PBX install.

    For those just beginning your Incredible PBX adventure, start here and choose your favorite platform. There are plenty of choices featuring Asterisk 11 or 13, FreePBX® GPL-compatible modules for versions 2.11 and 12, plus your favorite operating system: CentOS 6.7 and 7.0, Ubuntu 14, and Raspbian for the Raspberry Pi 2. There’s even an installer for the AsteriskNOW and FreePBX Distro proprietary platforms.

    Once your system is up and running, you’ll be ready to kick the tires and discover all of the hidden goodies that await. Today we’ll cover all of the applications for Asterisk® that are included in the new Incredible PBX GUI platforms. After reading this tutorial, if you have specific questions, by all means post them on the PIAF Forum for some quick and friendly help.

    Table of Contents to the Incredible PBX Applications

    1. Checking System Status
    2. Enabling Speech Recognition
    3. Wolfram Alpha for Siri-like queries by phone*
    4. Automatic Update Utility
    5. Asterisk Upgrade Utility
    6. Apache Authentication for Apps
    7. IPtables Firewall WhiteList
    8. PortKnocker Remote Access
    9. Travelin’ Man 4 Remote Access by Phone
    10. Conference Bridge
    11. CallerID Name (CNAM) Lookups
    12. Faxing with Incredible PBX
    13. Voicemail 101 with Incredible PBX
    14. Email Delivery of MP3 Voicemails
    15. Reconfiguring SendMail for SmartHosts
    16. SMS Blasting with Google Voice
    17. SMS Voice Messaging with Google Voice*
    18. SMS Messaging with VoIP.ms
    19. SIP URI Calling with Speed Dials
    20. IVR Demo of Incredible PBX Applications*
    21. Backup and Restore Options
    22. AsteriDex – The Poor Man’s Rolodex®
    23. Voice Dialing with AsteriDex*
    24. Speed Dialing with AsteriDex
    25. Scheduling Reminders by Phone or Web
    26. DISA Access with Incredible PBX
    27. Yahoo! News Headlines
    28. Weather Forecasts with Incredible PBX*
    29. ODBC Application Support
    30. Today in History
    31. Time of Day
    32. WebMin: The Linux Swiss Army Knife
    33. phpMyAdmin: The MySQL Swiss Army Knife
    34. SIP Gateways for Secure (and Free) Google Voice Calling
    35. User Control Panel for Extension Management

    * Requires Voice Recognition implementation. See #2 above.

    1. Checking Current Status of Incredible PBX

    There are several ways to check the status of your server. First, log in as root and type: status or pbxstatus

    The second option is to use a browser to access your server. Choose the Admin menu. Then click Incredible PBX Administration. Log in as admin with the password you set in the Linux CLI: /root/admin-pw-change. Once you log in with your Incredible GUI admin password, the System Status menu will be displayed.

    Once you roam through the GUI options, you can redisplay the System Status screen by clicking Reports -> System Status.

    2. Adding Speech Recognition to Incredible PBX

    Google changed the licensing of their speech recognition engine last year and now restricts use to "personal and development use." Assuming you qualify, the very first order of business is to enable speech recognition for your new PBX. Once enabled, the Incredible PBX feature set grows exponentially. You’ll have access to the Voice Dialer for AsteriDex, Worldwide Weather Reports where you can say the name of a city and state or province to get a weather forecast for almost anywhere, Wolfram Alpha for a Siri-like encyclopedia for your PBX, and Lefteris Zafiris’ speech recognition software to build additional Asterisk apps limited only by your imagination.

    Here’s how to activate speech recognition on Incredible PBX. Don’t skip any steps!

    3. Using Wolfram Alpha with Incredible PBX

    Ever wished your Asterisk server could harness the power of a 10,000 CPU Supercomputer to answer virtually any question you can dream up about the world we live in? Well, so long as it’s for non-commercial use, today’s your lucky day. Apple demonstrated with Siri™ just how amazing this technology can be by coupling Wolfram Alpha® to a speech-to-text engine on the iPhone. Now you can do much the same thing using voice recognition with Incredible PBX.

    Before using Wolfram Alpha from any phone connected to your PBX, you first must configure it by obtaining and adding a Wolfram Alpha application ID to Incredible PBX. Here are the simple steps:

    1. Obtain your free Wolfram Alpha APP-ID here.

    2. Log into your server as root and issue the following command: 

    nano -w /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/4747

    3. When the nano editor opens, the top line of the file will look like this:

    APPID="Your-Wolfram-Alpha-App-ID-Goes-Here"

    4. Replace the text between the quotes with your APP_ID key from Step #1 above. Then save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter.

    To use Wolfram Alpha, dial 4747 (that’s S-I-R-I backwards) from any extension.

    Here are some sample queries to get you started:

    Weather in Charleston South Carolina
    Weather forecast for Washington D.C.
    Next solar eclipse
    Otis Redding
    Define politician
    Who won the 1969 Superbowl? (Broadway Joe)
    What planes are overhead? (flying over your server’s location)
    Ham and cheese sandwich (nutritional information)
    Holidays 2015 (summary of all holidays for 2015 with dates and DOW)
    Medical University of South Carolina (history of MUSC)
    Star Trek (show history, air dates, number of episodes, and more)
    Apollo 11 (everything you ever wanted to know)
    Cheapest Toaster (brand and price)
    Battle of Gettysburg (sad day 🙂 )
    Daylight Savings Time 2015 (date ranges and how to set your clocks)
    Tablets by Samsung (pricing, models, and specs)
    Doughnut (you don’t wanna know)
    Snickers bar (ditto)
    Weather (local weather at your server’s location)

    4. Automatic Update Utility for Incredible PBX

    A key security component of Incredible PBX is its Automatic Update Utility. Each time you log into your server as root, the Automatic Update Utility is run. It installs the latest fixes and security patches for your server. Don’t disable it! In fact, don’t delete anything from the /root folder. You’ll need all of it sooner or later.

    We recommend you log into your server as root at least once a week to keep your server current. Ditto for the web interface to Incredible PBX. Insofar as security is concerned, we make a best effort to keep the components of Incredible PBX up to date. The Linux operating system was installed by you before the Incredible PBX install began. That’s a nice way of saying Linux security is primarily your responsibility. When an egregious Linux vulnerability comes along that we know about, we will try to notify you of the issue on the PIAF Forum and on the RSS Feed that is part of the Incredible PBX Main Menu shown at the top of this article. Check the RSS Feed with a browser at least once a week. As a condition of use of the free Incredible PBX, you accepted ultimate responsibility for the security and reliability of your server. None of this discussion changes any of that.

    5. Asterisk Upgrade Utility for Incredible PBX

    We’ve developed a script to upgrade Asterisk to the latest version whenever you feel the urge. This brings you current in your existing release, e.g. Asterisk 11 or 13. It does NOT upgrade Asterisk 11 to 13! Before beginning the upgrade, log into your server as root using SSH and maximize the window. Otherwise, Asterisk may not compile properly. Then execute these commands:
    cd /root
    wget http://incrediblepbx.com/upgrade-asterisk-to-current.tar.gz
    tar zxvf upgrade-asterisk-to-current.tar.gz
    rm -f upgrade-asterisk-to-current.tar.gz
    ./upgrade-asterisk-to-current

    6. Implementing Apache Authentication with Incredible PBX

    With the exception of the Incredible GUI and WebMin, all web-based applications included in Incredible PBX require successful authentication with the Apache admin password to gain access. When you installed Incredible PBX, you should have created an Apache admin account. If not, issue the following command using a secure password after logging in as root:

    htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword

    With the exception of AsteriDex and Reminders, you gain access to other Incredible PBX applications with the Apache admin account. For the remaining apps, you may wish to (but don’t have to) assign different account names and passwords to various departments in your organization. To set up these accounts, use the syntax above substituting the name of the department for "admin" and the department password for "newpassword."

    7. Managing the IPtables Linux Firewall and WhiteList

    As installed, Incredible PBX includes a preconfigured, locked-down Linux firewall that restricts incoming IPv6 traffic to localhost and, via a WhiteList, limits incoming IPv4 traffic to your server’s public and private IP addresses, your desktop computer’s IP address (that was used for the install), private LAN and NeoRouter VPN traffic, and a collection of our favorite SIP providers. You can WhiteList additional IP addresses for additional providers or for SIP and IAX phones located outside your firewall. The following firewall management scripts are mostly installed in the /root directory:

    • ./add-ip — WhiteList an additional IP address or IP address range (CIDR)
    • ./add-fqdn — WhiteList a site using a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN)
    • ./del-acct — Remove previously designated entry from the WhiteList
    • ./ipchecker — Check whether specified FQDNs have changed & update IPtables
    • iptables-restart — Used exclusively to restart IPtables and test for failed FQDNs
    • iptables -nL — Check the current status of your IPtables firewall

    IPtables can be manually configured (if you know what you’re doing) by editing iptables and ip6tables in /etc/sysconfig (CentOS) or rules.v4 and rules.v6 in /etc/iptables (Ubuntu/Debian/Raspbian). NEVER use traditional iptables commands such as service iptables save to update your IPtables configuration, or you will permanently delete all of your FQDN entries! Instead, edit the files directly and then restart IPtables using iptables-restart. This protects the FQDN entries in your setup while also checking for invalid FQDN entries and removing them temporarily so that IPtables will successfully restart. If you use service iptables restart to restart IPtables and there happens to be an FQDN entry for a host that is either down or has disappeared, IPtables will fail to restart and your server will be left with NO firewall protection! The reason for this is the IPtables design which converts all FQDN entries to fixed IP addresses when it starts up. It’s also the reason we have to periodically check for changed FQDN entries using the ipchecker script with cron. For this to work properly, you will need to manually add your FQDN setups to the top of /root/ipchecker by inserting the filenames of any add-fqdn entries you have created. For additional details, read our Travelin’ Man 3 tutorial.

    8. PortKnocker Remote Access to Incredible PBX

    IPtables is a powerful firewall that keeps the bad guys out. It also will keep legitimate users (including you) from gaining remote access to your server unless you had the forethought to WhiteList your remote IP address before you left on that family vacation. Unfortunately, you don’t always know your IP address in advance. And dynamic IP addresses assigned with hotel WiFi frequently change. To address this problem, Incredible PBX includes a preconfigured PortKnocker utility. This lets you send three secret "knocks" on random TCP ports to your server to tell it to let you in temporarily (until IPtables is again restarted or the access window time expires).

    For PortKnocker to work, you obviously need to know the secret knocks. You’ll find them in /root/knock.FAQ. Record them in your wallet or inside your suitcase for that rainy day! There are PortKnocker apps for almost all smartphones as well as for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. Install your favorite AND test access before you leave town.

    Finally, be aware that PortKnocker does not need any special access to your server to work; however, if your server is behind a hardware-based firewall, then you must map the three PortKnocker TCP ports to the private IP address of your server, or the knocks obviously will never get delivered to your server.

    Review our PortKnocker tutorial for additional configuration tips.

    9. Travelin’ Man 4 Remote Access to Incredible PBX (Dial TM4)

    In addition to PortKnocker, Incredible PBX also includes a telephone-based solution to temporarily gain remote access to your server. This does require a bit of preplanning since you must create account credentials for the person to whom you wish to give remote access via a phone call. The complete tutorial for Travelin’ Man 4 is available on the PIAF Forum. All of the pieces already are in place on your server so skip down to the Configuration & Operation sections for details on implementation. The tutorial also covers the Administrator Utilities in /root/tm4 which let you set up remote user accounts.

    10. Using the Conference Bridge in Incredible PBX (Dial C-O-N-F)


    A new turnkey Asterisk Conference Bridge has been added to Incredible PBX. A conference bridge allows a group of people to participate in a joint phone call. Typically, participants dial into a virtual meeting room from their own phone. This virtual meeting room supports dozens or even hundreds of participants depending upon server capacity.

    You do not need a timing source for conferencing with Incredible PBX! Old-style Asterisk MeetMe Conference Rooms which required a timing source are disabled.

    To access the Conference Bridge, dial C-O-N-F (2663) from any phone connected to your server. Remote users can be added to a conference by providing a DID that points to an IVR which includes Conference Bridge access. Once connected to the conference bridge, a caller is prompted for the Conference Bridge PIN and his or her name.

    To display Conference Bridge PINs, open Incredible GUI with a browser. Choose Applications -> Conferences -> 2663 and your Conference Bridge PINs will be shown. Reset them as desired.

    11. CallerID Name (CNAM) Lookups with Incredible PBX

    By default, Incredible PBX is configured to automatically provide CallerID Name lookups using CallerID Superfecta, an application initially developed on Nerd Vittles almost a decade ago. You also have the option of using free OpenCNAM CallerID name lookups for the first ten calls received each hour. These lookups are only from cached entries in the OpenCNAM database; however, you can enable the commercial lookup service if desired. The cost is four tenths of a cent per successful query.

    12. Free Faxing with Incredible PBX

    If you added Incredible Fax to your server by running incrediblefax script in the /root folder, then you’re in for a treat. As part of the install, you provided an email address for delivery of incoming faxes. That’s all the setup that is required to have incoming faxes delivered via email in PDF format. The best way to figure out whether a particular provider supports fax technology on their DIDs is to send a test fax to yourself. FaxZERO lets you send 5 free faxes of up to 3 pages every day. Give it a whirl.

    You also can send faxes using standard document types with the AvantFax web application. Log into AvantFax from the main Incredible PBX page by clicking on the AvantFax icon. Choose the Send a Fax option from the main menu, fill in the blanks, and attach your document. AvantFax uses the default dialplan so use the prefix desired to send the fax using your preferred provider. HINT: Google Voice does an excellent job with both incoming and outgoing faxes, and the calls are free in the U.S. and Canada.

    Copies of all incoming faxes also are available for retrieval within AvantFax.

    13. Voicemail 101 for Incredible PBX

    Voicemail functionality is enabled on an extension-by-extension basis as part of the Extension setup under the Applications tab in the GUI. Once enabled, you can set up your mailbox and retrieve your messages by dialing *98. You can leave a message for any extension without actually calling the extension. Just prepend * to any extension number before dialing, e.g. *701. A number of the system settings for voicemail can be tweaked under the Voicemail Admin option under the Settings tab.

    14. Email Delivery of MP3 Voicemails with Incredible PBX

    Speaking of email delivery, your voicemails also can be delivered to any email address of your choosing. For every Extension, simply add an Email Address in the Voicemail section of the form. With Incredible PBX, the voicemail message will be attached to the email in MP3 format so it’s suitable for playback with most email clients on desktop PCs, Macs, and smartphones. Be advised that some Internet service providers (such as Comcast) block downstream SMTP servers. You can check whether your outbound email is flowing by accessing WebMin (below) and choosing Servers -> SendMail Mail Server -> Mail Queue. If you find outbound mail is accumulating, then you’ll need to add your ISP’s SMTP server address as a SmartHost for SendMail as documented in the next section.

    15. Reconfiguring SendMail for SmartHost SMTP Delivery Of Outgoing Emails

    Many residential Internet service providers block downstream SMTP servers such as the SendMail server running with Incredible PBX. If you’re sending emails but they never arrive and you’ve checked your SPAM folder, then chances are your ISP is the culprit. The simple solution is to add your ISP’s SMTP server as a SmartHost for SendMail. This means outbound emails will be forwarded to your ISP for actual email transmission over the Internet. Here’s how. Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and search for DS. Immediately after DS, add the FQDN of your ISP’s SMTP server, e.g. DSsmtp.comcrap.net (no spaces!). Save the file and then restart SendMail: service sendmail restart. Your email and voicemail messages with attachments should begin flowing without further delay.

    Email from: Asterisk PBX asterisk@pbx.local...
"Nerd Vittles" at 8001234567 left a new voicemail message 1 for extension 6002 on Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 01:42:33 PM.

    You can test email delivery by sending yourself a message from the Linux CLI:

    echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@somedomain.com

    16. SMS Blasting with Google Voice and Incredible PBX

    Out of the box, Incredible PBX supports SMS Message Blasting if you have a functioning Google Voice account set up. Before first use, you must add your credentials, address list, and text message to the SMS Blaster scripts in the /root folder.

    In smsblast, insert your credentials:

    GVACCT="yourname@gmail.com"
GVPASS="yourpassword"
MSGSUBJECT="Little League Alert"

    In smslist.txt, insert one or more recipients for your message. These can be a combination of SMS addresses and email addresses and will be delivered accordingly.

    NOTE: For most cellphone providers, you also can send an email message for SMS delivery by the provider. The complete list of providers is available here. Email messaging for SMS requires that you know the cellphone provider for your recipient while standard SMS messaging does not. 

    # In lieu of SMS number, email is also OK
8431234567 Doe John
mary@doe.com Doe Mary
8435551212@txt.att.net Mr T

    In smsmsg.txt, enter the text message to be sent.

    Once you have all three files configured, run the script: /root/smsblast.

    17. Voice-Activated SMS Messaging with Incredible PBX (Dial S-M-S)

    In addition to message blasting, you also can dial 767 from any extension and dictate an SMS message to send through your Google Voice account. When prompted for the destination, simply enter the 10-digit SMS number of the recipient.

    18. SMS Messaging with VoIP.ms and Incredible PBX

    Incredible PBX also supports SMS messaging through VoIP.ms if you have an account and an SMS-enabled DID. See the VoIP.ms wiki for setup info on the VoIP.ms side.

    To install the VoIP.ms SMS scripts, follow these steps:

    cd /root
mkdir sms-voip.ms
cd sms-voip.ms
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/voipms-SMS.tar.gz
tar zxvf voipms-SMS.tar.gz

    Edit voipms-sms.php and insert your VoIP.ms number that supports SMS messaging (no spoofing allowed!):

    $SMSsender="8005551212";

    Edit class.voipms.php and insert your VoIP.ms API credentials:

        /*******************************************\
     *  VoIPms - API Credentials
    \*******************************************/
    var $api_username   = 'yourname@youremail.com';
    var $api_password   = 'yourpassword';

    Send an SMS message through VoIP.ms with the following command where smsnumber is the 10-digit number of the SMS recipient and "sms message" is the text message surrounded by quotes:

    /root/sms-voip.ms/voipms-sms.php smsnumber "sms message"

    NOTE: VoIP.ms has indicated that sooner or later there will be a penny per message charge for SMS messages; however, they’re still free as of now.

    19. SIP URI Calling with Incredible PBX (Demo: Dial L-E-N-N-Y)

    With one line of dialplan code, you can add Speed Dials for free SIP URI calling worldwide. Just create an Other (Custom) Device Extension. Provide an extension number for the SIP URI and enter the SIP URI in the following format in the dial field: SIP/2233435945@sip2sip.info

    20. IVR Demo of Incredible PBX Applications (Dial 7001)

    The easiest way to try out a number of the Incredible PBX applications is to take the IVR Demo for a spin. Just pick up any phone and dial D-E-M-O (3366). The sample code for the IVR is available for review and modification in extensions_custom.conf. Just search for 3366. You can create your own IVRs and AutoAttendants using the IVR option under the Applications tab in the GUI.

    21. Incredible Backup & Restore with Incredible PBX

    Incredible Backup and Restore scripts are included in the /root folder. These scripts make and restore snapshots of the settings on your server and should be used in conjunction with a full system backup solution. The GUI includes its own backup snapshots by choosing Backup & Restore under the Admin tab.

    22. AsteriDex – The Poor Man’s Rolodex

    AsteriDex is a web-based phonebook application for Incredible PBX. You can access it from the main web menu. Scripts are also available to import your contacts from Outlook and Google Contacts.

    23. Voice Dialing with AsteriDex (Dial 411)

    If you have voice recognition enabled on your server, you can call anyone in your AsteriDex database by dialing 411.

    24. Speed Dialing with AsteriDex (Dial 412 or 000+)

    For those without voice recognition, Incredible PBX includes two speed dialing utilities. The first is accessed by dialing 412. Then enter any 3-digit dialcode from your AsteriDex database to complete the call.

    For a complete listing of your AsteriDex dial codes, execute this query:

    mysql -u root -ppassw0rd asteridex -e "select name,dialcode from user1 order by name"

    25. Telephone Reminders (Dial 123)

    Incredible PBX includes a sophisticated reminders system that lets you schedule individual or recurring reminders using your phone by dialing 123 or a web browser. A complete tutorial is available here. For phone reminders, a password is required to access the reminder system. You’ll find or can set your Reminders password by searching for 123 in extensions_custom.conf. Typically, these reminders set up a return call at a scheduled time that then plays back either a recorded message or a TTS message generated from the text you entered in the browser application. Incredible PBX also includes a new addition that lets you schedule web reminders that are delivered by email or SMS message. Links to the web-based reminders applications are in the main Incredible PBX web menu.

    26. DISA Access with Incredible PBX

    Direct Inward System Access (aka DISA) is one of the great PBX inventions of the last 50 years. It’s also one of the most dangerous. It lets someone connect to your PBX and obtain dial tone to place an outbound call using your trunks… on your nickel. Typically, it is offered as an option with an IVR or AutoAttendant. DISA extensions can be added using the DISA option under the Applications tab. Make sure you assign a very secure password. It’s your phone bill.

    27. Yahoo! News (Dial 951)

    Yahoo! news headlines are available by dialing 951. The news option also is included in the sample IVR application.

    28. Weather Forecasts by Phone (Dial 949 or Z-I-P)

    If you have voice recognition enabled on your server, you can retrieve a weather report for most cities in the world by dialing 949 and saying the name of the city plus the state, province, or country. For PBXs without voice recognition, you can obtain a weather forecast for most zip codes by dialing 947 (Z-I-P) and entering the 5-digit zip code.

    29. ODBC Application Support for Asterisk

    ODBC/MySQL application support for Asterisk is included in Incredible PBX. You can try out a few sample applications that are included to get you started. Dial 222 and enter 12345 for the employee number. This retrieves an employee name from the MySQL timeclock database using Asterisk. Dial 223 to retrieve an AsteriDex name and phone number by entering the 3-character dialcode. You then have the option of placing the call by pressing 1. Once you have created accounts for Travelin’ Man 4, you can dial 864 (T-M-4) to WhiteList an IP address for that account after entering the account number and matching PIN. Use the * key for periods in the IP address. The code for all of the samples is in the following files in /etc/asterisk: odbc.conf and func_odbc.conf. If you create new MySQL databases, remember to add corresponding entries in res_odbc.conf and /etc/odbc.ini. Then restart Asterisk: amportal restart.

    30. Today in History (Dial T-O-D-A-Y)

    It’s always interesting to find out what happened Today in History. And Incredible PBX now delivers it by phone. Just dial 86329 (T-O-D-A-Y) for a walk down memory lane.

    31. Time of Day

    Speaking of yesteryear, if you grew up dialing TI-4-1212 for the time of day, Ma Bell may have discontinued the service, but we haven’t. Now you can do it on your very own PBX. Just dial into the DEMO IVR and choose option 4.

    But suppose you want your users to be able to dial in for the time. Just dial *61 for a time update.

    32. WebMin: The Linux Swiss Army Knife

    There is no finer Linux application than WebMin. There is no more dangerous Linux application than WebMin. You’ve been warned. We heartily recommend WebMin as a tool to LOOK at your server’s settings. We strongly discourage changing anything in WebMin unless you totally know what you are doing. This is especially true with management of Linux applications that make up the core of Incredible PBX: the Linux kernel, SendMail, IPtables, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and…

    To access WebMin, click on the WebMin link in the main Incredible PBX web menu. The username is root. The password is your root password. WebMin has root privileges to your server. Reread paragraph 1 and act accordingly.

    For an exhaustive tutorial on WebMin, download The Book of WebMin by Joe Cooper. For a more recent commercial offering, take a look at Michal Karzyński’s WebMin Administrator’s Cookbook.

    33. phpMyAdmin: The MySQL Swiss Army Knife

    The same caveats we expressed regarding WebMin apply to phpMyAdmin. It is a powerful tool for managing MySQL databases in the right hands. It is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. There should be little need to use phpMyAdmin unless you are developing a customized database solution for your business. We’ve included phpMyAdmin just in case.

    To access phpMyAdmin, click on the phpMyAdmin link in the main Incredible PBX web menu. For tutorials on phpMyAdmin, see the phpMyAdmin wiki. For an excellent commercial offering focused on the version of phpMyAdmin installed on your server, consider Mastering phpMyAdmin 3.4 for Effective MySQL Management by Marc Delisle.

    34. SIP Gateways for Secure (and Free) Google Voice Calling

    If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial. If you’d prefer a secure, pain-free method of accessing Google Voice via SIP for a modest one-time fee, there are some other options:

    35. User Control Panel for Extension Management

    For those that have clamored for a safe way to permit end-users to manage their extensions and voicemails, your ship has arrived. Meet the User Control Panel (UCP) which now is part of the Incredible PBX GUI. First, set up accounts for your users with the User Management option under the Admin tab. Specify account names, passwords, and extensions to be managed. Other entries for email addresses are optional. Then choose the UCP option in the GUI, login with one of the accounts you’ve created, and follow your nose.

    Originally published: Wednesday, August 26, 2015

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


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

     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


    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.

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

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

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

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