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Introducing Asterisk@Home 2.0: The Definitive Soup to Nuts Installation Guide

Want a rock-solid PBX at a rock-bottom price: free! Gosh, you haven't heard that since our column a few weeks ago introducing Asterisk® 1.2. What a difference two weeks makes. The final version of Asterisk@Home 2.0 was released the day before Thanksgiving and, from the looks of things, it's darn near perfect! You not only get the latest version of Asterisk (version 1.2), you also get the latest and greatest version of Linux, CentOS 4.2; the latest Festival Speech Engine (1.96); the latest version of the Asterisk Management Panel (1.10.010); the Flash Operator Panel (version 0.24); Digium® card auto-configuration; fax support; loads of AGI scripts including weather forecasts and wakeup calls; xPL support; and the SugarCRM Contact Management System with the Cisco XML Services interface and Click-to-Dial support. And it all still fits on a single CD!

NOTE: Version 2.1 was posted late Wednesday, November 30. Our new 2.1 tutorial will be available here on Friday, December 2.

The installation process is pretty straightforward. You download an ISO image from here, burn a CD (click here if you need a refresher course), use an old clunker PC or an under $200 WalMart special (see inset), insert the CD you made, plug your machine into the Internet and turn it on. Then watch while Asterisk@Home loads CentOS/4.2 and all the Asterisk and Linux goodies imaginable: Apache, SendMail, Comedian Mail, SugarCRM, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, SSH, Bluetooth, the Asterisk Management Panel, the Flash Operator Panel, Call Detail Reporting, and on and on. We've covered how to use most of the Linux products in our Mac HOW-TO's (see sidebar), and they work exactly the same way with Asterisk@Home so keep reading. And, yes, this install will reformat (aka ERASE) your hard disk before it begins, but it now warns you first.


Loading CentOS/4 and Asterisk 1.20. Here's how the 2.0 install went for us, and we'll walk you through the few very minor issues that still remain to be manually tweaked. Once the install begins, you can expect to eat up about 25 minutes with the CentOS 4.2 install. The install CD then will eject itself, reboot the system, and begin the Asterisk compile and installation. That takes about 25 more minutes to complete.

Securing Your Passwords. When it's finished and reboots, log in as root with password as your password. Type help-aah for a listing of the passwords that need to be changed. Change them all NOW!

passwd
passwd admin
passwd-maint
passwd-amp
passwd-meetme

Getting the Latest CentOS Updates. Once your system is secure, load all of the application updates for CentOS 4.2. There are about forty of them as we write this so be patient. The update command to issue is yum -y update.

Activating Bluetooth Support. Once the updates are completed, activate Bluetooth support if you plan to use it with our Follow-Me Phoning proximity detection application. Run setup, down arrow to System Services, press ENTER, down arrow to bluetooth and press the space bar, tab to OK, press ENTER, tab twice to Quit and press ENTER.

Rebuilding Zaptel. First, reboot your system: shutdown -r now. Because a new version of the kernel is installed as part of the update, you'll need to rebuild support for ZAP devices. Log in as root and type rebuild_zaptel. Reboot once more and you're all set to go: shutdown -r now.

Simplifying SSH. If you're going to be connecting to other servers from your new Asterisk@Home 2 system using SSH or SCP, then build your new RSA key pair now. This lets you use SSH and SCP (secure copy) without having to enter a password each time. You can also automate backups and proximity detection scripts as we've explained previously here. Log in to your new Asterisk@Home 2 server as root. From the command prompt, issue the following command: ssh-keygen -t rsa. Press the enter key three times. You should see something similar to the following. The file name and location in bold below is the information we need:

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
1d:3c:14:23:d8:7b:57:d2:cd:18:70:80:0f:9b:b5:92 root@asterisk1.local

Now copy the file in bold above to your other Asterisk servers, Linux machines, and Macs. There's probably a way on PCs as well, but I've given up on that platform particularly after Sony's latest security stunt so you're on your own there. From your Asterisk2 server using SCP, the command should look like the following (except use the private IP address of each of your other Asterisk or Linux servers instead of 192.168.0.104). Provide the root password to your other servers (one at a time) when prompted to do so.

scp /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@192.168.0.104:/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

On a Mac running Mac OS X, the command would look like this (using your username and your Mac's IP address, of course):

For user access only: scp /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub wardmundy@192.168.0.104:/Users/wardmundy/.ssh/authorized_keys
For full root access: scp /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@192.168.0.104:/var/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

Once the file has been copied to each server, try to log in to your other server from your Asterisk 2 Server with the following command using the correct destination IP address, of course:

ssh root@192.168.0.104

You should be admitted without entering a password. If not, repeat the drill or read the complete article and find where you made a mistake. Now log out of the other server by typing exit.

Installing WebMin. We don't build Linux systems without installing WebMin, the Swiss Army knife of the Linux World. You can use it to start and stop services, check logs, adjust startup scripts, manage cron jobs, babysit your SendMail server, and many, many other tasks that are downright painful without it. If you ever need help from others, WebMin is a great tool for letting others help you.

There are lots of ways to install WebMin. We prefer the easy way which is to issue the following commands at a Linux prompt after logging in as root. Note: WebMin updates come out all the time. If you want to be sure you start with the latest and greatest version, go to their web site first and write down the number of the current version. Then substitute it below when issuing these commands:

cd /root
mkdir webmin
cd webmin
wget http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin-1.240-1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh webmin*


WebMin runs its own web server on port 10000. To start WebMin, issue this command: /etc/webmin/start. You access it with a web browser pointed to the IP address of your Asterisk box at that port address, e.g. http://192.168.0.108:10000. The login name is root. Then type in your root password and press enter. The main WebMin screen will display. Before we forget, we need to also make one change to the new Asterisk@Home configuration to avoid problems down the road. The default RTP listening ports for Asterisk@Home used to be 10000 to 20000 so there's a conflict on port 10000 with WebMin. Beta 6 fixed this, but the final version doesn't have the change. So, if it still says 10000 on your system, change it to 10001. Log in as root and, using an editor, call up the rtp.conf file: nano /etc/asterisk/rtp.conf. Now change the rtpstart port from 10000 to 10001 and save the change: Ctrl-W, Y, and press Enter. Then restart Asterisk: amportal restart. Finally, to stop WebMin when you're finished using it, issue this command: /etc/webmin/stop. You can start it any time you need it, and then use a web browser to access it. But there's no need to consume processing resources running a second web server when you're not using it.

Basic System Configuration. To get a basic Asterisk system up and running, you only need to do a few things. First, you need an Outbound Trunk to actually deliver your outbound calls to Plain Old Telephones (POTS). Second, you need to configure an Outbound Route to tell Asterisk which trunk to use to deliver your outbound calls to the intended recipients. Third, you need to configure at least one extension so that you can plug in some sort of telephone instrument to place and receive calls using your new Asterisk server. The phone can be a hardware device such as an IP telephone or a POTS phone, or it can be a software device such as a free IP softphone. The advantage of IP telephones and softphones is that they require no additional hardware besides your Asterisk server. A POTS phone or our favorite, a 5.8GHz wireless phone system with up to 10 extensions, both require an additional piece of hardware although some of the newer IP wireless phones give you the best of all worlds (see inset). To use a POTS phone, the hardware required is either a circuit board with an FXS port or an external black box (ATA device) such as a Sipura SPA-1001. If you also want to connect your Ma Bell phone line to your Asterisk server, then you need a circuit board with an FXO port or an external black box (ATA device) such as a Sipura SPA-3000. Our favorite is the SPA-3000 because it has both FXO and FXS ports in a box the size of a pack of cigarettes for under $100.


Setting Up An Outbound Trunk. You configure an outbound trunk using your web browser and the Asterisk Management Portal (AMP). But first, you have to have an account with a service provider. This is the company that carries your calls from your Asterisk server to plain old phones in your neighbor's house or Aunt Betty's in California. With VoIP, it's a good idea to have two providers, but today let's start with one. We'll save you some time and lots of money. Unless you make substantial international calls regularly, use TelaSIP/VoipExpress. If you want to know why, read the full article here. Or just try a free call for yourself using our server. Basically, $5.95 a month gets you a local number in your choice of area code with free incoming calls, and 2¢ per minute for outbound calls to anywhere in the U.S. $9.95 a month buys you all of that plus free outbound calls in the area code of the phone number you select. $14.95 a month gets you a number in the area code of your choice with unlimited incoming calls and unlimited outbound calls to anywhere in the U.S. There are no sneaky add-on fees and no obnoxious terms of service. Just be sure to tell them to configure your account for use with Asterisk. The also have very reasonable business plans. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to try another provider, take a look at our easy setup guides for most of the major VoIP providers here.

Once you have your account name and password, point your web browser to the IP address of your new Asterisk 2.0 server and log in as maint with the password you selected. Then choose AMP->Setup->Trunks->Add SIP Trunk assuming you're using TelaSIP. NOTE to existing users: if you already have an Asterisk server using your TelaSIP account, don't use the same account at the same time on your new Asterisk@Home 2.0 server! Plug in the CallerID number you were assigned for your account. Set Maximum Channels to 2. For the Dial Rules, use the following (substituting your local area code for 404 below):

1|NXXNXXXXXX
NXXNXXXXXX
404+NXXXXXX

In the Outgoing Settings section, name your trunk telasip-gw. Then enter the following for the Peer Details using your own account name for username and fromuser and using your own assigned password for secret:

context=telasip-in
dtmfmode=rfc2833
fromuser=youraccountname
host=gw3.telasip.com
insecure=very
secret=yourpassword
type=peer
username=youraccountname

Leave the Incoming Settings section blank, and in the Registration String, enter the following using your account name and password:

youraccountname:yourpassword@gw3.telasip.com

Click the Submit Changes button, and then click the red bar to reload Asterisk. Now we need to add the context which will actually process the incoming calls from TelaSIP. Choose AMP->Maintenance->Config Edit->extensions_custom.conf and add the following code at the bottom of the file substituting your new phone number for 4041234567. Save the file and reload Asterisk to finish the setup.

[telasip-in]
exten => 4041234567,1,NoOp(Incoming call on TelaSIP #4041234567)
exten => 4041234567,2,Dial(local/200@from-internal,20,m)
exten => 4041234567,3,VoiceMail(200@default)
exten => 4041234567,4,Hangup

Configuring an Outbound Route. Now we need to tell Asterisk where to send our outbound calls when we dial them. To get started, we'll just send everything to the TelaSIP trunk we just configured. Choose AMP->Setup->Outbound Routing->Add Route. For Route Name, use Outside. Leave the password blank. For Dial Patterns, enter the following:

NXXXXXX
NXXNXXXXXX
1NXXNXXXXXX

For the Trunk Sequence, choose SIP->telasip-gw from the drop-down list. Then click Submit Changes and then click the red bar to save your Outbound Routing setup.

Configuring an Extension. You have to have an extension to make and receive calls with Asterisk@Home so let's build one. Choose AMP->Setup->Extensions->SIP to begin. For the Extension Number, let's use 200 to keep things simple. For the Display Name, make up something that tells where this phone will be located, e.g. Kitchen. For the Outbound CID, use 200. For secret, make up a password for this extension. For Voicemail and Directory, choose Enabled. Plug in your password again. Type in your email address, and, if you want to also be paged when you get a new voicemail, type in a pager email address. Click the Yes button beside Email Attachment, and leave the other settings alone. Now click the Submit button. You'll see a couple of ugly error messages. Ignore them. It's a beta bug. Just click the red bar to save your changes and reload Asterisk.


Downloading a Free Softphone to Test Asterisk. Unless you already have an IP phone, the easiest way to get started and make sure everything is working is to install an IP softphone. You can download a softphone for Windows, Mac, or Linux from CounterPath. Or download the pulver.Communicator. Both are free! Just install and then configure with the IP address of your Asterisk@Home 2 server. For username and password, use your extension number and password from above. Once you make a few test calls, don't waste any more time. Buy a decent SIP telephone. We think the best value in the marketplace with excellent build quality and feature set is the under $100 GrandStream GXP-2000. It has support for four lines, speaks CallerID numbers, has a lighted display, and can be configured for autoanswer with a great speakerphone. Short of paying three times as much, that's as good as desktop phones get. If you want to use Asterisk throughout your home, buy a good 5.8GHz wireless phone system with plenty of extensions (our two favorites are shown in the insets below) and then purchase an SPA-3000 to connect up both your home phone line and all your cordless phones. Our tutorial will show you how. The final option is to use a wireless IP phone which is the best of both worlds, a cordless phone that talks IP telephony without an ATA blackbox such as the Uniden UIP1868 (see also insets above).


Activating Email Delivery of VoiceMail Messages. When you're out and someone leaves you a voicemail message, Asterisk@Home will let you forward that voicemail message to your email address as a .wav file which can be played within most email client software. Or you can have Asterisk@Home send an instant message to your cell phone or pager telling you who called, what their phone number was, and how long a voicemail message the person left for you. Or you can do both. In addition, you can tell Asterisk@Home whether to delete the voicemail from your Asterisk server after sending it to your email account. In short, you now can manage all of your incoming email and voicemail from a single place, your email client. In order to send out emails from your Asterisk@Home server, you'll need to make two changes. First, make this adjustment to the /etc/hosts file on the server. Since anonymous emails are blocked by most ISPs, you'll need a fully-qualified domain name for your server. The easiest one to use is the fully-qualified domain name that your ISP assigns to the IP address for your broadband connection. Don't forget to update it when your ISP changes your IP address. To find out what your fully-qualified domain name is, go to a command prompt on your Asterisk server and type: nslookup 123.456.789.001 substituting your public IP address for the preceding numbers. Then write down the name entry without the trailing period. Now edit the hosts file: nano /etc/hosts. Move the cursor to the line which begins 127.0.0.1, and then move the cursor over the first letter of the first domain name shown, usually asterisk1.local. Now type in the fully-qualified domain name you previously wrote down and add a space after your entry. Don't erase the existing entries! Save your settings: Ctrl-X, y, enter. Now restart network services on your Asterisk machine: service network restart. Second, go into AMP->Maintenance->Config Edit->vm_general.inc with a web browser. Change the serveremail entry to an email name at the fully qualified domain you used in your /etc/hosts file above. Then save your configuration and restart Asterisk. If you continue with this setup and still don't receive emails, here's another configuration change that is sometimes necessary. On the Asterisk terminal, log in as root. Switch to the directory where the SendMail configuration file is stored: cd /etc/mail. Make a backup of the config file: cp sendmail.cf sendmail.cf.bak. Then issue the following command: echo CGasterisk.dyndns.org >> sendmail.cf. Substitute the actual domain name of your Asterisk server for asterisk.dyndns.org, but be sure it's preceded by CG with no intervening spaces.Then reboot your server and try again: shutdown -r now.


To configure the voice mail forwarding options, go into the Setup tab of the Asterisk Management Portal using a web browser. Click on Extensions and then click on an extension you already have configured. In the Voicemail and Directory section of the form, enter either (or both) your email address and your pager or cellphone's text messaging address. To email the voicemails as attachments, just click Yes beside Email Attachment. To delete the voicemail message from your voicemail inbox after sending it to your email address (not recommended until you first get it working correctly), click Yes beside Delete Vmail. If you want to further customize the email message which is sent, just edit vm_email.inc from AMP's Maintenance->Config Edit screen using your favorite web browser. For those using a dynamic IP address with phones at remote locations connecting to your Asterisk server, we'll show you how to automate the process of changing your Asterisk server's IP address in a future column.

Fixing Call Recording. This link explains the process as well as we could. After making the two changes, call recording inbound and outbound works reliably.

Fixing Paging. If you want to use paging with your Asterisk system, you'll need to perform a little magic to get it working with your full duplex sound card in Asterisk@Home 2.o. For the step-by-step, review this posting on SourceForge.

Fixing Directory Lookup. Usually, pressing the pound key (#) from any phone connected to your Asterisk server calls up a directory lookup function using the Asterisk Management Portal (AMP); however, Digium renamed one of the voice prompts in the 1.2 release of Asterisk which broke this function in AMP. If you simply log into your server as root and issue the following command, it will create a symbolic link to the renamed file and will permanently fix the problem:

ln -s /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/dir-intro-fn.gsm /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/dir-intro-oper.gsm

Managing Incoming Calls. For long time readers of this column, you already know that our recommended strategy for handling incoming calls is to set up a simple Stealth AutoAttendant. Basically, this is a welcome message that greets your callers and then transfers them to an extension or ring group of your choice. The advantage of this approach is that it also lets callers like you press buttons to navigate through various options on your Asterisk system without advertising them to the public at large. If you're just getting started with Asterisk, you can read all about setting up a Stealth AutoAttendant here. If you'd prefer to manage your incoming calls with AMP, you'll still need to fix the [from-sip-external] context in the extensions.conf file, or all your incoming SIP and IAX calls will ring busy. To fix it, choose AMP->Maintenance->Config Edit->extension.conf->from-sip-external. Comment out all the lines in the existing file by adding a semicolon at the beginning of each line. Then add the following line, save your changes, and reload Asterisk.

exten => _.,1,Goto(from-pstn-timecheck,s,1)

Where To Go From Here. Once you've got a functioning Asterisk system, you're ready to move on to the really cool things that make Asterisk a one-of-a-kind PBX. There are customized weather reports, web and phone-based dialers from a MySQL address book, incoming fax to PDF conversion with email delivery, blacklisting of telemarketers, bluetooth proximity detection so that your home or office calls automatically transfer to your cellphone when you depart with your bluetooth device, and on and on. You'll also want to take a more in-depth look at many of the topics we've covered above. For a complete catalog of all of our Asterisk projects and everything else we've written about Asterisk@Home, go here. Then take a look at a terrific writeup from the other side of the globe: Asterisk@Home for Dumb-Me. Finally, there's an Asterisk@Home Handbook Wiki project under development that's worth a careful look. Enjoy!

Introducing Asterisk 1.2: Here’s How to Quickly Upgrade

Want a rock-solid PBX at a rock-bottom price: free! It’s been over a year since the initial release of Asterisk®, and this week the new stable 1.2 release finally hit the street. If you’re just dying to try it and can’t wait for Asterisk@Home to catch up so that you’ll have all your favorite goodies to go with Asterisk, here’s the quick solution for you. First, download and install the latest Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta. This may not work with Asterisk@Home versions below 2.0! See the Comments to today’s article before you try it. The drill is pretty simple. You download an ISO image from here, burn a CD (click here if you need a refresher course), use an old clunker PC or a shiny new WalMart special (see inset for the unbelievable price!), insert the CD, plug your machine into the Internet and turn it on. Then watch while Asterisk@Home loads CentOS/4 and all the Asterisk and Linux goodies you’ll ever need: Apache, SendMail, Comedian Mail, SugarCRM, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, SSH, and on and on. We’ve covered how to use most of these products in our Mac HOW-TO’s (see sidebar), and they work exactly the same way with Linux so keep reading. And, yes, this install will reformat (aka ERASE) your hard disk before it begins. Once it’s finished, change all the default passwords by logging in to your new Asterisk@Home server as root with password as your password, and type help-aah for a list of the passwords that need to be changed, or go here for our complete security tutorial. A list of new features in Asterisk 1.2 is available here.

Editor’s Note: This version of Asterisk has been superceded. For the latest tutorial on or after February 1, click here.


When you finish the Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta install, we’ll first get the latest updates for CentOS/4. Then we’ll load the new Asterisk 1.2 stable release. Here’s how. Log in to your new Asterisk server as root, or better yet, use SSH to log in as root, and then cut and paste each command below in order:

amportal stop
yum -y update

cd /usr/src
wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/zaptel/zaptel-1.2.0.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/libpri/libpri-1.2.0.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/asterisk-1.2.0.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/asterisk-addons-1.2.0.tar.gz
wget http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/asterisk-sounds-1.2.0.tar.gz

tar -zxvf zaptel-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf libpri-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf asterisk-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf asterisk-addons-1.2.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf asterisk-sounds-1.2.0.tar.gz

cd zaptel-1.2.0
make clean
make install
cd ..

cd libpri-1.2.0
make clean
make install
cd ..

cd asterisk-1.2.0
make clean
make install
cd ..

cd asterisk-addons-1.2.0
make clean
make install
cd ..

cd asterisk-sounds-1.2.0
make clean
make install
cd /root

amportal start


Checking Your Install. The Asterisk@Home install takes a little less than an hour, and the Asterisk 1.2 upgrade will set you back another 30 minutes or so. Not bad for free! Once Asterisk restarts, you should be able to log in to your Asterisk Management Portal by pointing a web browser at the IP address of your Asterisk system. Now choose AMP->Maintenance->Asterisk Info and make sure everything is up an running. The Version block should display Asterisk 1.2.0 with the time that you completed the build. If you’ve already got an IP phone or if you’d like to try a free IP-based softphone with your PC, go here next. Last but not least, you need a phone number and service provider so make this link your last stop, and you’ll be off to the races. Enjoy!

Other Tutorials. There are numerous additional articles in this Asterisk HOW-TO series to keep you busy. You can read all of them by clicking here and scrolling down the page. We recommend reading at least the first four or five articles from the bottom up so that the learning curve is less painful. Then you can skip around to your heart’s content.

Keeping Telemarketers At Bay with Asterisk

Just when you thought the National Do-Not-Call Registry was getting you some peace and quiet during the dinner hour, VoIP telephony comes along to give the telemarketers a brand new universe to pollute. And, of course, the politicians exempted themselves and non-profits from the Do-Not-Call rules anyway. Thanks to Katrina and local elections in November, you can expect a wave of unwanted dinnertime calls from your best friends at campaign headquarters or the Fraternal Order of Police. Lucky for you, there's an Asterisk® PBX standing between the telemarketers and your dinner table. Here are a few simple additions you can make to your Asterisk PBX setup to all but eliminate unwanted callers from your life. There are three types of protection we'll address. First, you can build a separate context to handle callers without CallerID. Second, you can send a special information tone to certain callers to block autodialers. And finally, when all else fails, you can quickly place certain numbers in a BlackList database to make sure it's the last time that folks using that number ever disturb you again.

Managing CallerID-less Callers. Not all callers without a CallerID name and number are bad people, at least not quite. So we want to structure our treatment of calls without CallerID in such a way that we don't discard a call that might be important. There are a couple of things you can do to manage these calls. First, you can have Asterisk prompt such callers to either say their name or to key in their phone number. Our preference is recording the name of the caller because hearing the caller speak gives you a good idea whether you want to take the call whereas asking a caller to enter their phone number does nothing to deter really obnoxious telemarketers. With either of these options, our approach (which we previously covered in our security column) is to prompt the caller for the information, park the caller with music on hold, and then announce the call and play back either the caller's name or number. You then have the option of picking up the parked call or leaving the caller parked until they're automatically disconnected.


Our other recommendation for calls without CallerID is to send a special information tone when the call is answered. For those of you that spent $40 on a Telezapper, we're sorry. Asterisk can do it for free. And it really does work with many autodialers used by telemarketers. In fact, with most such systems, once the autodialer receives the special information tone, it places your number in their do-not-call database so you'll never be bothered again. Here's the code we previously recommended to handle calls without CallerID. First, for Asterisk@Home users and others using the Asterisk Management Portal, you tell Asterisk to send incoming calls to your AutoAttendant context. Of all the Asterisk@Home problems we read about, the number 1 issue hands down is incoming calls either ringing with a fast busy or being dropped immediately into voicemail. You fix both problems by deleting the current contents of your [from-sip-external] context and adding the following GoTo command to the [from-sip-external] context in the extensions.conf file. This will send incoming callers to your AutoAttendant (shown below).

exten => _.,1,Wait(1)
exten => _.,2,Goto(from-external-custom,s,1)

And then you drop the following AutoAttendant context into the bottom of your extensions_custom.conf config file. As we've mentioned before, if you cut-and-paste the code below, you'll need to manually replace the typographic quotation marks with regular quote marks, or Asterisk gets sent into the ozone.

[from-external-custom]
exten => s,1,Zapateller(answer|nocallerid)
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => s,4,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM}" = ""]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,5,GotoIf($["foo${CALLERIDNUM}" = "foo"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,6,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:9}" = "Anonymous"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,7,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Unknown"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,8,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,9,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,10,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:10}" = "Restricted"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,11,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:4}" = "PSTN"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,12,DigitTimeout,3
exten => s,13,ResponseTimeout,3
exten => s,14,Background(custom/welcome)

exten => 0,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 0,2,AGI(directory,general,ext-local,${DIRECTORY:0:1}${DIRECTORY_OPTS})
exten => 0,3,VoiceMail(204@default) ; this assumes extension 204 is where you want your voicemail to land
exten => 0,4,Hangup
exten => 1,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 1,2,Dial(local/222@from-internal,20,m) ; we use extension 222 as a ring group to call ALL phones
exten => 1,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 1,4,Hangup
exten => 4,1,Authenticate(1234588)
exten => 4,2,Background(pls-wait-connect-call)
exten => 4,3,DISA(no-password|from-internal)

exten => 2XX,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 2XX,2,Dial(local/${EXTEN}@from-internal,20,m)
exten => 2XX,3,VoiceMail(${EXTEN}@default)
exten => 2XX,4,Hangup
exten => 2XX,103,Voicemail(${EXTEN}@default)
exten => 2XX,104,Hangup

exten => t,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => t,2,Dial(local/204@from-internal,20,m)
exten => t,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => t,4,Hangup

exten => o,1,Dial(local/204@from-internal,20,m) ; this is where pressing 0 takes the caller
exten => o,2,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => o,3,Hangup

exten => i,1,Playback(wrong-try-again-smarty)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,16)

And finally you add the following two contexts to the bottom of the extensions_custom.conf file to handle the unidentified callers. The extension to ring to announce unidentified callers (204 in this example) is in line 70,5 below.

[who-r-u]
exten => s,1,Background(privacy-unident)
exten => s,2,Background(vm-rec-name)
exten => s,3,Wait(2)
exten => s,4,Record(/tmp/asterisk-stranger:gsm|5|15)
exten => s,5,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => s,6,Goto(ext-park,70,1)
exten => s,7,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => s,8,Playback(Goodbye)
exten => s,9,Hangup

[ext-park]
exten => 70,1,Answer
exten => 70,2,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => 70,3,SetCIDNum(200|a)
exten => 70,4,SetCIDName(Parked Call Info|a)
exten => 70,5,ParkAndAnnounce(silence/9:asterisk-friend:/tmp/asterisk-stranger:vm-isonphone:at-following-number:PARKED|40|local/204@from-internal|who-r-u,s,7)
exten => 70,6,Hangup

A footnote to all of this technology is that we personally receive so few legitimate calls from callers without CallerID that we've modified the [who-r-us] context to simply send all these callers straight to voicemail. We'll get a phone alert and an email whenever a new voicemail arrives so, if it's some sort of emergency, we can respond by returning the call immediately. Haven't seen one yet!

BlackListing. And then there are the smart telemarketers, and we'd put the Baby Bells at the top of this list. These are organizations that intentionally provide a fictitious CallerID number just to get around systems that block calls with no CallerID. They're still selling something, and they're just as annoying. They slip into your home under an exception to the Do-Not-Call Registry for "calls from organizations with which you have established a business relationship." In other words, if you buy local phone or cable TV service, these folks have a blank check to annoy the hell out of you ... forever! That's their interpretation of the statute anyway.


As luck would have it, Asterisk@Home 1.5 handles blacklisting callers using its internal database (ast_db) so you never have to take another annoying call from them. Just pick up your phone after an unwanted call, and press *32. That's it. Not much in what follows is original by the way. Our special thanks to Jacken's Blog for documenting all of this. All we've done is revise their code a bit to make it fit the configuration laid out in our other Asterisk@Home tutorials. Note also that problems have been reported using this code with the Asterisk@Home 2.0 betas, but we'll address that down the road as well. To implement BlackListing, we're going to add a line at the top and bottom of our AutoAttendant code and then renumber the 's' extension commands. We also need to adjust the pointer on line i,2 to goto s,17. So the new code looks like this. The way the LookupBlacklist command works is that, if a CallerID number is found in the BlackList database, execution jumps to line s,104 (3 + 101). From there, we send the call to a "special" context to handle blacklisted callers.

[from-external-custom]
exten => s,1,Zapateller(answer|nocallerid)
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,LookupBlacklist ; If CID blacklisted, goto 104
exten => s,4,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => s,5,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM}" = ""]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,6,GotoIf($["foo${CALLERIDNUM}" = "foo"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,7,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:9}" = "Anonymous"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,8,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Unknown"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,9,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,10,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,11,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:10}" = "Restricted"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,12,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:4}" = "PSTN"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,13,DigitTimeout,3
exten => s,14,ResponseTimeout,3
exten => s,15,Background(custom/welcome)
exten => s,104,Goto(custom-blacklisted,s,1)

exten => 0,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 0,2,AGI(directory,general,ext-local,${DIRECTORY:0:1}${DIRECTORY_OPTS})
exten => 0,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 0,4,Hangup
exten => 1,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 1,2,Dial(local/222@from-internal,20,m)
exten => 1,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 1,4,Hangup
exten => 4,1,Authenticate(1234588)
exten => 4,2,Background(pls-wait-connect-call)
exten => 4,3,DISA(no-password|from-internal)

exten => 2XX,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 2XX,2,Dial(local/${EXTEN}@from-internal,20,m)
exten => 2XX,3,VoiceMail(${EXTEN}@default)
exten => 2XX,4,Hangup
exten => 2XX,103,Voicemail(${EXTEN}@default)
exten => 2XX,104,Hangup

exten => t,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => t,2,Dial(local/204@from-internal,20,m)
exten => t,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => t,4,Hangup

exten => o,1,Dial(local/204@from-internal,20,m)
exten => o,2,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => o,3,Hangup

exten => i,1,Playback(wrong-try-again-smarty)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,17)

Now we need to drop in four BlackList contexts to let you respond to BlackListed callers and to manage your BlackList process using any touchtone phone. So, at the bottom of the extensions_custom.conf file, add the following:

[custom-blacklist-last]
exten => s,1,Answer
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,DBget(number=CALLTRACE/${CALLERIDNUM}) ; goto 104 if no lastcaller
exten => s,4,GotoIf($"${number}" = ""?104) ; also if it's blank (caller id blocked)
exten => s,5,Playback(privacy-to-blacklist-last-caller)
exten => s,6,Playback(telephone-number)
exten => s,7,SayDigits(${number})
exten => s,8,Wait,1
exten => s,9,Background(press-1)
exten => s,10,Background(or)
exten => s,11,Background(press-star-cancel)
exten => s,12,Hangup
exten => s,104,Playback(unidentified-no-callback)
exten => s,105,Background(goodbye)
exten => s,106,Hangup
exten => 1,1,DBput(blacklist/${number}=1)
exten => 1,2,Playback(privacy-blacklisted)
exten => 1,3,Wait,1
exten => 1,4,Background(goodbye)
exten => 1,5,Hangup
exten => t,1,Background(goodbye)
exten => t,2,Hangup
exten => i,1,Background(goodbye)
exten => i,2,Hangup
exten => o,1,Background(goodbye)
exten => o,2,Hangup

[custom-blacklist-add]
exten => s,1,Answer
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,Playback(enter-num-blacklist)
exten => s,4,ResponseTimeout(30)
exten => s,5,Read(blacknr,then-press-pound)
exten => s,6,SayDigits(${blacknr})
exten => s,7,Playback(if-correct-press)
exten => s,8,Playback(digits/1)
exten => s,9,Hangup
exten => 1,1,DBput(blacklist/${blacknr}=1)
exten => 1,2,Playback(num-was-successfully)
exten => 1,3,Playback(added)
exten => 1,4,Wait(1)
exten => 1,5,Hangup

[custom-blacklist-remove]
exten => s,1,Answer
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,Playback(entr-num-rmv-blklist)
exten => s,4,DigitTimeout(5)
exten => s,5,ResponseTimeout(30)
exten => s,6,Read(blacknr,then-press-pound)
exten => s,7,SayDigits(${blacknr})
exten => s,8,Playback(if-correct-press)
exten => s,9,Playback(digits/1)
exten => s,10,Hangup
exten => 1,1,DBdel(blacklist/${blacknr})
exten => 1,2,SayDigits(${blacknr})
exten => 1,3,Playback(num-was-successfully)
exten => 1,4,Playback(removed)
exten => 1,5,Hangup

[custom-blacklisted]
exten=>s,1,Answer
exten=>s,2,Wait(1)
;exten=>s,3,Playback(nbdy-avail-to-take-call)
;exten=>s,4,Playback(carried-away-by-monkeys)
;exten=>s,5,Playback(lots-o-monkeys)
exten=>s,3,Background(tt-allbusy)
exten=>s,4,SetMusicOnHold,default
exten=>s,5,WaitMusicOnHold,30
exten=>s,6,Background(thank-you-for-calling)
exten=>s,7,Background(goodbye)
exten=>s,8,Congestion
exten=>s,9,Hangup

The [custom-blacklist-last] chunk of code automatically adds the phone number of your last incoming call to your BlackList. The [custom-blacklist-add] context lets you manually add a number to your BlackList. The [custom-blacklist-remove] context lets you remove a number that's already in your BlackList. And the [custom-blacklisted] context actually processes incoming callers who are on your BlackList. As currently written, the caller will get a message that "all members of the household are currently assisting other telemarketers ..." followed by music on hold. After 30 seconds, they are kissed goodbye with a congestion tone. I've also commented out the Jacken's Blog approach which is equally annoying. So take your pick.


The only remaining step to get all this working is to designate some extensions that will be dialed to access the three custom BlackList management contexts above. These need to be placed within the [from-internal-custom] context of your extensions_custom.conf file. Feel free to make up your own extension numbers so long as they don't conflict with existing extensions on your system. And be sure to change the Authenticate password in each of the three lines below. Once you add the extensions, reload Asterisk and BlackList someone you love... or at least someone you used to love.

exten => *30,1,Authenticate(45678)
exten => *30,2,Goto(custom-blacklist-add,s,1)

exten => *31,1,Authenticate(45678)
exten => *31,2,Goto(custom-blacklist-remove,s,1)

exten => *32,1,Authenticate(45678)
exten => *32,2,Goto(custom-blacklist-last,s,1)

exten => *33,1,Goto(custom-blacklisted,s,1)

How To Review Your BlackList. One final piece remains for our puzzle today. At some point down the line, you may want to review every number that's been entered into your BlackList. Here's how. Using SSH or Putty, connect to your Asterisk server and log in as root. Start up the Asterisk Command Line Interface (CLI) with the command asterisk -r. Now enter the following command at the asterisk*CLI> prompt: database show blacklist. You can manually delete an entry while you're here with the command: database del blacklist 0123456789 1. Don't forget the trailing 1. To manually add an entry to the database, enter the command: database put blacklist 0123456789 1.

You're an expert now. So just sit back and wait for the Bad Guys to call. They will.


Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest...

Putting Real Names Back in CallerID: 3 Quick Perl Solutions for the Asterisk PBX

If you haven't noticed, useful Caller ID (meaning a number and a name display) is pretty much a bust in the VoIP marketplace except for calls originating from Baby Bell-controlled local phone numbers. And, with some VoIP providers, getting a CallerID name with any incoming call is a rarity. Jeff Pulver has proposed a new national database where you can list yourself. In fact, you can sign up today. But, suffice it to say, it isn't soup just yet. Known in the trade as CNAM service, many telephony service providers simply throw incoming names in the bit bucket unless you are one of their subscribers. The Baby Bells are among the most notorious. Some don't even provide CNAM service from other areas of the country unless the caller is part of the local carrier's feifdom. And I guess if I charged $40 for basic local phone service with CallerID, I'd want to keep my monopoly, too. We'll have more on the pricing issue at the end of today's article.

2008 Update. For the latest in CallerID name lookup software written in PHP, visit our Best of Nerd Vittles site. For PBX in a Flash users that want a Perl version, check out the PBX in a Flash Forum.

For those of you wrestling with Caller ID on your Asterisk® PBX, we have three solutions today and more to come. Today's perl AGI utility was developed initially by Tom Vile at Baldwin Technology Solutions. Tom has graciously agreed to let us share the code with you. Thanks, Tom! It lets you intercept incoming calls to your Asterisk box and pass the CallerID number to AT&T's AnyWho.com for a reverse number lookup to decipher the CallerID name. Whether this comports with the AnyWho terms of service, we'll leave for you to resolve. Suffice it to say, the "phone company" has always maintained that the phone book information is copyrightable. And the Supreme Court of the U.S. has held just the opposite. This is not legal advice, just some historical background for you to digest before proceeding.


Once we started looking at Tom's code, we decided it might be a good time to learn Perl so you've been forewarned that nothing in the solutions which follow will qualify as elegant coding other than Tom's original handiwork, of course. But the stuff does work. What we've added to Tom's original code are two enhancements. First, you can opt to use Google for reverse number lookup if you'd like. And second, you can tie reverse number lookups into the AsteriDex web-based MySQL database application which we previously built and which you can download and use for free here. Particularly for home and small business use, the universe of incoming callers is fairly small so you may find that AsteriDex is the best solution. This is particularly true if many of your incoming calls are from cell phones since few of the American carriers associate real names with their CallerID numbers. Some do provide the city of the caller in the CallerID name. Others refer to us all as Wireless Caller(s). Gee, what a hint. Consequently, neither AnyWho nor Google have many cell phone numbers in their databases. Call it a feature. The bottom line is you can mix and match AnyWho, Google, and AsteriDex lookups as you see fit by simply setting "on" and "off" flags for each of the three services.

Footnote: As of November 13, we've added another lookup function for FoneFinder.net. This one's a little different in that it returns the city and provider type for phone numbers matching the area code and first three digits of the caller's number. It also has the lowest precedence and can be activated to at least return the city name and provider type for callers where no other information is available from the other services.

Overview. The way this works is that incoming calls will be processed through an AGI script that you configure with your lookup preferences. We recommend you use this script with Asterisk@Home because it comes bundled with all the MySQL, Apache, PHP, and Perl stuff you'll need to make everything work. The script as received does nothing since all three lookups are disabled. That lets you choose which services to activate and conveniently moves the legal monkey from our back to yours. Didn't go to law school for nothing, did we? Assuming you turn on all three lookups, the AnyWho lookup is processed first. If a match is found, the Caller ID name is added to the existing Caller ID number replacing whatever name entry already was picked up for the incoming call. If no match is found, the existing CallerID number and name are left as they were received for the incoming call. The CallerID number is then passed to the Google phonebook where the process is repeated. If there's a match, the CallerID name is replaced with the name found in the Google search. If not, nothing changes. Finally, if you're using AsteriDex as your personal phone book, the CallerID number will be looked up in your AsteriDex database. If there's a match, whatever you entered as the name for the first matching phone number entry will be picked up as the CallerID name for the call ... so these names can be as obnoxious as you choose to make them. Note that the AsteriDex lookup is a crude search. If you've entered the same phone number for three different people in the same house, then only the first one it finds will be used. You'll know which one it is when you receive the first call from this number. So, the bottom line is this: AsteriDex lookups take precedence over Google and AnyWho lookups, and Google lookups take precedence over AnyWho lookups. And, at least for the short term, if you want any meaningful information about cell phone callers and most VoIP callers, you'll need to put their names and numbers in your AsteriDex database.


To get started, download the calleridname.agi script from here. Then copy it to the /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin folder on your Asterisk server. Log in to your Asterisk server as root and change the ownership of the file: chown asterisk:asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/calleridname.agi. And change the permissions: chmod 775 /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/calleridname.agi. To activate the services you want to use, edit the calleridname.agi script: nano -w /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/calleridname.agi. CAUTION: Before you open the file with nano, be sure your editing window is at least 180 characters wide unless you use the -w switch, or some of the commands in the file will be truncated. Then nothing works! Nano doesn't do word wrap in a Perl-friendly way if left to its own devices. Once you open the file, beginning on line 10, you'll see the following entries:

$Fonetastic = '0' ;
$AnyWho = '0' ;
$Google = '0' ;
$Asteridex = '0' ;

For each service you want to activate, change the '0' to '1' and then save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then press Enter key. Now we're ready to reconfigure your incoming call dialplan.

If you've been following along with our other tutorials, you should already have the Stealth AutoAttendant in place to handle your incoming calls. If not, start there ... or you're on your own. After making the security modifications, here's how our autoattendant code looks in the extensions_custom.conf config file:

[from-external-custom]
exten => s,1,Zapateller(answer|nocallerid)
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => s,4,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM}" = ""]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,5,GotoIf($["foo${CALLERIDNUM}" = "foo"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,6,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:9}" = "Anonymous"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,7,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Unknown"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,8,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,9,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,10,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:10}" = "Restricted"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,11,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:4}" = "PSTN"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,12,DigitTimeout,3
exten => s,13,ResponseTimeout,3
exten => s,14,Background(custom/welcome)

We're going to introduce another new trick in the incoming dial plan. What we want to do is answer the call, do some processing, and then pass the call to where it's supposed to go. The trick is that we don't want the caller to know we've already answered the call while we're doing the processing. So what we're going to do is play a fake ringing tone to the caller so the caller doesn't get bored. Just insert a new third line in the dialplan that looks like this: exten => s,3,Playtones(ring) and then renumber the remaining lines. Next we want to add our new CallerIDName lookup immediately before the custom/welcome message plays: exten => s,17,AGI(calleridname.agi) and then renumber the lines. When you're all finished, your code should look like this:

[from-external-custom]
exten => s,1,Zapateller(answer|nocallerid)
exten => s,2,Wait(1)
exten => s,3,Playtones(ring)
exten => s,4,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => s,5,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM}" = ""]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,6,GotoIf($["foo${CALLERIDNUM}" = "foo"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,7,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:9}" = "Anonymous"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,8,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Unknown"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,9,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,10,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNAME:0:7}" = "Private"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,11,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:10}" = "Restricted"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,12,GotoIf($["${CALLERIDNUM:0:4}" = "PSTN"]?who-r-u,s,1)
exten => s,13,DigitTimeout,3
exten => s,14,ResponseTimeout,3
exten => s,15,AGI(calleridname.agi)
exten => s,16,Background(custom/welcome)

Remember that, if you cut-and-paste the code above, you'll need to manually fix the typographic quotation marks to make them regular quote marks that Asterisk can understand or disaster awaits. Once you save your changes and reload Asterisk, you should be good to go. Start up the Asterisk Command Line Interface (CLI) and make a test call to yourself. You should see something like this in the CLI display:

calleridname.agi: CALLERID IS: 3035551616 <3035551616>
calleridname.agi: Checking 303 555 1616...
calleridname.agi: Fonetastic.US lookup disabled.
calleridname.agi: AnyWho lookup disabled.
calleridname.agi: Ready for Google lookup...
calleridname.agi: Google match. New CallerIDName = R. Smith
calleridname.agi: Ready for AsteriDex lookup...
calleridname.agi: AsteriDex match. New CallerIDName = Robbie the Nerd

Money-Saver Tip of the Week. We regularly hammer BellSouth and the other RBOCs for their pricing policies on home phone service so it's great to finally have something nice to say about our hometown company. Actually, BellSouth might not think this is too nice, but we sure do. A post on DSL Reports this week had this helpful tip for those with BellSouth DSL service that would prefer not to keep paying $40 a month for a BellSouth phone line you never use. You can suspend your phone service for up to six months and reduce your monthly line costs by 50% or more while still retaining your $24.95 DSL service through BellSouth. You can even get a recorded message referring callers to your new [VoIP] number at no charge. For details, visit this BellSouth link. To put things in proper perspective, this means you can suspend your BellSouth line, order two new TelaSIP VoIP lines with unlimited U.S. long distance on both lines for $14.95 a month, notify your BellSouth callers of your new number, and still put $5 in the bank each month compared to what you're paying BellSouth today for just one line with pay-through-the-nose long distance access. Now that's a sweet deal! For those that are curious, a garden-variety residential line from BellSouth in Atlanta with nothing other than CallerID and dial tone runs $39.75 per month with tip and taxes, and I've got this month's statement to prove it. Does it take a collision with a freight train for the RBOCs to wake up before all their residential customers have jumped ship just like their pay phone customers did? Probably so.


Sony Anyone? Just Say No! If you missed the latest attack on your home computer this week, don't worry. It wasn't a malicious virus creator this time. It's S-O-N-Y. Before you spend another dime with Sony, read this C|NET article. Here's a brief snippet:

"You buy a CD. You put the CD into your PC in order to enjoy your music. Sony grabs this opportunity to sneak into your house like a virus and set up camp, and it leaves the backdoor open so that Sony or any other enterprising intruder can follow and have the run of the place. If you try to kick Sony out, it trashes the place. And what does this software do once it's on your PC ..."

Other Asterisk Tutorials. There are numerous additional articles in this Asterisk HOW-TO series to keep you busy. You can read all of them by clicking here and scrolling down the page. We recommend reading at least the first four or five articles from the bottom up so that the learning curve is less painful. Then you can skip around to your heart's content.

Follow-Me Phoning: Implementing Bluetooth Proximity Detection with Asterisk, Part III

This is the third and final article in our series showing how to deploy a Bluetooth Proximity Detection system with your Asterisk@Home PBX. Parts I and II are here. Today we finish up and activate everything so that your Asterisk® PBX system will track your whereabouts and automatically transfer incoming calls in your home or office to your cellphone or any other phone whenever you leave home base carrying your bluetooth-enabled cellphone or your bluetooth headset. And, when you return, calls automatically will begin flowing to your local extensions just as they did before you left your home or office. For our Mac users, we'll have a follow-up article some day soon showing you how to tie proximity detection into the home automation server we previously built with Indigo. Then, as you arrive home in the evening, you can turn on your lights, and stereo, and hot tub just by pulling up in front of your house with your Bluetooth headset or cellphone.

NOTE: This article has been updated to take advantage of TrixBox, freePBX, and the iPhone. For the current article, click here.

Last week we showed you how to use your new Asterisk@Home 2 PBX machine to detect the presence or absence of your bluetooth phone or headset. And we used freely available open source tools for Linux to do the tracking. Our game plan for today is to show you how to relay that information from your Bluetooth Proximity Detection system to your main Asterisk system in real time. And then we'll modify the dialplan on your main Asterisk system a bit so that it intelligently routes incoming calls after first deciphering whether you are IN or OUT of your home or office. For purposes of this tutorial, we're assuming that you have taken our advice and implemented a second Asterisk@Home server (the version 2 beta) to take advantage of the bundled CentOS/4 Linux operating system. Our design also assumes that both your main Asterisk machine and your new Asterisk proximity detection system are both behind the same firewall on the same internal network. So we'll begin today by finishing the detection tasks on the new Asterisk server, and then we'll turn our attention to your primary Asterisk server, i.e. the system that takes and makes your phone calls. Update: Now that Asterisk@Home 2.1 is shipping, you may decide you'd prefer to deploy this entire system on a single server. If so, print this article and then go here for the instructions needed for a single server deployment.


Overview of Bluetooth Proximity Detection Design. If you've been following along with the two previous articles in this series, then you already have your Asterisk@Home 2 PBX server running with full Bluetooth support. If not, start there. The real trick to making Bluetooth Proximity Detection work for this project was using hcitool name 00:03:89:43:84:e2 with the actual MAC address of your Bluetooth headset or phone. This utility returns a null string if the Bluetooth device is not found and returns the name of the device if it is found. We'll take advantage of that information to drive our proximity detection system by simply writing the results of this test to a text file once a minute. We then can use a Linux bash script to execute a certain action based upon whether your Bluetooth device is IN range or OUT of range. As usual, we've chosen the easy way. So our plan is to copy a null file to your primary Asterisk server when you're OUT, and we'll copy a one-byte file to your primary Asterisk server when you're IN. Then we can run a similar script on the primary Asterisk server to check whether you're IN or OUT each time a phone call arrives. We'll only upload the null or one-byte file when the status changes to keep the processing load low. If you want to track multiple people with multiple Bluetooth devices, then rename the ruhome file to include the name of the person that's carrying the device, e.g. wardruhome. Then it'll be easy to implement this for multiple people. Just repeat the steps.

Configuring Files for Asterisk 2 Server. The files we'll be using in our Proximity Detection System can be downloaded here and unzipped into the proximity folder on your Desktop. Don't modify null.file or notnull.file because doing so will probably change their file sizes, and then none of this works. We are depending upon the notnull.file remaining a zero byte file! You do need to edit the ruhome file whether you rename it or not. Call it up with a text editor and modify the following settings to match your configuration:

mainasteriskbox=192.168.0.104
deviceuser=WARD
devicemac=00:03:89:43:84:e2

We recommend upper case letters for the deviceuser just so it will be easy to identify. The devicemac is the MAC address of your Bluetooth device to be monitored. And mainasteriskbox is the private IP address of your main Asterisk server. Once you make these changes, save the file in text-only format and then copy the following three files in the proximity folder to the /root directory on your Asterisk2 Proximity Detection Server: ruhome, null.file, and notnull.file. Then log in to your Asterisk2 server as root, and move to the /root folder: cd /root. Now adjust the file permissions on script you put there substituting the name you gave your script: chmod 775 ruhome.


If you read through the ruhome script, you'll notice that it copies either null.file or notnull.file to your primary Asterisk server whenever there's a change in the presence of your bluetooth device, and it names the file to match the assigned deviceuser. To make the copy process work, we need to use the scp utility that is bundled with Linux. There's only one wrinkle. SCP prompts for a password whenever you attempt to log in to your other Asterisk box, and that would preclude our being able to handle this as a background job with no user interaction. Luckily, there's a simple solution: a public/private key pair. If you want the complete tutorial, go here. Otherwise, just do the following. Log in to your new Asterisk@Home 2 server as root. From the command prompt, issue the following command: ssh-keygen -t rsa. Press the enter key three times. You should see something similar to the following. The file name and location in bold below is the information we need:

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
1d:3c:14:23:d8:7b:57:d2:cd:18:70:80:0f:9b:b5:92 root@asterisk1.local

Now copy the file in bold above to your main Asterisk server from your secondary Asterisk2 server using SCP. The command should look like the following (except use the private IP address of your primary Asterisk server instead of 192.168.0.104). Provide the root password to your primary Asterisk server when prompted to do so.

scp /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@192.168.0.104:/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

Once the file has been copied, let's try to log in to your primary Asterisk server from your Asterisk 2 Proximity Server with the following command using the correct IP address, of course:

ssh root@192.168.0.104

You should be admitted without entering a password. If not, repeat the drill or read the complete article and find where you made a mistake. Now log out of the primary server by typing exit.

The final step on the Asterisk2 Proximity Server is to schedule this script to run once a minute to keep track of your comings and goings. While still logged in as root, issue the following commands:

export EDITOR=nano
crontab -e

This will start up the Crontab utility using our favorite editor, Nano. Now enter the command below substituting the correct name of your script:

* * * * * /root/ruhome > /dev/null

If you'd prefer to only run the script every minute between 6 in the morning and 9 at night, the code would look like what's shown below. Just choose the hours desired and remember that your IN and OUT status will be frozen at the exact moment the script completes its run at 8:59 p.m. if you use the settings below. And it won't check your bluetooth proximity again until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

* 6-21 * * * /root/ruhome > /dev/null

Once you've gotten the entry the way you want it using the actual name of the script you placed in the root folder, save your crontab entry: Ctrl-X, Y, and press Enter key. Now turn on your Bluetooth device and move it within range of your Asterisk2 server, count to 60, and then check the /tmp folder on your primary Asterisk server for a file with the name you specified for deviceuser above, e.g. ls -all /tmp/WARD. The size of the file should be 1 indicating that your specified Bluetooth device is within range of your Asterisk2 server. Now turn the Bluetooth device off and wait another minute or two. Repeat the steps above and make sure the file size has shrunk to 0. When all this works according to plan, you're ready to move on and configure your primary Asterisk server to manage your incoming calls based upon whether you're IN or OUT.


Configuring Your Main Asterisk Server for Proximity Detection. As you learned above, the Asterisk2 proximity detection server will actually do the heavy lifting by figuring out when you're IN and when you're OUT. It then will upload the appropriate file to your primary Asterisk server when your status changes. But we'll still need a little script on your primary Asterisk server to actually check your status whenever an incoming call arrives. That's the job of the homecheck.agi script in the proximity folder you downloaded. Before it will work, the deviceuser specified at the top of this file must match the name you assigned to deviceuser in the ruhome script. So edit the homecheck.agi script and then save the file as plain text. Then copy it to /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin on your primary Asterisk server. Log in to that server as root and change the ownership of this file: chown asterisk:asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/homecheck.agi. And then set the permissions: chmod 775 /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/homecheck.agi.

The remaining tasks on the primary Asterisk server we'll handle using the Asterisk Management Portal (AMP) so, using your favorite web browser, connect to the primary Asterisk server and then choose AMP->Maintenance->Config Edit and click on extensions_custom.conf. If you're using our Stealth Autoattendant, then locate the code in your extensions_custom.conf file. All that we need to modify is the timeout section of the code: exten=>t. So you'll still be able to take advantage of your AutoAttendant even when you're away from your home or office. Here's what we are using:

exten => t,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => t,2,AGI(homecheck.agi)
exten => t,3,GotoIf($["${WARD:0:2}" = "OU"]?custom-outhouse,s,1:4)
exten => t,4,Dial(local/222@from-internal,20,m) ; Ring group 222 dials all phones
exten => t,5,VoiceMail(204@default) ; Default voicemail account for your home
exten => t,6,Hangup

NOTE: You can't cut and paste the above code unless you manually change the typographic quotation marks in the third line to normal quotes that Asterisk understands. There are two sets of them! Also change WARD to the deviceuser name you assigned above in your script files. The final piece of code you'll need is the context to actually process the incoming calls when you are out of the house or office, custom-outhouse. Just cut-and-paste it to the bottom of extensions_custom.conf. As usual, you can customize it to your heart's content, but here are a couple ideas from our own system. Once you're finished, save your changes and then reload Asterisk.

[custom-outhouse]
;exten => s,1,Dial(SIP/6781234567@telasip-gw,60,m) ; This approach just quietly sends callers to your cell phone using the telasip-gw trunk
;exten => s,2,VoiceMail(204@default)
;exten => s,3,Hangup

exten => s,1,Wait(1) ; This approach plays a custom message which we previously showed you how to do. Here's the message:
exten => s,2,Background(custom/nothome) ; No one's home. To try our cellphones, press 1 for Mary or 2 for Ward. Or press 3 to leave a message.
exten => s,3,DigitTimeout,4
exten => s,4,ResponseTimeout,5
exten => t,1,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => t,2,Hangup
exten => i,1,Playback(wrong-try-again-smarty)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,1)
exten => o,1,VoiceMail(204@default) ; if the caller presses 0, then it's off to voicemail they go
exten => o,2,Hangup
exten => h,1,Hangup
exten => 1,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 1,2,Dial(SIP/6781234567@telasip-gw,60,m)
exten => 1,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 1,4,Hangup
exten => 2,1,Background(pls-hold-while-try)
exten => 2,2,Dial(SIP/6782345678@telasip-gw,60,m)
exten => 2,3,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 2,4,Hangup
exten => 3,1,VoiceMail(204@default)
exten => 3,2,Hangup

Well, that should do it. Once you restart your Asterisk server, you can place a call to your home while you're IN and while you're OUT carrying your Bluetooth device to make sure things are doing what they should. Now all you have to do is to remember to recharge your Bluetooth device each night. Enjoy!

There's now a fourth article in this series which you can read by clicking here.

Coming Attractions. No, we haven't forgotten. We still have our incoming fax server to build, and we want to start using Asterisk's built-in Blacklist database tools. Then we'll be turning our attention to using SSH and SCP to build automated backups of your primary Asterisk server using the password trick we learned in the proximity detection article today. And now that you have a second Asterisk server, you might as well learn how to connect them together so that you can make calls to extensions on either server and make outgoing calls using either server. So stay tuned!

Other Asterisk Tutorials. There are numerous additional articles in this Asterisk HOW-TO series to keep you busy. You can read all of them by clicking here and scrolling down the page. We recommend reading at least the first four or five articles from the bottom up so that the learning curve is less painful. Then you can skip around to your heart's content.

Say It Ain't So. Sony reportedly is taking the low road and employing a rootkit to hide copy-protection mechanisms on its latest CDs and your PC, just what every virus creator on the planet has yearned for. Before you buy anything else from Sony/BMG, read this. Update: A recent article indicates that Sony's rootkit may, in fact, "phone home" to Sony with details of your music listening habits as well as your IP address. And what does Sony have to say about the controversy? They apparently don't think most folks are smart enough to know what a rootkit is. And what does Sony think you should be able to do with your newly purchased CD? Read this eye-opener before you hand over any more money to Sony. Let the lawsuits and prosecutions begin.

Follow-Me Phoning: Implementing Bluetooth Proximity Detection with Asterisk, Part II

This is the second in our series of articles showing how to deploy a Bluetooth Proximity Detection system with Asterisk®@Home. Part I is here. When we’re finished, your system will automatically transfer incoming calls in your home or office to your cellphone or any other phone whenever you leave home base carrying your bluetooth-enabled cellphone or your bluetooth headset. You’ll recall that we recommended the headset approach because cellphones have a nasty habit of putting themselves and their bluetooth adapter to sleep when you’re not on the phone. If bluetooth on the phone is sleeping, we lose our ability to detect your comings and goings so be reasonable and do it our way. Use a bluetooth headset. Once you remove the earpiece, the bluetooth headset fits comfortably in your pocket and isn’t much larger than a flash drive. For our purposes the bluetooth headset will be functioning primarily as an electronic key although there’s no reason you can’t also use it in conjunction with either your bluetooth cellphone, or a softphone connected to your primary Asterisk@Home PBX, or all of the above. The major difference in our approach and some of the other proximity detection systems which (still) are on the drawing boards is cost. Our bluetooth headset "key" costs roughly $30 delivered to your door. Most of the corporate dream systems require a $200 badge (to do the same thing) and then an incredibly expensive server (to do what we’re doing with an old clunker PC). So, yes, open source technology is a very good thing for all of us. And it deserves your financial support. Here’s a link if you’d like to make a contribution in any amount to the Asterisk@Home project. End of sermon.

NOTE: This article has been updated. For the current article, click here.

Installing Asterisk@Home. Today, we need to do a lot of the grunt work to get our system configured with the necessary software to support proximity detection. You’ll recall from the previous article that we’ve decided to use the Asterisk@Home 2 beta build for this project because we need Linux CentOS/4 that’s included to make everything work. So Step 1 is to download and install the Asterisk@Home 2 beta. From our previous Asterisk@Home installation tutorial, you’ll recall the drill involves downloading the .iso image, burning a CD, finding a clunker PC with a hard disk you don’t mind wiping clean (a WalMart special (inset) oughta work just fine!), booting from the install CD after connecting the new PC to your network behind the same firewall as your primary Asterisk@Home system, and then answering a few prompts. If you need a refresher course, review the original installation article or visit the new Asterisk@Home Wiki. Once you get Asterisk@Home 2 up and running, you need to secure your system as outlined in the above article. And then review the security article that will tell you how to lock down MySQL. Now run yum -y update to get CentOS/4 current, and you’re all set. Finally, a word about the beta itself. Some folks get nervous about using beta software. Don’t. Remember, we’re only using Asterisk@Home 2 for proximity detection at this juncture, and nothing in CentOS/4 is beta. By the time we get everything working, the full-blown Asterisk@Home 2 product will probably be on the street, and you can repeat this drill in your sleep to get ready for our next mega-project: Building A Redundant Asterisk@Home System.

Overview. Now that we have Asterisk@Home 2 up and running, we need to do a couple of additional Linux things. First, we need to add the Linux bluetooth software to your system. And then we need to install WebMin, the Linux answer to the Swiss Army knife. Once we get our software configured, we’ll plug in our dLink DBT-120 bluetooth adapter and take our new system for a spin. We’ll test our ability to detect other bluetooth devices such as a bluetooth-enabled cellphone or a bluetooth headset. Then we’ll be ready for Chapter 3 where we’ll actually start telling our primary Asterisk server when we’re IN and when we’re OUT.


Installing Linux Bluetooth Software. For the remainder of this article, we’re going to be working exclusively with your new Asterisk@Home 2 beta system so, when the instructions say to do something on your Asterisk box, that means on your Asterisk@Home 2 beta system not your primary Asterisk@Home PBX that is handling your phone calls. Log in to your new Asterisk box as root.

For those using Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta 6 or later, the bluetooth software comes preinstalled with CentOS 4.2 so you can skip this next download and install step. If you have an older version of the Asterisk@Home 2.0 betas, then, to download and install the bluetooth software for Linux, issue the following command:

yum install bluez-libs bluez-pin bluez-utils bluez-hcidump bluez-utils-cups

Your system will alert you that there are some dependencies and ask if you want to download them as well. Answer ‘yes’ and the download and install should proceed without incident. Once everything finishes, plug in your dLink DBT-120 USB bluetooth adapter and restart your system: shutdown -r now. When your system reboots or if you’re running beta 6 or later, log in as root and issue the following command:

/etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

You’ll probably be told that your system couldn’t stop bluetooth (because it wasn’t running) and then it’ll restart. Now let’s make sure everything is running that should be:

/etc/init.d/bluetooth status

You should see messages that look like this:

hcid (pid somenumber) is running ...
sdpd (pid somennumber) is running ...

If you’re alerted that some other application isn’t running, we don’t care. Now let’s be sure the system has found your bluetooth adapter:

hcitool dev

You’ll get a response telling you the system found device hci0 with the MAC address of the adapter. If you have a bluetooth-enabled cellphone, go get it now and be sure it’s on with bluetooth-enabled and not in sleep mode. Now issue the following command:

hcitool scan

The system will whir away for a few seconds and then will report back the bluetooth name assigned on your cell phone. It’s probably your name. Didn’t know you were advertising, did you? Note: you can’t do this with a bluetooth headset, but we’ll get to that in a minute. There are two ways to automatically start the bluetooth software when you boot CentOS. We’ll show you both, but you’ll probably want to install WebMin for future use anyway. The quick and dirty method is to run setup while logged in as root. Use the down arrow key to highlight System Services and press ENTER. Now use the down arrow to move down to bluetooth. Then press the space bar. Tab to the OK button and press ENTER. Now tab twice to the Quit button and press ENTER. Restart your server and you’re all set: shutdown -r now.

Let’s take a bluetooth break and install WebMin. We’re doing this primarily to show a simpler way of auto-enabling bluetooth at startup, but you’ll find lots of other uses for WebMin down the road.

Installing WebMin. There are lots of ways to install WebMin. We prefer the easy way which is to issue the following commands at a Linux prompt after logging in as root. Note: WebMin updates come out all the time. If you want to be sure you start with the latest and greatest version, go to their web site first and write down the number of the current version. Then substitute it below when issuing these commands:

cd /root
mkdir webmin
cd webmin
wget http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin-1.240-1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh webmin*


WebMin runs its own web server on port 10000. To start WebMin, issue this command: /etc/webmin/start. You access it with a web browser pointed to the IP address of your Asterisk box at that port address, e.g. http://192.168.0.108:10000. The login name is root. Then type in your root password and press enter. The main WebMin screen will display. Before we forget, we need to also make one change to the new Asterisk@Home configuration to avoid problems down the road. The default RTP listening ports for Asterisk@Home are 10000 to 20000 so there’s a conflict on port 10000. We just need to change it to 10001. Log in as root and, using an editor, call up the rtp.conf file: nano /etc/asterisk/rtp.conf. Now change the rtpstart port from 10000 to 10001 and save the change: Ctrl-W, Y, and press Enter.

Now back to WebMin. From the Main Screen of WebMin, click the System button and then the Bootup and Shutdown link. Find bluetooth in the list of applications and click on it. The Action Details screen should show that bluetooth is running. Now click the Yes button beside "Start at Boot Time?" and then click the Save button to reconfigure your server. That wasn’t hard, was it? We can stop WebMin now by issuing the following command: /etc/webmin/stop. No need to waste processing cycles for a tool we’re not using.


Configuring a Bluetooth Headset for Proximity Detection. As we mentioned in our first article, our device preference for the proximity detection project is a bluetooth-enabled headset. The two least expensive ones (about $30 including shipping) are the Plantronics M3000 if there are any left and the IOgear GBE201W7 from Buy.com. Remember, we’re going to be using the headset primarily as a "key" to tell Asterisk when we’re home and when we’re not. Cadillac charges about $400 for their electronic keys so this one’s a bargain. You obviously can use it for other stuff, too, but for now let’s get our "key" working. The hardest part of this drill is figuring out the MAC address of the headset. If yours happens to have 12 hex digits written on the box, lucky you! Otherwise, the only trick here is to put your headset in discovery mode. On the M3000, you activate discovery mode by simultaneously holding down the UP volume and Command buttons for about two seconds. When the light begins alternating between red and green, let go. With the IOgear unit, turn off the device and then hold down the multi-function button for about nine seconds. The red LED will turn on and then the blue LED will begin rapidly flashing. If only the blue LED is lit, you screwed up. Try again. Now from a Linux command prompt in close proximity to your headset, issue this command:

hcitool scan

You’ll get a response that looks something like one of the following:

Scanning ...
00:03:89:43:84:E2 M3000 by Plantronics
00:0e:a1:21:39:fc IOGEAR BT Headset


Write down the MAC address of your headset including the colons between the hex code digits. This is the notation we’ll be using to actually check whether your headset is within range. Here’s the command so try it out substituting the MAC address of your headset for mine below:

hcitool name 00:03:89:43:84:e2

Now run the command again and change the last digit of the MAC address to another hex number:

hcitool name 00:03:89:43:84:e6

There are two important points here. First, with the hcitool name syntax, the headset does not have to be in discovery mode which is just what we need for our proximity checking. And second, you’ll notice you got the device name when hcitool could find the headset and a null string when it couldn’t. So we can use a simple Linux bash script to determine whether your headset is within range by just checking whether a null string is returned to the above query. Wouldn’t you think some commercial developer could have figured this out and included it in their highly touted Proximity Checking products? Apparently not.


We’ll leave you with a simple script today to play with until we tackle Chapter 3. This script implements what we’ve just demonstrated. All you need to do is create a new file in the /tmp directory of your new Asterisk server: nano whereib. Then cut-and-paste the code below and modify the MAC address shown for deviceid= to match your headset. Then save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, and press enter. Now make the file executable: chmod 755 whereib. And then run it: ./whereib. Once it’s running, turn on your bluetooth headset and walk around your home or office. Then come back and check the display. It should report when you’re in range and when you’re not. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the range of your bluetooth devices so the basement furnace room may not be a bad location for your new server after all. You can end the script by pressing CTRL-C. In our next article, we’ll wrap up the bluetooth proximity series with Chapter 3 where we’ll get everything connected up to your primary Asterisk server which will handle the actual call forwarding when you’re away from your home or office.

#!/bin/bash
# Syntax: ./whereib
# On a clunker PC it takes about 20 seconds for a test to fail
# and it takes about 5 seconds for a test to succeed, i.e. BT MAC found

deviceid=00:03:89:43:84:e2
devicename=HEADSET

count=0
while [ $count -lt 1 ] ; do
hcitool name $deviceid > /tmp/$devicename
if [ -s /tmp/$devicename ] ; then
echo $devicename IN RANGE ;
date
else
echo $devicename OUT OF RANGE ;
date
fi
sleep 7
done

Some Interesting Bluetooth Reads. Here are a few articles to give you an idea where all the bluetooth proximity detection stuff is headed. If it’s good enough for Bill Gates’ home, it’s good enough for yours.

  • Wireless Hotel Check-In and More
  • Wearable Hub for Communications in the Home
  • Blind Dating via Bluetooth
  • Bluetooth ID Badges
  • Bluetooth HandsFreeProfile for Asterisk
  • Smarter Schmoozing
  • Proximity Dating Service
  • Hacking Secure Bluetooth Devices
  • HINT: Using Applescript with the Nerd Vittles’ Telephony or Home Automation Server Projects for the Mac mini
  • Other Asterisk Tutorials. There are numerous additional articles in this Asterisk HOW-TO series to keep you busy. You can read all of them by clicking here and scrolling down the page. We recommend reading at least the first four or five articles from the bottom up so that the learning curve is less painful. Then you can skip around to your heart’s content.

    Follow-Me Phoning: Implementing Bluetooth Proximity Detection with Asterisk, Part I

    This is the first in a series of articles that will provide step-by-step instructions for implementing Bluetooth Proximity Detection. We’re going to focus on using it with Asterisk®@Home, a terrific PBX which also happens to be free. But your imagination is really the only limitation. At the very least, when we’re finished, you’ll be able to walk out of your home or office carrying your bluetooth phone or headset and have your Asterisk server automatically transfer your incoming calls to your cellphone. And, when you return carrying your bluetooth phone or headset, Asterisk will automatically cancel the call transfers and reactivate delivery of incoming calls to the designated phones in your home or office. As simple as this concept may sound, the devil is in the details. So we want to spend today warning you of all the minefields that lie ahead and telling you what hardware you’ll need to make things work. If you hurry, you can implement the whole system for just over $50, and we’ll show you how to do it without even owning a bluetooth cellphone. In subsequent articles, we’ll put the pieces together and get a basic system working. Then we’ll add more bells and whistles and give you some implementation and deployment suggestions. You’ll quickly come to appreciate how Bluetooth Proximity Detection can be used to implement all sorts of other features. When we’re finished, you’ll also appreciate the potential of bluetooth to revolutionize the workplace. And it goes far beyond your phone system. Imagine an automated IN/OUT message board in businesses such as real estate or the advertising potential to tailor TV display ads in stores based upon not only your presence but also the type of cellphone you are carrying. Your office can even kiss its old punch clock goodbye when we’re finished. For those with new Cadillac or Mercedes automobiles, you can unlock your car and start it just by approaching the vehicle with your "key" still in your pocket. So where do we start?

    NOTE: This article has been updated to take advantage of TrixBox, freePBX, and the iPhone. For the current article, click here.

    Overview. The basic idea behind proximity detection is that we run a software application on a computer to "watch" for approaching people. We then want it to do something when you (or a customer) gets within range. How do it know? Well, in our case, this is where Bluetooth comes in. Unlike motion detectors which can’t tell the difference between a human and a gorilla, bluetooth devices all have a unique MAC address just like a network card. And most bluetooth devices also have a name. So long as the bluetooth device is configured to advertise its presence, we can detect when it is within range and when it’s not. That’s the second major difference between bluetooth and traditional motion detectors. Ever been in a public restroom or an office when all the lights went out because everybody was sitting too still for too long? So motion detectors have some limitations. Bluetooth doesn’t. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past six years, bluetooth is a wireless communications protocol that uses short range radio frequency to connect devices into wireless personal area networks (PANs). The most common Class II 2.5mW devices have a range of 32 feet (10 meters). Class I devices have a range of up to 100 meters. Most bluetooth cellphones, headsets, and computer peripherals such as mice and keyboards are Class II devices. If you want more background, go here.


    Prerequisites. For our proximity detection project, we’re going to connect a bluetooth network adapter to an Asterisk@Home box and make it our master. That simply means we’re going to use this network adapter to look for other bluetooth devices within range. The only limitation is you can’t have your Asterisk@Home box shoved in a closet in the basement if you want this to work. It will need to be within 30 feet or so of where you’ll be when you’re at home or in the office. If this doesn’t work for you, then here’s an alternative. Just get in the habit of putting your cellphone or bluetooth headset down near your Asterisk@Home box when you’re "in" and take it with you when you’re "out." Many offices, particularly in the real estate business, have a receptionist with agent mailboxes immediately beside or behind the receptionist desk. Just put your Asterisk box with its bluetooth adapter under the receptionist’s desk and leave your cellphone or wireless headset in your mailbox whenever you return to the office. The adapter we recommend which is quirk-free is dLink’s DBT-120. You can find them on the net for about $30, but you can usually beat that price by watching the Sunday circulars for computer and office depot/max stores in your area … if you don’t mind mail-in rebates. But, do you really want the PBX for your whole office sitting under the receptionist’s desk? Probably not. But don’t worry, we’ve got some other tricks up our sleeve so keep reading.


    We keep mentioning a headset so we won’t keep you in suspense any longer. You don’t need a bluetooth cellphone to make our proximity detection project work. A bluetooth wireless headset works just as well. In fact, it works better! And you’ll have a great addition to your computer system and cellphone as an added bonus. Cellphones have a nasty habit of putting themselves in sleep mode very quickly when not in use to conserve battery power. The only problem is that most, if not all, cellphone makers turn off the bluetooth adapter when they activate sleep mode because they’re all so short-sighted that the only thing they think you use bluetooth for is to talk to your wireless headset or exchange files with your PC. Stupid! Bluetooth headsets on the other hand are always on listening for a call. The one we like has a rated standby time of 200 hours between battery charges so it’s perfect for this project. These devices typically cost anywhere from $50 to $100 but, if you hurry, there’s a vendor selling our favorite, the Plantronics M3000, for under $20. Here’s the link at PriceGrabber. Don’t wait. They’re never this cheap, and this vendor only has 50 of them. And Buy.com has a similar unit from IOgear for about the same price once you factor in the cost of shipping. Will you need to wear your bluetooth headset and look like a Nerd to make this work? Not at all. Just turn it on, stuff it in your pocket, and call it a key.

    Now let’s address the computer issues. First, your machine obviously needs USB adapter support so you have a place to plug in your bluetooth adapter. Second, we need a machine that can run software that can detect bluetooth devices. Having spent a week scouring the Internet and testing various products which touted their bluetooth proximity detection, let me save you some time. If you are fortunate enough to have a Sony Ericsson phone with bluetooth, some of the commercial products such as BluePhoneElite for the Mac or Salling Clicker for Mac or Windows work great for proximity detection. There’s even an open source product, Romeo for the Mac, that works. If you have a single-tasking Palm device including the Treo 650 cellphone, don’t waste your time. And bluetooth headsets aren’t detected at all by any of the products. This is primarily because proximity detection was considered a gee-whiz extra in most of these products so it’s not implemented very well. The good news is that, if you happen to have a bluetooth cellphone that does work with one of these products, it might make proximity detection more practical because you could handle the proximity interaction with your desktop machine instead of with your telephone system’s PBX. But, who cares. We just want it to work.


    So where does that leave us on the computer front? The bottom line is you’re going to need a Linux machine and a fairly current version of the Linux operating system to get the bluetooth tools installed that we need. As luck would have it, the new Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta release works great … and it’s free. And it automatically installs CentOS/4, the free knock-off of RedHat’s commercial Enterprise Linux 4. Because Asterisk@Home is free and will run on any old clunker PC, you may want to install the Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta on a dedicated machine and just use it for proximity detection. This solves the colocation problem with your main PBX, and it has the added benefit of reducing the load on your primary Asterisk server. The other terrific benefit of this approach is you’ll have a hot standby system for your main PBX, and we’ll integrate that into our tutorials one of these days, too. When your one and only Asterisk@Home box dies, do you really want to be without phone service? Keep in mind that proximity detection also takes some horsepower because we’ll be running a script once a minute to see who’s in and who’s not. And, no, Asterisk@Home 1.5 won’t work. Believe me, we’ve tried and it was just about as frustrating as trying to use a Treo 650 for proximity detection. A total bust!

    Well, that covers the basics and provides you the information you’ll need to start assembling the pieces for the proximity detection project. We’ll leave it to you to get your bluetooth hardware ordered and to get your Asterisk@Home 2.0 beta up and running before moving on to Chapters 2 and 3.


    Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

    Internet Telephony Shootout II: Finding the Best International VoIP Provider for Asterisk

    This is the second in our two-part roundup of the best unlimited calling plans for Asterisk®. You can read the first installment here. The number of options for Asterisk residential users wanting an unlimited international calling plan has fluctuated between zero and one depending upon how brave you were in dealing with BroadVoice's Terms of Service. Frankly, we've pretty much written off BroadVoice's so-called unlimited international calling plans for residential use because of the number of backbilling complaints logged on the Voxilla Forum.

    Finally, there's not only some competition but also a ray of hope. Axvoice Inc. has recently announced two new unlimited residential calling plans with full bring-your-own-device support for Asterisk. An $18.99 plan provides unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada. Spending $4 more buys you unlimited calling within the U.S., Canada, and all or parts of the following countries: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Australia; Chile; Denmark; France; Germany; Hong Kong; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Monterey and Mexico City, Mexico; Netherlands; Norway; Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia; Singapore; South Korea; Spain; Sweden; Taiwan; United Kingdom; and Vatican City. As usual, mobile, premium, and special numbers are not included in the program. The fine print places a 4,000 minute usage cap on residential service before it is considered business use. This seems more than reasonable considering that such a number gives the residential user over two hours of free calls per day, every day of the year. Stated another way, the $22.99 international calling plan provides up to 4,000 minutes of calling per month to 24 countries for an average per minute cost that works out to just over a half cent a minute. Compared to the BroadVoice approach which leaves you guessing (at your financial peril) what the usage caps are for their various unlimited* calling plans, the Axvoice approach is a breath of fresh air. If you need to stretch your minutes and receive significant numbers of incoming calls, you can supplement your all-you-can-eat plan with a BYOD plan featuring unlimited, free incoming calls for $8.99 a month. Or you could simply add another all-you-can-eat plan for an additional 4,000 minutes. You can't beat the price, and all of Axvoice's plans include two free incoming DID numbers from a broad selection of area codes within the U.S. and Canada. Currently Axvoice is waiving the $9.99 setup fee for bring-your-own-device users. How do the calls sound? Ours sound great. Your mileage may vary. But you can try it for yourself with their 30-day money-back guarantee. So you really have nothing to lose by trying out their service. And, if you stay with Axvoice, all of their bring-your-own-Asterisk plans are month to month so there are no long term commitment issues.

    The equally important question for Asterisk users is always the same. Does it work well with Asterisk? Again, the good news is that, once configured, Axvoice and Asterisk are a match made in heaven. In fact, Axvoice uses Asterisk at their end so you wouldn't expect anything less. Axvoice is a relatively new company, but you'll notice some marked differences from BroadVoice if you've endured BroadVoice support with their long waiting times and frequent disconnects while on hold. I think I was one of the first home users that wanted to set up Axvoice service with Asterisk so I can't say it was painless, but I can pretty much assure you that the process will be close to painless for you. We wrote down the answers! At least as this article goes to press, when you sign up on their site, you won't be greeted by much of any documentation pertaining to Asterisk configuration. All that's about to change if you keep reading here. Again, they're a new company, and we pretty much knew going in that it probably would be a bumpy ride. At least for the first three days, we weren't disappointed. The good news is that email inquiries always were returned with a helpful answer within an hour or so. And calls to their toll-free number were answered in less than a minute both during the business day and at night. You really couldn't ask for much more.

    I think it would be fair to say that Axvoice's typical customer up to now has pretty much been like Vonage's, dumb as a brick about technology and looking for a good deal on an unlimited VoIP calling plan. So, when you call for customer service, the typical first response is to inquire about your router/firewall. And they fully expect you to answer by saying, "What's that?" Unlike Vonage, Axvoice fully supports Asterisk with an open SIP configuration. But it took some perseverance to get to the person who knew the answers. Some of the first-level customer service reps were having a difficult time both with English and trying to understand that we, too, had an Asterisk server ... at our home. "Really?" was a typical response. Once we got by all of that, the Asterisk configuration information was detailed and to the point. The other wrinkle we experienced had to do with their support for the G.729 codec. We only have one license which may have been the problem. Outgoing calls with G.729 worked fine, but incoming calls that first hit our AutoAttendant and then get transferred to a default extension lost the outgoing part of the audio. This may be because Asterisk treats the two voicepaths (incoming and the answering extension) as two separate channels requiring two, rather than one, G.729 license. When payday rolls around, we'll splurge for another $10 G.729 license from Digium®, and let you know the results. In the meantime, the default ulaw codec works great.


    Configuring Asterisk Trunk for Axvoice. Assuming you decide to take the dare and sign up for a test run, what you're going to need to get Asterisk running with Axvoice is your account ID (not a phone number) and your password. If you've followed along in our previous Asterisk@Home tutorials, then the process to set up Axvoice will be familiar. Be sure UDP ports 5004-5082 and 10000-20000 are opened on your firewall and pointing to your Asterisk server. We'll create a trunk for Axvoice and then add Axvoice to our dialplan to take advantage of their calling plan. Using the Asterisk Management Portal, goto AMP->Setup->Trunks and Add a New SIP Trunk. You can leave the CallerID field blank since this is configured on Axvoice's web portal. For maximum channels, enter 2. For Outgoing Dial Rules, enter the following but be aware that this dialplan will allow international calling to many country codes that are NOT free under the Axvoice unlimited international calling plan. If this is a problem in your household, you'll need to make your dialplan much more country-code specific.

    1+NXXNXXXXXX
    1NXXNXXXXXX
    011X.

    For Outgoing Settings, name your trunk axvoice and then enter the following Peer Details substituting your username (3 entries) and password (1 entry) where appropriate:

    allow=ulaw
    authname=yourusername
    canreinvite=no
    context=from-sip-external
    defaultip=sip.axvoice.com
    disallow=all
    dtmfmode=rfc2833
    fromdomain=sip.axvoice.com
    fromuser=yourusername
    host=sip.axvoice.com
    insecure=very
    nat=yes
    secret=yourpassword
    type=friend
    user=phone
    username=yourusername

    Leave the Incoming Context and Details blank. Enter your registration string as follows using your actual username and password. Then save the trunk and click the red bar to reload Asterisk.

    yourusername:yourpassword@sip.axvoice.com

    You will recall from our previous article on the subject that the [from-sip-external] context passes incoming calls to our Stealth AutoAttendant for processing. So Axvoice incoming calls will be handled in the same way as incoming calls from your other PSTN and VoIP trunks.

    Adjusting Outgoing Dialplans for Axvoice. To adjust your dialplans to take maximum advantage of Axvoice, choose AMP->Setup->Outbound Routing. Then for your Local, InState, TollFree, and US dialplans, edit each of them and Add the SIP/axvoice trunk. Then use the arrow keys to move Axvoice to the top of each list. You'll also want to add a new International route with the following Dial Pattern: 011X. which designates all calls beginning with 011 and at least two more digits as international calls. Now choose SIP/axvoice as your one and only trunk for international calls. If you want a fallback trunk, Voxee would be our recommendation. They have incredibly low per minute rates. Now save your trunk settings and leave the international dialplan at the bottom of your list of Dialplan Routes.

    Making a Test Call Using Axvoice. To be sure everything is working swimmingly, start up Asterisk in interactive mode using the Command Line Interface (CLI) so that you can actually watch what's happening when calls are placed and received. This works best if you connect to your Asterisk server through SSH from a Mac or PC. SSH comes with every Mac and the syntax is simple: ssh root@AsteriskIPaddress. If you're still chained to Microsoft, download Putty from the Mother Country, and you can do the same thing using a Windows machine. Once you're logged in as root, issue the following command: asterisk -r. Quit ends your Asterisk CLI session, and exit logs you out of your SSH session. Now issue the command: set verbose 10 to get maximum information. Then place a U.S. or international call and watch what happens. You should see something similar to the following which shows that the call was placed using the new axvoice trunk:

    -- Called axvoice/18435551212
    -- SIP/axvoice-2cbf is ringing

    Asterisk: The Future of Telephony. O'Reilly Publishing finally released a great book on Asterisk last week. The book is available directly from the publisher or from Amazon. In addition, O'Reilly is providing the PDF version at no cost under a Creative Commons License. It's a carefully written book and an easy read for beginners as well as those with lots of Asterisk miles under the belt. It does not cover Asterisk@Home. And what more can we say about O'Reilly Publishing. O'Reilly is simply one terrific company that just keeps getting better! Some other Asterisk books are now available as well. You can read all about them here. And at least one Asterisk@Home book is currently under development ... not from us. We don't do books. You can always tell when a new technology is really taking off by watching for book publications. For those that have been following these tutorials, I think you understand why Asterisk is finally earning its rightful place in the limelight.

    Other Tutorials. There are numerous additional articles in this Asterisk HOW-TO series to keep you busy. You can read all of them by clicking here and scrolling down the page. We recommend reading at least the first four or five articles from the bottom up so that the learning curve is less painful. Disclaimer: As we have mentioned previously, we typically sign up for referral credits when we try out a new VoIP service. If our referral credit links give you heartburn, don't use them. We do it to help defer costs of this column. It doesn't influence our views of the providers as you probably can tell from our discussions of BroadVoice. They too have a referral credit program, and we still don't like their current terms of service. Fortunately, thanks to Axvoice, international callers finally have another viable unlimited calling plan option.

    Coming Thursday: AsteriDex -- The Poor Man's Rolodex. We're excited about our latest free software offering and think you will be, too. AsteriDex is a web-based application that lets you store phone numbers of all your friends and business associates in a simple-to-use MySQL database. But, it's much more with Asterisk! Just call up the application in your favorite web browser from anywhere and click on the contact you want to call. AsteriDex will first call you at the number you've designated for this contact, and then AsteriDex connects you to your contact through an outbound call made using your Asterisk server. For those lucky enough to have GrandStream's GXP-2000 IP phone with AutoAnswer, you can even configure AsteriDex to automatically activate the speakerphone and then place the call to the contact you've selected. In short, it works exactly like Microsoft's TAPI software without the configuration nightmare or your favorite (required) Micro$oft bloatware. Installation and configuration for your Asterisk@Home system is a snap and takes less than 10 minutes. It also works with vanilla Asterisk running the Asterisk Management Panel (AMP) software. Someone is probably saying, "Can't you do the same thing with CRM?" Well, yes and no. If you need full-blown contact management, then sure you can. Just be sure to save an extension for the account you are using to log in using the format sip/204. CRM will dial out using your default Asterisk outbound dialing rules, and it works great. But be prepared to spend several months getting all your contact information entered. AsteriDex is quick to implement and simple to use because it only does one thing: places calls for you using a web interface to all your favorite callees. The software is distributed without charge pursuant to the Creative Commons License.