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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING

OSS End Point Manager Returns for Incredible PBX 2020

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It’s been a long dry spell for the OSS Endpoint Manager component for FreePBX®. Today we’re pleased to announce its glorious return for the Incredible PBX® 2020 platform. While Incredible PBX 2020 included the EPM module, getting it to function reliably was a challenge. And that’s putting it charitably. Well, those days are over by simply installing our new EPM upgrade that provides templates for more than 100 SIP phones from Aastra, AudioCodes, Cisco, Linksys, Sipura, CloudTC, Digium, Grandstream, Intelbras, Mitel, Norphonic, Patton, Polycom, Snom, Thomson, Unidata, Xorcom, and Yealink including V70, V80, and Dreamwave models. And the icing on the cake is that ClearlyIP has just announced a new web-based endpoint configurator that is just around the corner. We’ll keep you posted.

Prerequisites. You’ll need an Incredible PBX 2020 base platform which already includes the last OSS EPM module from Andrew Nagy. If you’re using a different flavor of FreePBX, you’ll need to first install the OSS Endpoint Manager using the Module Admin utility.

Cautionary Note: Because our new configurator basically loads a snapshot of OSS Endpoint Manager on top of the existing software, it’s worth mentioning that any existing settings you’ve made in your current OSS EPM configuration will be overwritten. So we would caution you to make a full backup of your server before you begin just in case something comes unglued. You can install the latest Incredible PBX 2020 backup and restore components and make a backup like this:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
./incrediblebackup2020

 
Upgrading OSS Endpoint Manager. Once you have a good backup, you’re ready to install the new OSS EPM update. While still logged into the Linux CLI as root, issue these commands:

cd /
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/endpointman.tar.gz
tar zxvf endpointman.tar.gz
rm -f endpointman.tar.gz
cd /root/endpointman
mysql -u root -ppassw0rd asterisk < epm-tables.sql
fwconsole reload
fwconsole restart

 
Accessing OSS EPM Package Manager. Using a web browser, log in to the FreePBX GUI as admin. Access the OSS Endpoint Manager in the Settings tab. Click on the Options bar on the right and choose Package Manager. DO NOT CLICK Check for Update. There aren't any, and there's a nasty bug when you click Update. All available phone setups should now appear and be ready for use.

Fixing the Check for Update Bug. If you accidentally click the Update button, you will damage the ability to make future changes in Package Manager. To fix this, drop down to the Linux CLI and issue the following commands:

cd /var/www/html/admin/modules/endpointman/install
cp setup.php /var/www/html/admin/modules/_ep_phone_modules/

 
Updating OSS EPM Package Manager. We know that some of you have actually developed templates for other phones that are not yet supported in OSS EPM. Please post your additions in this thread on the new VoIP-info Forum, and we will also add them to the default build for future new users. This post from @krzykat documents how to add these new templates to your server in the Settings -> Package Import tab without damaging your existing setup.

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Originally published: Monday, June 8, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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Turning Incredible PBX into a Lean, Mean Asterisk Machine

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Mexican Food isn’t for everyone and once in a while we get asked for a tutorial showing how to take the Whole Enchilada version of Incredible PBX® 2020 back to its roots as a Lean, Mean Asterisk® Machine. Still others want to better understand how all the Incredible PBX 2020 pieces are put in place so that unused components can be removed easily. So today’s your lucky day as we roll back the shroud of secrecy surrounding the open source Incredible PBX 2020 installer. We’re being facetious, of course, because the source code has always been available for everyone to examine and modify to your heart’s content. But we appreciate that some may not be comfortable tackling this independently for fear of breaking something.

The short answer is that most of the Incredible PBX additions to Asterisk and FreePBX® are housed in the extensions_custom.conf file in /etc/asterisk and the collection of files in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin. But deleting those files would be a very bad idea and most certainly would break much of the functionality of the underlying Asterisk and FreePBX platform.

Our approach today is to document how to delete each piece of the Incredible PBX puzzle so that you can keep the features you like and remove the rest. We’ve resisted documenting some of this previously because these components don’t typically hurt anything or consume processing resources if they’re not used. But we appreciate there are purists that want a pristine clean platform to call their own. So… here goes.

Before we get started, let me document how most of the Incredible PBX contexts in extensions_custom.conf were designed so that they could easily be removed or updated. At the top and bottom of each context, you’ll find two lines that look something like this:

;# // BEGIN Redialer
; Asterisk dialplan code goes here
;# // END Redialer

Using the label Redialer, the entire context can be removed with a single sed command:

sed -i '\:// BEGIN Redialer:,\:// END Redialer:d' extensions_custom.conf

As we walk through the various functions and contexts below, we’ll use sed Label:d as a short-hand notation for the context removal procedure in the steps that follow.

Finally, before you make any changes to your server, please MAKE A BACKUP. For the latest scripts, issue the following commands after logging into the Linux CLI as root:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblebackup2020.tar.gz
./incrediblebackup2020

Removing Telephone & Web Reminder Apps

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Reminders:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, remove checktime.php, checkdate.php, reminder.php, run_*
3. From /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/en/custom, rm -f remind*
4. From /var/www/html, rm -rf reminders
5. From /var/spool/asterisk, rm -rf recurring AND rm -rf reminders
6. fwconsole ma delete reminders
7. fwconsole reload
8. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
9. fwconsole restart

Much of the Telephone Reminders code is more than a decade old and was installed long before the current sed design with labels was implemented. So the final step in removing all of the reminders contexts is to edit extensions_custom.conf and manually delete all commands within the following contexts and then reload the Asterisk dialplan in the usual way: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

[reminder]
[reminder2]
[reminder3]
[reminder4]
[reminder5]
[reminder6]
[reminder7]
[reminder8]
[reminder9]
[reminder9a]
[remindem]

Removing AsteriDex & AsteriDex SpeedDialer Apps

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed AsteriDex SpeedDial:d
2. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Call by Code:d
3. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Call by Name:d
4. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, remove asteridex.php
5. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, remove nv-call*
6. mysql -u root -ppassw0rd -e "drop database asteridex"
7. From /var/www/html, rm -rf asteridex4
8. fwconsole ma delete asteridex
9. fwconsole reload
10. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
11. fwconsole restart

Removing SMS Dictator App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed SMS Dictator:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f sms*
3. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Travelin’ Man 4 Dialer App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Travelin’ Man 4 Dialer:d
2. From /etc/asterisk, rm -rf tm4
3. mysql -u root -ppassw0rd -e "drop database TravMan4″
4. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Wolfram Alpha App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Wolfram Alpha:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f wolfram.sh
3. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f 4747*
4. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Yahoo News App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed nv-news-yahoo:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f nv-news*
3. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Weather Apps

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Weather by ZIP:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f nv-weather*
3. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f zipcod*
4. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Today in History App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Today in History:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f nv-today*
3. rm -f /tmp/today
4. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Tides App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed xTide:d
2. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f xtide*
3. mysql -u root -ppassw0rd -e "drop database tides"
4. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing SIP URI App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed SIP URI Mod1:d
2. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed SIP URI Mod2:d
3. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Redialer App

1. From /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, sed Redialer:d
2. asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Removing Google TTS Apps

1. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f googletts*

Removing Stocks App

1. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f nv-stock*

Removing Dictionary App

1. From /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, rm -f nv-dict*

Removing the ODBC Demo Apps

As installed, Incredible PBX reserves extensions 222 and 223 for a couple of applications demonstrating the use of ODBC connections with Asterisk. Some may prefer to use these extensions for other purposes so you have two choices. You can either renumber the extensions, or you can delete the demo applications entirely. To renumber the extensions, edit /etc/asterisk/odbc.conf. Then search and replace the 222 and 223 entries. To remove the applications entirely, simply rename the odbc.conf file to odbc.conf.orig. Then reload the dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

We recommend you revisit this article in a week or two to see if other additions and corrections have been made. If so, they will appear below here. Enjoy!

 

Originally published: Monday, June 1, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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Free Cellular Service in the U.S. & Canada Returns

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We’re a few months late to the party but, if Covid-19 has put a kink in your cellular budget or if you have young kids that could use a cellphone with unlimited calling and texting on the Sprint® network at zero cost in the U.S. and Canada, then your prayers have been answered. All you need is a CDMA phone and a $10 SIM card from TextNow. Better yet, you can purchase one of their refurbished iPhones or Android phones, and you’re off to the races. Their compatible web app with 200+ million downloads lets you make calls and send text messages from your favorite desktop computer or tablet. Special thanks to @Hometech for this tip.

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What’s the Catch? The free tier is ad-supported so you’ll get a few ads. But, other than that, unlimited calling and texting throughout the U.S. and Canada are free whether you’re on WiFi or on Sprint’s nationwide network. If the ads are bothersome, you can always move up to the $10/month ad-free platform which also gets you voicemail transcription. There’s even free data service albeit on Sprint’s 2G network. But it’s perfectly suited for email. Yes, we’re aware of Sprint’s terrible coverage in some areas, but hopefully this will improve with the T-Mobile merger. Much like Google Fi, the TextNow design supports WiFi wherever it’s available. You can’t beat the price, and no credit card is required to sign up. So what are you waiting for?

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Referral Code Saves $20. TextNow no longer offers referral codes or affiliate links, and we don’t have one. But here’s a link to some existing coupons that will save you $20 if you decide to purchase a phone from them.


 
Free Features: In addition to a free phone number and unlimited calling and texting to U.S. and Canadian numbers, TextNow offers conference calling, voicemail, and group texting. Calling and texting via the web app or platform-specific applications is just as intuitive and powerful as using a cellphone. In fact, you can set things up on your existing phone while you’re waiting on your TextNOW SIM card or smartphone to arrive. Come join the party!
 

Originally published: Friday, May 22, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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ClearlyIP Introduces New Features for Incredible PBX Phones

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We’re excited to announce a host of new features for the new Incredible PBX IP phones. For locations where dynamic IP addresses and NAT-based routers pose challenges, the Clearly Devices GUI now offers direct support for OpenVPN. For environments in which security is critically important such as banks and schools, a new Panic button provides unique protection for employees and workplaces. And, for those that have always wanted an "Answered Elsewhere" indication for business communications, your search is over.

Configuring Incredible PBX Phones with OpenVPN

To get started, log into the FreePBX GUI with your admin credentials and navigate to Admin -> Module Admin -> Check Online and update the Clearly Devices module, if necessary. Next, create an OpenVPN server and generate a client template using the MAC address of each of your Incredible PBX phones following the steps in our previous tutorial. Copy the new client templates to the tftpboot folder of your Incredible PBX server. Next, open this ClearlyIP tutorial in a separate window and follow the steps to set up each of your phones. NOTE: When you create a template in Clearly Devices, it will provide a default provision URL at the top of the template that should also be used as the Custom Client Location when you enable the VPN in the User Management template, e.g. http://abc:xyz@192.168.0.3:2580/%%MAC%%.ovpn

Adding a PANIC Button to Incredible PBX Phones



 

Adding ‘Answered Elsewhere’ As A Call Destination

One of the complaints of many administrators has been the destination entries made in call logs when a call to a ring group is answered on another extension. With the latest release, the "Answered Elsewhere" notation is included in the phone’s firmware. Give these phones a careful look when you are in the market for new SIP phones. There’s nothing quite like them for Asterisk® platforms. Enjoy!

Originally published: Tuesday, May 19, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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BulkVS: A Bargain SIP Provider for Incredible PBX Platforms

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At every opportunity I always tell new VoIP enthusiasts that one of the true advantages of switching to a VoIP platform is the fact that you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket. Just this morning, I read a Facebook post from one of the elders in my family lamenting the fact that her MaBell landline had failed in the midst of this week’s snowstorm in North Carolina. Her local WiFi and cable TV still worked but not her landline or cellphone.

With that background, we are pleased to introduce BulkVS trunking as another option to add to your collection. Unlike Skyetel, ClearlyIP, Vitelity, and VoIP.ms, we receive no commissions from BulkVS so chalk this article up as a good example of biting off your nose to spite your face. There is a PayPal link to the right if you’re feeling grateful. 😉

Why does BulkVS matter? In the words of Alex Trebek, it’s The 3 P’s: Price, Price, and Price. An inbound US48 Tier0 phone number (DID) will set you back 6¢ a month with a 25¢ setup fee. And calls are billed at $.0003 per minute. Toll-free numbers in the U.S. and Canada are 14¢ a month with a per minute rate of $.0055. CNAM lookups are $.002. Outbound calls are $0.004/minute. E911 service is 49¢/month. Billing increment: 6 seconds. Those aren’t typos.

Getting Started with BulkVS

To get started, click the sign up link on the main BulkVS page. Then fund your account with $25 using PayPal. Or you can sign up for Net 15 billing and pay by check or credit card if you’re not in a rush to get started.

BulkVS offers two ways to set up your BulkVS trunking: IP-based authentication and SIP registration. If you don’t have a firewall which means you’re not using Incredible PBX, the first method is a little safer because nobody can spoof the IP address of your Asterisk® PBX. But it’s not for everyone. For example, if you’re behind a NAT-based firewall or if your server has a dynamic IP address, then IP-based authentication really isn’t an option. Similarly, if you don’t have control of the router that your PBX is sitting behind, then IP-based authentication won’t work since you have to forward both the SIP port (UDP 5060) and the RTP ports (10000-20000) to your PBX. The beauty of SIP registrations is they work from almost anywhere including double-NAT environments. So today, we’ll cover the SIP registration approach which will work for everyone.

There are three setup procedures: one using the BulkVS Control Panel, a second using the Linux CLI, and a third using the FreePBX® GUI included in Incredible PBX®.

BulkVS Setup with SIP Registration

Step 1: Go to Inbound -> DIDs – Purchase and buy one or more DIDs for your PBX.

Step 2: Go to Interconnection -> Host – Add and add your PBX’s public IP address. Leave the port as 5060 for both chan_sip and chan_pjsip setups.

Step 3: Go to Interconnection -> Trunk Group – Add and create a Trunk Group.

Step 4: Go to Interconnection -> Trunk Group – Manage and add the Primary IP Address for your new Trunk Group. Set Delivery Type to 11DIGITS.

Step 5: Go to Interconnection -> SIP Registration and write down the credentials for one of the SIP credentials you wish to use to register your new trunks.

Step 6: Go to Inbound -> DIDs – Manage and select each telephone number. Then set the Trunk Group to the SIPREG Trunk Group you chose in the previous step. Click Update button.

Step 7: Wait 15 minutes for the new IP and Trunk Group settings to propagate to SBC nodes.

Linux CLI Setup for BulkVS

First, log into your server as root and edit iptables-custom in /usr/local/sbin. Add the following just above the # End of Trusted Provider Section marker:

# BulkVS WhiteList
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 162.249.171.198 --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 76.8.29.198 --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 69.12.88.198 --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 192.9.236.42 --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT
/usr/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -s 52.206.134.245 --dport 5060:5069 -j ACCEPT

For chan_sip trunk implementations, while logged into your server as root, edit sip_custom_post.conf in /etc/asterisk. Add the following:

[bulkvs1](bulkvs);
host=192.9.236.42

[bulkvs2](bulkvs);
host=162.249.171.198

[bulkvs3](bulkvs);
host=69.12.88.198

[bulkvs4](bulkvs);
host=76.8.29.198

[bulkvs5](bulkvs);
host=52.206.134.245

 
Finally, restart the IPtables firewall and reload Asterisk:

iptables-restart
fwconsole reload

FreePBX PJsip Setup with SIP Registration

The PJsip alternative is considerably easier. First, you don’t need sip_custom_post.conf entries at all. To begin, navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks and choose Add a PJsip trunk. Name the trunk BulkVS and then click on the pjsip Settings tab. Fill out the form as shown below substituting the BulkVS registration account name you chose above. Any of the three SIP registrations offered for your account under Interconnection -> SIP Registration in the BulkVS Dashboard will work as long as you use the matching password.

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Next, click on the Advanced tab and enter the following in the Match (Permit) field.

162.249.171.198,76.8.29.198,69.12.88.198,192.9.236.42,52.206.134.245

In the Codecs tab, enable ULAW and ALAW. Then click Submit and reload your dialplan.

With PJsip registrations, you may also need to add the following lines to the end of extensions_custom.conf in /etc/asterisk using your actual DID. Then reload your dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

[from-sip-external]
; BulkVS
exten => 18005551212,3,Goto(from-trunk,${DID},1)

FreePBX chan_sip Setup with SIP Registration

If you prefer to set up your BulkVS trunk the old-fashioned way, navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks -> Add chan_sip trunk and enter:


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In the Incoming tab, enter a Registration String in the following format where 19991234567 is one of your actual BulkVS DIDs. Then Save the settings and reload the dialplan.

yourBulkVSacctname:yourBulkVSpassword@sip.bulkvs.com/19991234567

Finally, navigate to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings and the chan_SIP tab, then set the Registration Minimum Expiry and Registration Default Expiry entries to 25. Then click Submit and reload the dialplan.

FreePBX Inbound & Outbound Route Configuration

Finally, we need to tell FreePBX how to route BulkVS calls into and out of your PBX. In the FreePBX GUI under Connectivty -> Inbound Routes, add a new route for BulkVS specifying the 11-digit DID you purchased from BulkVS. Choose a Destination for the incoming calls, save your settings, and reload the dialplan. Repeat this process for each of your BulkVS DIDs. HINT: The monthly cost of the DIDs is inexpensive enough to assign a DID to every extension on your PBX.

Next, navigate to Connectivity -> Outbound Routes and create a new Outbound Route for calls you wish to process using BulkVS termination services. Name the Outbound Route BulkVS and assign the bulkvs trunk as the first entry in the call sequence. In the Dial Patterns tab, you would want match patterns for 1NXXNXXXXXX and NXXNXXXXXX. For the latter entry, be sure to add a Prepend entry of 1. Then save your settings and reload the dialplan.

SMS Message Delivery from BulkVS Trunks

BulkVS also supports SMS messaging on most of their DIDs. To deliver SMS messages from BulkVS, you’ll need a public-facing web server (not Incredible PBX). Assuming you already have that in place, delivery of SMS messages from BulkVS DIDs to your email address or smartphone’s messaging app is straight-forward. Begin by enabling SMS messaging on your DID: Inbound -> DIDs Manage. Next, assign a web address to process the incoming messages on your web server, e.g. http://yourdomain.com/bulkvs-sms/index.php. Then create the index.php file using the sample code below after inserting your email address for delivery of the incoming messages:

<?php

// Syntax for delivery from bulkvs.com SMS Forwarding Service

  $deliverto = "yourname@yourdomain.org";
//  $deliverto = "18431234567@txt.att.net";
  $from = htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST['from']);
  $to = htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST['to']);
  $message = htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST['message']);
  $subject="SMS Message from $from to $to";
  $comment="SMS Message\\n\\nFROM: $from\\n\\nTO: $to\\n\\nMSG: $message\\n\\n";
  mail("$deliverto", "$subject", "$comment", "$from");
  echo "OK";
?>

 
To send an SMS message from one of your BulkVS DIDs, you’ll need your API credentials from the BulkVS web site. Simply insert them together with one of your 11-digit DIDs in the script below, and you can send SMS messages to your heart’s content.

from="18005551212"
apikey="aaabbbccc"
apisecret="dddeeefff"

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo 'Syntax: send-sms-bulkvs 18005551212 "Your SMS message"'
exit
fi
if [ -z "$2" ]; then
echo 'Syntax: send-sms-bulkvs 18005551212 "Your SMS message"'
exit
fi

to=$1
msg=$2

curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" --request POST --data \\
'{"apikey":"'"$apikey"'","apisecret":"'"$apisecret"'","from":"'"$from"'","to":"'"$to"'","message":"'"$msg"'"}' \\
https://portal.bulkvs.com/sendSMS

To send SMS messages from a Windows machine, see this post from @jerrm.

Originally published: Tuesday, May 12, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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Introducing the Incredible Redialer for Asterisk

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If you’ve been a VoIP regular during the past decade then you’re probably already aware that the automatic redial function has disappeared from both Asterisk® and most SIP phones. In these difficult times of trying to connect with critical services and radio contests, we thought it was a good time to introduce the Incredible Redialer. It should perform well on most Asterisk platforms with FreePBX® as well as current releases of Incredible PBX®.

How It Works. The Incredible Redialer assumes you have an Outbound Route to process 10-digit calls. If not, you can adjust the code to meet your local or international calling patterns. For the default install, a caller simply dials 2 plus a 10-digit number, and the Incredible Redialer will repeatedly dial the 10-digit number every five seconds until the call completes without a busy signal. No CDR entries are logged to avoid clutter.

Installation. On FreePBX-based systems including Incredible PBX platforms, edit extensions_custom.conf in /etc/asterisk. Just below the [from-internal-custom] line at the top of the file, insert the following code:

;# // BEGIN Redialer
exten => _2NXXNXXXXXX,1,Answer
exten => _2NXXNXXXXXX,n(dialnow),Wait(5)
exten => _2NXXNXXXXXX,n,Set(NUM2CALL=${EXTEN:1})
exten => _2NXXNXXXXXX,n,Dial(local/${NUM2CALL}@from-internal)
exten => _2NXXNXXXXXX,n,Goto(dialnow)
exten => s-CANCEL,1,Hangup
exten => s-NOANSWER,1,Hangup
exten => s-BUSY,1(redial),Goto(dialnow)
exten => s-CONGESTION,1(congestion),Goto(dialnow)
exten => s-CHANUNAVAIL,1,Hangup
exten => s-,1,Hangup
exten => _s-.,1,Hangup
;# // END Redialer

If your dialplan requires 11-digit numbers beginning with a 1, then edit the five lines beginning with _2 and change the entries to _21. You can make similar changes to support international dialing prefixes. If you’d prefer a dialing prefix other than 2, then replace the 2 in the _2 lines with the prefix of your choice. Save the file and then reload your Asterisk dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

Testing Incredible Redialer. We’ve set up a test number in the United States that always rings busy. Feel free to call it to try things out from your own PBX: 843-606-0555. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, May 4, 2020


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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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Election Protection: Deploying Lenny to Block Robocalls

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In the United States, some may be unaware that the FCC exempted elected federal officials and businesses with whom you do business from the stringent restrictions enacted against robocalls. That’s the reason you typically hear from your favorite politicians at about the time you sit down for that evening meal. In 2013, we implemented Brian West’s Lenny scripts for use with Asterisk®. We won’t regurgitate all of the background and legal considerations, but they are available in our original article if you’re interested. The idea behind the Lenny robot is a series of voice prompts that keep robocallers chasing their tails for lengthy periods of time without interfering with your regular phone calls. A number of these recordings are available on YouTube for your listening pleasure. Here’s one of our favorites:



 
A Word to the Wise: Pay particular attention to the rules on recording your phone calls. WE ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR VERIFYING THE LEGALITY OF USING THE LENNY VOICE PROMPTS WHICH WERE PART OF THE POSSA MODULE PUBLISHED ON GITHUB!

Even though access to Lenny through SIP URI calls has never wavered over the years, actual deployment of the code to implement Lenny on local servers disappeared because of the inability to verify the author of the original Lenny recordings. We still have been unable to do that, but seven years have passed without anyone voicing a complaint so we’ve decided to once again make the recordings available in this new deployment for Incredible PBX® 2020. A similar module is also available for Ombutel and VitalPBX. If anyone wishes to claim ownership of the recordings and desires that they be removed, simply contact us.

Prerequisites. To install today’s version of Lenny, you’ll need an Incredible PBX 2020 platform for CentOS 7 or the Raspberry Pi 3 or 4.

Installation. To install Lenny on your server, log into the Linux CLI as root. Then…

cd /var/www/html/admin/modules
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/lenny2020.tgz
tar zxvf lenny2020.tgz
rm -f lenny2020.tgz
fwconsole ma install itslenny
fwconsole reload
cd /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/en
ln -s /var/www/html/admin/modules/itslenny/sounds/lenny lenny

Configuration. Next, you’ll need to configure Lenny to answer calls on your Blacklist and, optionally, to replace the existing 53669 (L-E-N-N-Y) SIP URI extension so that non-blacklisted incoming calls can be transferred easily to Lenny as desired. Let’s first tackle the Blacklist setup. Log into the FreePBX GUI with a web browser using your admin credentials. Navigate to Third Party AddOn: Its Lenny. Make sure the Enable checkbox is checked and optionally check the Record option, if desired. The default Silence Detection Delay and Iterations settings should be fine on most platforms. Click Submit to save the settings.

NOTE: The PBX Open Source Software Alliance (POSSA) no longer maintains this module.

If you want to replace the existing 53669 SIP URI extension with access to this new module using the same 53669 setting, here are the steps:

1. Delete the existing 53669 extension under Applications:Extensions.

2. Under Admin:Custom Destinations, Add app-nv-itslenny,s,1 and name it Lenny. Submit.

3. Under Application:Misc Application, Add:
      Enable: YES
      Description: Lenny
      Feature Code: 53669
      Destination: Custom Destination -> Lenny
      Submit

Operation. Here’s how we envision a typical deployment. When an incoming call arrives that you believe is a spammer, say, "Just a moment. Let me transfer you to the man of the house." Using your SIP phone, hit the Transfer button and dial 53669 to send the call to Lenny. Next, blacklist the last caller by picking up the phone again and dialing *32. In the future, when calls arrive from this number, the call will automatically be answered by Lenny. You can add and remove entries in the Blacklist by navigating to Admin:BlackList in the FreePBX GUI.

Continue Reading: Spam Phone Call Blocker and CNAM Caching for FreePBX

Originally published: Monday, April 20, 2020


blank
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

blankBOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

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

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

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



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The Big 30: Incredible PBX 2020 Application User’s Guide

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For those just beginning the Incredible PBX® 2020 adventure, start here for CentOS 7 or here for the Raspberry Pi. Once your system is up and running, you’ll be ready to kick the tires. And today we’ll cover 30 applications for Asterisk® and FreePBX® that are included in the latest and greatest Incredible PBX server. Now that you have some time on your hands, continue learning about this powerful platform by reading this documentation. If you still have questions, post them on the PIAF Forum for some quick and friendly assistance.

Here’s a Table of Contents to the Incredible PBX 2020 Applications with hotlinks. Enjoy!

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

* Requires Voice Recognition implementation. See #2 above.

1. Checking Current Status of Incredible PBX

There are several ways to check the status of your server. First, log into your server as root and type: pbxstatus. You can even add the default phone number for your server by inserting it in /etc/pbx/.phone.

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The second option is to use a browser to access your server. Choose the Incredible PBX Admin option after pointing a browser to the IP address of your server:

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Once you log in with your admin password, the Dashboard of your server will display the status of trunks, users, and active calls on your server. In addition, you can review the latest news and security alerts from the RSS Feeds of Nerd Vittles, Incredible PBX, FreePBX, and Asterisk. For additional status information, choose Reports:Asterisk Info.

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2. Adding Speech Recognition to Asterisk

We no longer recommend Google Speech Recognition because of the licensing issues and Google’s propensity to break things regularly. Instead, we recommend IBM’s Speech Recognition and TTS engines. For most users, there will be no cost. And the services are second to none. For a complete installation and setup tutorial, see our tutorial. Once speech recognition is enabled, the Incredible PBX 2020 feature set grows exponentially. You’ll have access to the Voice Dialer for AsteriDex as well as SMS Voice Messaging and Wolfram Alpha for a Siri-like encyclopedia.

3. Using Wolfram Alpha with Incredible PBX

Ever wished your Asterisk server could harness the power of a 10,000 CPU Supercomputer to answer virtually any question you can dream up about the world we live in? Well, so long as it’s for non-commercial use, today’s your lucky day. Apple demonstrated with Siri™ just how amazing this technology can be by coupling Wolfram Alpha® to a speech-to-text engine on the iPhone. Now you can do much the same thing using voice recognition with Incredible PBX 2020.

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

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

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

nano -w /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/wolfram.sh

3. When the nano editor opens, insert your IBM STT and Wolfram APP-ID credentials in the spaces provided. Then save the file.

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

Here are some sample queries to get you started:

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

4. Automatic Update Utility for Incredible PBX

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

We recommend you log into your server as root at least once a week to keep your server current. Ditto for the web interface to Incredible PBX. Insofar as security is concerned, we make a best effort to keep the components of Incredible PBX up to date. The Linux operating system was installed by you before the Incredible PBX install began. That’s a nice way of saying Linux security is primarily your responsibility. When an egregious Linux vulnerability comes along that we know about, we will try to notify you of the issue on the PIAF Forum and on the RSS Feed that is part of the Incredible PBX GUI. Check the RSS Feeds at least once a week as well. As a condition of use of the free Incredible PBX product, you accepted ultimate responsibility for the security and reliability of your server. Be SAFE!

5. Resetting Incredible PBX Passwords

Yes. It happens to all of us. We forget our passwords. Incredible PBX includes a convenient utility that lets you reset many of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX. Just log into your server as root and issue the command: /root/update-passwords

To reset Incredible PBX GUI admin password, issue command: /root/admin-pw-change

To reset Apache admin password, issue command: /root/apache-pw-change. Apache credentials control access to the web interface of Telephone Reminders and AsteriDex from within the web GUI.

To reset the AvantFax admin password which is accessible within the Incredible PBX GUI, issue the following command: /root/avantfax-pw-change

6. Apache Authentication with Incredible PBX

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

htpasswd -cb /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword

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

7. Managing the IPtables Linux Firewall

As installed, Incredible PBX includes a preconfigured, locked-down Linux firewall that restricts incoming IPv6 traffic to localhost and, via a Travelin’ Man 3 WhiteList application, limits incoming IPv4 traffic to your server’s public and private IP addresses, your desktop computer’s IP address (that was used for the install), private LAN and NeoRouter VPN traffic, and a collection of our favorite VoIP providers. You can WhiteList additional IP addresses for additional providers or for SIP and IAX phones located outside your firewall. The following firewall management scripts are accessible from the /root directory:

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

On CentOS platforms, IPtables can be manually configured (if you know what you’re doing) by editing iptables and ip6tables in /etc/sysconfig. On the Raspberry Pi, the rules are stored in /etc/iptables/rules.v4. Additional IPtables rules are included and managed in /usr/local/sbin/iptables-custom. All FQDN entries must be entered in iptables-custom. The reason is because a failed FQDN entry in the main IPtables config file will cause the firewall to fail on startup. Also, NEVER use traditional iptables commands such as iptables save to update your IPtables configuration, or you will permanently delete all of your FQDN entries! Instead, use the provided utilities to whitelist additional sites and then restart IPtables using iptables-restart. This protects the FQDN entries in your setup while also checking for invalid FQDN entries and removing them temporarily so that IPtables will successfully restart. If you use service iptables restart to restart IPtables and there happens to be an FQDN entry for a host that is either down or has disappeared, IPtables will fail to restart and your server will be left with NO firewall protection! Using the traditional IPtables mechanisms also will disable Fail2Ban and the rules in iptables-custom will never be loaded. Incredible PBX periodically checks for changed FQDN entries using the ipchecker script as configured in /etc/crontab.

If you elect to integrate Facebook into your Incredible PBX setup, you will need to manually uncomment the last 3 lines in /usr/local/sbin/iptables-custom in order to whitelist the Facebook servers. Then restart the firewall: iptables-restart

WARNING: By default, Incredible PBX whitelists all of the non-routable LAN subnets including 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16. If you elect to install Incredible PBX in the Cloud, be advised that some cloud platforms including Amazon treat the 172.16.0.0/12 subnet as routable IP addresses. This means that anyone in the Amazon Cloud (including the bad guys) will have direct access to your server. While they still need a password or vulnerability to gain access, it nevertheless exposes your server to needless hacking attempts. We strongly recommend that you comment out the 172.16.0.0/12 entry in /usr/local/sbin/iptables-custom if you intend to deploy your server in the Amazon Cloud. Then restart the firewall: iptables-restart

8. PortKnocker Remote Access

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

To reconfigure PortKnocker to permanently whitelist IP addresses from which you issue a successful knock, login as root and issue the command: iptables-knock activate

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

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

If you installed Incredible PBX 2020 on a cloud platform, then your server may use a network port other than eth0. Typically, it’s venet0:0 on OpenVZ servers. You can decipher the name of your network port for your public IP address by issuing the command: ifconfig. In this case, the CentOS config file needs to be modified and then PortKnocker needs to be restarted. Edit /etc/sysconfig/knockd and insert the following: OPTIONS="-i venet0:0". Restart PortKnocker with the command: service knockd restart

Review our PortKnocker tutorial for additional configuration tips.

9. Travelin’ Man 4 Remote Access (dial TM4)

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

10. Using the Conference Bridge (dial CONF)

A turnkey Conference Bridge is included in Incredible PBX 2020. A conference bridge allows a group of people to participate in a joint phone call. Typically, participants dial into a virtual meeting room from their own phone. This virtual meeting room supports dozens or even hundreds of participants depending upon server capacity.

You do not need a timing source for conferencing with Incredible PBX 2020! Old-style Asterisk Conference Rooms which required a timing source are disabled.

To access the Conference Bridge, dial C-O-N-F (2663) from any phone connected to your server. Remote users can be added to a conference by providing a DID that points to an IVR which includes Conference Bridge access. Once connected to the conference bridge, a caller is prompted for the Conference Bridge PIN and his or her name. The user and admin access PINs are randomly generated when you install Incredible PBX. You can decipher or modify the user and admin passwords to access the Conference Bridge in the Incredible PBX GUI: Applications:Conferences. Then edit 2663 and review or change the User and Admin PINs.

11. CallerID Name (CNAM) Lookups

By default, Incredible PBX is configured to automatically provide OpenCNAM CallerID name lookups for the first ten calls received each hour. These lookups are only from cached entries in the OpenCNAM database; however, you can enable the commercial lookup service if desired. The cost is four tenths of a cent per successful query.

To enable the OpenCNAM Professional Tier, set up an account at OpenCNAM.com. Once you’ve obtained your credentials, edit the OpenCNAM entry in Admin:CID Superfecta:Default. You may also wish to enable AsteriDex lookups and move the scheme to the top of your list of lookup schemes.

To activate CallerID Superfecta for incoming calls, edit each of your Inbound Routes and Enable Superfecta Lookup with the Default Scheme in the Other tab.

12. Faxing with Incredible PBX 2020

If you can press the ENTER key 25 times, you are fully capable of installing Incredible Fax on your new server. On the latest Raspberry Pi builds of Incredible PBX 2020, Incredible Fax is preinstalled. On other platforms, log into your server as root and run /root/incrediblefax2020.sh. Provide an email address for delivery of incoming faxes and press ENTER each time you are prompted to make a selection. Once you reboot your server, you’re all set. As part of the install, you provided an email address for delivery of incoming faxes. That’s all the setup that is required to have incoming faxes sent to most of your DIDs delivered via SendMail in PDF format. The best way to figure out whether a particular provider supports fax technology on their DIDs is to send a test fax to yourself. FaxZERO lets you send 5 free (in the U.S. only) faxes of up to 3 pages every day. Give it a whirl.

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You also can send faxes using standard document types with the AvantFax web application. Log into AvantFax from the main Incredible PBX GUI by clicking on the AvantFax icon. The default credentials are admin:password. Choose the Send a Fax option from the main menu, fill in the blanks, and attach your document. AvantFax uses the default dialplan so use the prefix desired to send the fax using your preferred provider.

With the latest release of Incredible PBX 2020, fax recognition is supported on incoming calls. Edit each of your Inbound Routes and enable Detect Faxes with Detection Type=SIP, Fax Ring=Yes, Fax Detection Time=4, and Fax Destination=Custom Destination:Fax (HylaFax) in the Fax tab.

On the Raspberry Pi platform, you can change the destination email address for incoming faxes by issuing the command: /root/avantfax-email-change.

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

13. Voicemail 101 for Incredible PBX 2020

Voicemail functionality is enabled on an extension-by-extension basis as part of the extension setup under the Voicemail tab. Once enabled, you can set up your mailbox and retrieve your messages by dialing *97 from the mailbox extension, or dial *98 to retrieve messages from any extension. Shortcut dialing is also supported, e.g. *98707 would retrieve messages for extension 707. You can leave a message for or forward calls to any extension’s mailbox without actually calling the extension. Just prepend * to any extension number before dialing, e.g. *701. A number of the system settings for voicemail can be tweaked under the Voicemail tab as well. For example, you can automatically delete voicemails once they have been delivered by email. Voicemail Blasting to multiple mailboxes is also supported. Just choose this option under the Applications tab and follow your nose.

14. Email Delivery of MP3 Voicemails

Speaking of email delivery, your voicemails also can be delivered to any email address of your choosing. For every extension under the Voicemail tab for the Extension, simply add an Email Address and enable the Email Attachment. With Incredible PBX 2020, the voicemail message will be attached to the email in MP3 format so it’s suitable for playback with most email clients on desktop PCs, Macs, and smartphones. Be advised that some Internet service providers (such as Comcast) block downstream SMTP servers. You can check whether your outbound email is flowing by issuing the command mailq from the Linux command line. Issuing the command mail will tell you whether outgoing emails are bouncing. You can test sending an email by issuing the following command using your destination email address:

echo "test" | mail -s testmessage your-name@your-email-provider.com

If you find outbound mail is accumulating, add your ISP’s SMTP server address as a SmartHost for SendMail as documented in the next section.

15. Reconfiguring SendMail for a SmartHost

Many residential Internet service providers block downstream SMTP servers such as the SendMail server running with Incredible PBX 2020. If you’re sending emails but they never arrive and you’ve checked your SPAM folder, then chances are your ISP is the culprit. The simple solution is to add your ISP’s SMTP server as a SmartHost for SendMail. This means outbound emails will be forwarded to your ISP for actual email transmission over the Internet. Here’s how. On CentOS platforms, edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and search for DS. Immediately after DS, add the FQDN of your ISP’s SMTP server, e.g. DSsmtp.comcrap.net (no spaces!). Save the file and then restart SendMail: service sendmail restart. Your email and voicemail messages with attachments should begin flowing without further delay.

On Raspberry Pi platforms, here’s how to set it up using a Gmail account without two-step authentication. Log into your server as root and run dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config. Choose "mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail." Accept all the defaults until you get to Outgoing Smarthost prompt. Enter: smtp.gmail.com::587. At the following prompts, choose NO, NO, mbox, and NO. When the setup completes, edit /etc/exim4/passwd.client and insert the following line using your Gmail AcctName and AcctPW. NOTE: If you are using a Gmail account with 2-step verification enabled, you MUST use a Gmail App Key instead of your Gmail account password. You also must enable Less Secure Apps access to your Gmail account.

smtp.gmail.com:AcctName@gmail.com:AcctPW

Save the file and then issue the following commands to complete the setup:

update-exim4.conf
systemctl restart exim4
exim4 -qff

Now send yourself a test email message to make sure things are working properly:

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

16. SMS Messaging with VoIP.ms

Incredible PBX 2020 supports SMS messaging through VoIP.ms if you have an account and an SMS-enabled DID. See the VoIP.ms wiki for setup info on the VoIP.ms side.

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

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

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

$SMSsender="8005551212";

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

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

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

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

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

17. SIP URI Calling with Incredible PBX

With one line of dialplan code, you can add Speed Dials for free SIP URI calling worldwide. The dialplan code is stored in the [CallingRule_SIP_URI] context in extensions_custom.conf. Just clone one of the existing entries, designate an extension to dial to connect to the SIP URI, and enter the SIP URI for the destination. Numerous SIP providers support assignment of SIP URI’s to DIDs for unlimited free calling from anywhere in the world. Here’s a sample using a speed dial code of 53669 that connects you to SIP URI 2233435945@sip2sip.info: exten = 53669,1,Dial(SIP/2233435945@sip2sip.info)

18. IVR Demo of Incredible PBX Apps

The easiest way to try out a number of the Incredible PBX applications is to take the IVR Demo for a spin. Just pick up any phone on a CentOS-based platform and dial 3366 (D-E-M-O). The sample code for the IVR is available for review and modification in the IVR section of the GUI. There’s also a sample Stealth AutoAttendant. This plays a brief greeting and then rings an extension or ring group. During the greeting, you could configure the application to allow button presses to branch to other applications on your PBX, hence the Stealth name since the codes are not disclosed to callers.

On the Raspberry Pi platform, our detailed tutorial will walk you through setting up the Demo IVR application.

19. Backup & Restore with Incredible PBX

Incredible Backup and Restore scripts are provided in the /root folder. In addition, the FreePBX GUI also provides Backup and Restore utilities under the Admin tab. If backups are important to you, we strongly recommend you consider a $3/month cloud server at Vultr using our referral code. For an additional 20% per month (60 cents), you get weekly image backups of your server that can be restored with a couple of button clicks. It’s the cheapest insurance you can buy for your PBX!

20. AsteriDex – The Poor Man’s Rolodex

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

21. Voice Dialing with AsteriDex (dial 411)

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

22. Speed Dialing with AsteriDex (dial 000+)

For those without voice recognition, Incredible PBX 2020 includes two speed dialing utilities. The first is accessed by dialing 412. Then enter any 3-digit dialcode from your AsteriDex database to complete the call. If you’d prefer to skip the intermediate step, dial 000 + the 3-digit speed dial code desired. The call will be placed immediately using your default outbound routes.

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

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

To automatically generate the 3-digit speed dial codes for everyone in your AsteriDex database using the first three letters of each name, run the following script from your web browser: http://your-server-ip/asteridex4/dialcode.php.

23. Telephone Reminders (dial 123)

Incredible PBX 2020 includes a sophisticated reminders system that lets you schedule individual or recurring reminders using your phone by dialing 123 or a web browser. A complete tutorial is available here. For phone reminders, a password is required to access the reminder system. Typically, these reminders set up a return call at a scheduled time that then plays back either a recorded message or a TTS message generated from the text you entered in the browser application. Incredible PBX also includes a new addition that lets you schedule web reminders that are delivered by email or SMS message.

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24. DISA Access with Incredible PBX 2020

Direct Inward System Access (aka DISA) is one of the great PBX inventions of the last 50 years. It’s also one of the most dangerous. It lets someone connect to your PBX and obtain dial tone to place an outbound call using your trunks… on your nickel. Typically, it is offered as an option with an IVR or AutoAttendant. The DISA extension is not preconfigured with Incredible PBX; however, you can easily set it up in the GUI by choosing Applications:DISA. Make up a very secure PIN before exposing DISA access to the outside world. It’s your phone bill.

25. Yahoo! News (Dial 951)

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

26. Weather Forecasts by Phone (dial 947)

You can obtain a current weather forecast for most zip codes by dialing 947 (Z-I-P) and entering the 5-digit zip code.

27. ODBC Application Support for Asterisk

If you’ve recently logged into your server as root, Automatic Update #4 added ODBC/MySQL application support for Asterisk. You can try out a few sample applications that are included to get you started. Dial 222 and enter 12345 for the employee number. This retrieves an employee name from the MySQL timeclock database using Asterisk. Dial 223 to retrieve an AsteriDex name and phone number by entering the 3-character dialcode. You then have the option of placing the call by pressing 1. Once you have created accounts for Travelin’ Man 4, you can dial 864 (T-M-4) to WhiteList an IP address for that account after entering the account number and matching PIN. Use the * key for periods in the IP address.

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

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

29. Time of Day

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

If you want your users to be able to dial in for the time directly by dialing extension, here’s how. In the GUI, choose Admin:Custom Destinations:Add Destination. Set up a Time of Day description with a target of new-time,s,1 and save your entry. Now Enable an Application:Misc Application:Add Application with a Feature Code of 8463, Time of Day description, and point it to Custom Destination:Time of Day. Save your entry and then dial 8463 (T-I-M-E) for the Time of Day.

30. WebMin: The Linux Swiss Army Knife

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

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To access WebMin on the CentOS platform, visit the following link with a web browser using the actual IP address of your server: https://ip-address:9001/. The username is root. The password is your root password. WebMin has root privileges to your server. Reread paragraph 1 and act accordingly.

Due to space and performance constraints, WebMin is no longer installed by default on the Raspberry Pi platform. To install WebMin, follow these steps after logging into your Raspberry Pi as root:

cd /root
apt-get update
apt-get install python perl openssl libnet-ssleay-perl 
apt-get install libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl libpam-runtime
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.941_all.deb
dpkg --install webmin_1.941_all.deb

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

Originally published: Monday, April 13, 2020


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