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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING

Oracle Cloud: Grab a Free Incredible PBX Cloud Server for Life

It’s not every day that you get an opportunity to deploy an Incredible PBX® server on a cloud platform as robust as the one offered by Oracle®. And the fact that it won’t cost you a dime EVER makes this all the more appealing. This isn’t some bargain basement, crippled cloud platform with barely enough horsepower to get your server booted. Quite the contrary. This is an ARM-based Ubuntu 20.04 platform with 6GB of RAM, 45+ GB of storage, and a 1GB network pipe. The CPU capacity is equivalent to multiple physical cores of an Intel Xeon processor with hyper threading enabled. The word you’re looking for is WOW! Our further testing suggests that, by deploying 1 OCPU instances, you can actually create 4 separate servers in your free allocation from Oracle. So let’s jump right in and get your new server up and running.

Getting Started with Oracle Cloud

For openers, you’ll need to set yourself up with a free Oracle Cloud account here. You can read all about Oracle’s Free Tier, and today we’ll be setting up an Always Free Ampere A1 Compute Resource which never expires. It provides 3,000 OCPU hours and 18,000 GB hours per month for free for VM instances using the VM.Standard.A1.Flex shape. For Always Free tenancies, this is equivalent to 4 OCPUs and 24 GB of memory. Translation: You can build an Asterisk® server to handle thousands of users with this platform. In fact, you can now build FOUR of them.

Once you’ve set up your account and accessed the Oracle Cloud Dashboard, click on the 3-bar Options Menu in the upper left column. You’ll be using two key options in the menus: Compute -> Instances and Networking -> Virtual Cloud Networks. We recommend you click the PIN icon on both of these so that they become available on your Home dashboard.


To begin, navigate to Identity -> Compartments and create a new incrediblepbx compartment. Then navigate to Compute -> Instances and click the Create Instance button. Accept the default Name and choose incrediblepbx as your Compartment. In the Image and shape section, click Edit. In the Image and Shape dialog, click the Change Image button and choose the Canonical Ubuntu 20.04 option. CAUTION: 22.04 is now the default so make sure you change it to 20.04 Image with the latest 20.04 Build Date! Next, click the Change Shape button and choose Virtual Machine, Ampere, check VM.Standard.A1.Flex) and select 1 OCPU with 6GB of RAM. In the Networking section, click Edit. Choose Public Subnet, Use network security groups to control traffic: No, Assign a public IPv4 address: Yes, and DNS record: Yes. Finally, in the Add SSH Keys section, leave the Generate a key pair for me option selected, and click Save Private Key then Save Public Key to download both keys to your desktop. Click Upload public key files (.pub) button and upload the Public Key you just downloaded into your instance. Finally, click the Create button to create your new instance. Once your instance is up and running, click on Public Subnet under Primary VNIC. In the Default Security List option, add Ingress and Egress Rules with an entry for Stateless=No, Source=0.0.0.0/0, IP Protocol=ALL, Source & Destination Port Range=ALL. In addition, add Ingress rules for UDP 5060:5069 and UDP 10000:20000. While appearing to be redundant, the UDP rules reportedly have been necessary to make and receive calls successfully.


Now copy the public IP address of your server which, together with your private key, you’ll need to login. From a Terminal window on your desktop PC, login to your server using the following commands where ssh-key-2022-05-24.key is the filename of your private key and 159.201.201.173 is the public IP address of your instance:

chmod 0600 ssh-key-2022-05-24.key
ssh -i ssh-key-2022-05-24.key ubuntu@159.201.201.173

Once you’re logged in, let’s configure the root account which you will need to install Incredible PBX. Begin by setting up a very secure password for root.

sudo passwd root
su root
cd ~
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2021-Oracle.sh
chmod +x IncrediblePBX2021-Oracle.sh
./IncrediblePBX2021-Oracle.sh

We think you will find the performance is second to none. Here are our 1-OCPU results which far exceed the performance specs you’ll find at Vultr, Digital Ocean, or OVH on their 1-2 GB RAM platforms.


This is not a trivial install procedure so go have a long cup of coffee and return in about 40 minutes to press the ENTER key to kick off the Automatic Update Utility. Once that begins, you’ll need to press ENTER again in about 5 minutes when the updates are completed. Then your install will continue for a couple minutes when you will be prompted to press ENTER to reboot. Do so and you’re all set.

Managing Incredible PBX in the Oracle Cloud

All of the usual Incredible PBX features are available in the Oracle Cloud release. After rebooting, you now can login to your server as root using your root password. Be sure to login periodically so that the Automatic Update Utility is run to keep your server secure.

ssh -i ssh-key-2022-xx-xx.key ubuntu@public-IP-address
su root
cd ~
./update-IncrediblePBX



It’s also good practice to keep the FreePBX GPL modules up to date. Here’s how after logging in:

rm -f /tmp/*
fwconsole ma upgradeall
fwconsole reload
fwconsole restart
./sig-fix
./sig-fix

And don’t forget to…

Set your admin password for FreePBX GUI access: ./admin-pw-change

Set your admin password for Apache app access: ./apache-pw-change

Set your proper timezone: ./timezone-setup

Configure SendMail relay host: ./enable-gmail-smarthost-for-sendmail

Whitelist your IP addresses for access: ./add-ip and ./add-fqdn

Make a Backup and copy it off-site: ./incrediblebackup2021

Using Text-to-Speech Apps in the Oracle Cloud

Because the Oracle platform is ARM-based and most of the text-to-speech (TTS) apps are not, finding a TTS solution that actually worked was a challenge. But thanks to a tip from Dick Ollett, we’ve found a reliable alternative to PicoTTS. gTTS was easy to deploy with our existing applications and has restored the functionality of the Weather by ZIP Code (947) and News Headlines (951) applications using Incredible PBX on the Oracle Cloud platform.

Activating IBM Text-to-Speech for Oracle Cloud

IBM’s TTS offering still works reliably and, if you sign up for their LITE Pricing Plan, the first 10,000 characters per month are free. To get started, follow along in our previous IBM tutorial to sign up for service and the LITE TTS Pricing Plan which you will find by clicking on the Catalog tab in the toolbar, then choosing AI/Machine Learning, and then Text to Speech. Choose the Lite plan and make note of your API Key and access URL for the region you selected.

Next, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/ibmtts.tar.gz
tar zxvf ibmtts.tar.gz
rm -f ibmtts.tar.gz
./install-ibmtts-dialplan.sh

Finally, edit /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/ibmtts.php and insert your API Key and URL in the spaces provided. Then save the file.

Activating Amazon’s Polly TTS for Oracle Cloud

If you’d prefer to use Amazon’s Polly TTS, its pricing is incredibly reasonable, and the quality is second to none. For your first year of service, 5 million TTS characters a month are free. After that, the standard TTS cost is $4 per million characters per month prorated to actual usage. For example, with 300 TTS requests a month of 500 characters each, the monthly cost would be 60¢. We’ve previously documented the Polly TTS setup for Incredible PBX 2021 so you can follow that tutorial to deploy Polly TTS with Incredible PBX in the Oracle Cloud.

Using either service, you now should be able to obtain Weather Reports by ZIP Code by dialing 947 from any extension registered to your PBX. Get the latest News Headlines by dialing 951.

Deploying PicoTTS in the Oracle Cloud

Because Oracle Cloud runs on the ARM64 architecture, you’ll need the ARM64 version of PicoTTS:

cd /root
rm -f libttspico*
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/picotts-arm64.tar.gz
tar zxvf picotts-arm64.tar.gz
rm -f picotts-arm64.tar.gz
dpkg -i libttspico*

Activating OpenVPN Virtual Private Network

The OpenVPN Client software comes preinstalled with Incredible PBX. In order to activate OpenVPN, you simply need to copy your OpenVPN credentials to the server as /etc/incrediblepbx2021.ovpn. Then reboot. Your OpenVPN IP address will be shown in pbxstatus. For an overview of the OpenVPN setup procedure, read our original OpenVPN article. Then follow the simple steps on the Incredible PBX Wiki for OpenVPN Server and OpenVPN Client installs.

NOTE: Because of Oracle’s security zone policies, connecting extensions to your PBX using the public IP address may result in no audio on calls with some SIP clients. By connecting using the OpenVPN private IP address solves the problem in some cases.

Getting Started with Incredible Fax 2021

Believe it or not, there still are lots of folks that use faxes in their everyday lives. If you’re one of them, Incredible PBX has your back. Begin by logging into your server as root and running ./incrediblefax2021-ubuntu20.04.sh to install HylaFax and AvantFax on your server. You’ll be prompted a dozen or more times for information. Answer no to the secure fax question. For the rest of the prompts, just press ENTER to accept the default entries. Rebooting your server is required when the install finishes. Once your server is back on line, there will be a new AvantFax tab in the GUI. Before proceeding, be sure to set an Apache web apps password by running /root/apache-pw-change. Next, login to AvantFax with your browser. You first will be prompted for your Apache credentials. Enter admin for the username and whatever password you set up in the previous step. Then you will be prompted for your AvantFax credentials. The default is admin:password. After you enter the username and password, you will be prompted to change your admin password. The AvantFax dashboard then will display. If nothing has come unglued, you should see four green Idle icons:



You can Send Faxes from within AvantFax by choosing the Send Fax tab, or you can use one of many HylaFax clients. Google is your friend.

Configuring Inbound Routes for Fax Detection

Not all VoIP trunks support fax transmission, e.g. Vitelity. Assuming yours do and you’ll only know by trial and error, here’s how to configure FreePBX to automatically detect incoming faxes and process them for PDF delivery by email. First, make certain the Fax Configuration Module is enabled in Module Admin. Then, for each Inbound Route on which you wish to receive faxes, you’ll need to enable fax detection on each route.

Under the Fax tab of each Inbound Route, enter the following settings:

Detect Faxes: YES
Fax Detection Type: SIP
Fax Ring: YES
Fax Detect Time: 4
Fax Destination: Custom Destinations -> Fax (Hylafax)

To try things out, send yourself a fax at no cost in the U.S. from FaxZero.

Using the GraphQL API Tool with Incredible PBX

Begin by installing the required GraphQL components:

pip3 install --pre gql[all]

Next, open the FreePBX GUI and navigate to Connectivity -> API. Select the Scope Visualizer tab and check Read/Write for ALL GraphQL Modules. Then select the GraphQL Explorer tab and click Reload Explorer. In the GraphiQL dialog, enter the following and press the Start arrow to list all of your extensions:

query {
  fetchAllExtensions {
    status
    message
    totalCount
    extension {
      extensionId
    }
  }
}

For the complete tutorial on using GraphQL to list, edit, and populate virtually anything on your PBX, read this tutorial and review the Asterisk documentation for the GraphQL API.

Installing OPUS in the Oracle Cloud

Log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

rm /usr/lib64/asterisk/modules/codec_opus.so
rm /usr/lib64/asterisk/modules/codec_opus_open_source.so
rm /usr/lib64/asterisk/modules/res_format_attr_opus.so
rm /usr/lib/asterisk/modules/codec_opus.so
rm /usr/lib/asterisk/modules/format_ogg_opus*.so
rm /usr/lib/asterisk/modules/res_format_attr_opus.so
rm /usr/lib/asterisk/modules/codec_opus_open_source.so
cd /usr/lib64/asterisk/modules
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/opus-oracle.tar.gz
tar zxvf opus-oracle.tar.gz
rm opus-oracle.tar.gz
fwconsole restart
asterisk -rx "module show like opus"
asterisk -rx "core show translation paths opus"

How Sausage Is Made AND Special Thanks

While our name is associated with this build, I want to give a special tip of the hat to the important contributions from Dick Ollett on the text-to-speech deployment, Bill Simon on the CDR/CEL implementation with ODBC, and @knerd for his GraphQL tips. AArch64 is a different beast, and we couldn’t have pulled this off without their assistance. If you’re ever curious how sausage is actually made in the open source development world, you can read all about it in this VoIP-Info.org Forum thread. THANK YOU! Should you ever need paid Asterisk consulting, these are our two go-to guys. You can find them on the forum, or you can contact us for a referral.

Originally published: Monday, May 30, 2022   Updated: Sunday, September 25, 2022



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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



Systems Integration and Public Participation with FreePBX



It’s been an interesting few days in the FreePBX® VoIP community with a thread on the VoIP-Info.org and another on the FreePBX Forum. It’s prompted us to revisit what open source development is all about and what all of this means to those of you that rely upon Asterisk® and FreePBX.

After the departure of the Schmooze folks from Sangoma, virtually all development has been moved behind closed doors with the first opportunity for public participation occurring after new features appear in modules pushed to the so-called Edge repository. This is where folks can shake the kinks out of modules that presumably are almost ready for prime time. For example, take a look at the Changelog for the Framework Module. Prior to the departure of the Schmooze team, changes were managed by openly-accessible tickets. But now you will notice tickets bear a FREEI designation indicating restricted Sangoma-internal access only.


Beta previously was an appropriate moniker for these modules. If you read the FreePBX forum post above, you’ll note that now modules are being pushed to the Edge repository not only before public comment but apparently before much of any internal testing is performed by the Sangoma folks. The net result is you’d be crazy to ever use Edge modules in any production environment where, in the past, Edge modules more typically were used to fix something that was already broken in the traditional repository. Because the Bootstrap module is the lynchpin of virtually all other FreePBX modules, a recent glitch that had not been tested broke almost everything in FreePBX 16 if you happened to be using Edge modules.

I’m reminded of the old adage about marine aquariums. You never want to put a new fish in your main tank unless you’re willing to risk killing all of your other fish. This latest fiasco prompts our cautionary note about further use of the FreePBX Edge repository. Don’t load new modules on your production servers without testing them first in a VirtualBox sandbox unless you have a snapshot or backup of your server that can be deployed in minutes when something cataclysmic occurs.

And that brings us to our response concerning what Incredible PBX® is and is not all about. Going back to the early 80’s, we began tweaking hardware and software deployments to eliminate much of the pain associated with deployment of automated systems. Our friend on the VoIP-Info forum refers to Incredible PBX as a fork of FreePBX. Quite the contrary, it is anything but a fork. We use the FreePBX GPL modules exactly as they are published by Sangoma with an additional master key not controlled by Sangoma for your protection and for ours. This allows us to block specific module updates that prove to be dangerous for our users. Equally important, Incredible PBX offers improved functionality and stability, the same features that are typically associated with the work of a systems integrator… that you pay for. On the stability side, we migrated to new FreePBX repositories maintained by Clearly IP simply because the FreePBX repos had become extremely unreliable and proprietary. Sangoma deploys modules using key signatures that only they control. That means if you make any improvements or changes the FreePBX Dashboard displays all sorts of security alerts, something your customers and end-users would prefer not to see. Some of you may recall this was our primary objection to module signatures years ago.

On the enhancement side, we’ve tried to add free components that our millions of readers have clamored for. You may recall that Nerd Vittles was the first to provide turnkey Google Voice support for Asterisk over a decade ago. We then tackled security after numerous compromises of FreePBX systems around the world. Since then the list has grown exponentially. Here’s the added feature set you’ve enjoyed by deploying an Incredible PBX platform instead of the FreePBX Distro. And, unlike FreePBX commercial modules, these components won’t cost you a dime and are freely distributable. So the choice is yours.

  • User-customizable installers for Rocky 8, Debian 10 & 11, Ubuntu 20.04, Raspbian
  • User-customizable images for VirtualBox, VMware, Proxmox, and Raspberry Pi
  • Preconfigured, free faxing with HylaFax and AvantFax
  • Preconfigured, secure IPtables firewall
  • Preconfigured, secure Fail2Ban
  • Preconfigured PortKnocker
  • Preconfigured NeoRouter VPN
  • Preconfigured OpenVPN
  • Preconfigured, secure WebMin
  • Preconfigured SendMail and Postfix
  • Preconfigured ODBC Integration for FreePBX
  • Sample ODBC Database Lookups for FreePBX
  • Dozens of Preconfigured Trunk Provider Setups for FreePBX
  • Preconfigured, secure PUBLIC Access Setups for FreePBX
  • Preconfigured scripts to update CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Raspbian, and Rocky
  • Preconfigured scripts to update or upgrade Asterisk
  • Preconfigured scripts to update or upgrade FreePBX
  • Preconfigured scripts to update or upgrade PHP
  • Preconfigured script to implement PPTP
  • Preconfigured script to implement TFTP
  • Preconfigured script to implement SAMBA
  • Preconfigured script to implement Gmail Smarthost for SendMail/Postfix
  • Preconfigured script to implement non-Gmail Smarthost for SendMail/Postfix
  • Automatic Update Utility to resolve bugs and security vulnerabilities
  • Integrated TTS apps: FLITE, Festival, PicoTTS, GoogleTTS, Amazon Polly
  • Integrated TTS apps for Voicemail Transcription
  • Integrated STT apps and samples for Asterisk and FreePBX
  • Integrated Voicemail Transcription for Asterisk with Email Delivery
  • AsteriDex 4 web-based MySQL GUI with FreePBX Dialer & Lookups
  • Telephone and Web-Based Reminders for FreePBX with Email and SMS Alerts
  • TTS News Headlines for FreePBX
  • TTS Weather Forecasts for FreePBX (by ZIP Code and Airport Code)
  • CallerID Superfecta for Asterisk
  • MailCall for Asterisk via TTS
  • SMS Scripts for Skyetel and VoIP.ms Message Blasting
  • Speech-to-Text Directory Assistance for Asterisk
  • Wolfram Alpha TTS for FreePBX
  • U-Rang Screenpop Utility for Asterisk
  • xTide TTS for FreePBX
  • Facebook Messaging Integration
  • Twitter Messaging Integration
  • Skype and Gizmo Telephony Integration
  • Teleyapper Message Broadcasting System for Asterisk
  • Scripts to disable Module Signature Checking with FreePBX
  • Script to configure time zones worldwide
  • Incredible Backup and Restore Utilities for all OS platforms
  • LENNY, The Robocallers Worst Nightmare

People hear the word "fork" and get scared away from testing alternative VoIP solutions. If you’re one of those folks, we would encourage you to spend an hour with Incredible PBX using one of our supported virtual platforms: VirtualBox, VMware, or Proxmox. We think the decision will be a no-brainer after your testing. For a list of all of our free VoIP solutions, visit the Incredible PBX Wiki. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, May 23, 2022



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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



Taming the Condo Call Box with a Raspberry Pi & Asterisk



If you live in an apartment complex or condominium with a call box to let visitors gain door access by calling your apartment, then today’s column is for you. The way almost all of these call boxes work is the management company programs your name, phone number, and apartment number into the call box after which a visitor can look up your name or enter your apartment number and the call box will call you. When you answer the call and press 9 on your phone, the apartment door will unlock momentarily allowing the visitor to enter the building. But what if you don’t answer the call and a delivery driver needs to drop off your check from Publisher’s Clearinghouse? Or suppose you or a significant other has gone jogging without a cellphone and locked yourself out of the building? Well, worry no more. With Asterisk and a $35 Raspberry Pi running Incredible PBX, you can conquer the call box and let anybody into the building without ever touching your phone. All you need is an access code.

We will assume that you have a functioning Incredible PBX server with at least one incoming phone number. If not, start here. Then provide the management company with your 10-digit DID to assign to the call box. Once it’s set up, use the call box to call yourself and review the call detail records on your PBX to decipher the callbox’s actual phone number.

You do NOT need a dedicated DID to answer Call Box incoming calls. Deploying the script below will tell Asterisk to intercept calls from the Call Box for special processing and pass the rest of your incoming calls to your DID’s preconfigured Inbound Route. When a Call Box call is detected by its CallerID Number, the script will prompt the visitor to enter a security code. If the code entered is valid, a DTMF tone simulating the pressing of 9 on your phone will be sent to the Call Box to open the door, and the visitor will be advised that the door is being unlocked. If the visitor enters an invalid access code three times in a row, Asterisk will hang up the call from the Call Box. Easy peasy!

Now let’s reconfigure your Asterisk PBX to manage incoming calls from the Call Box. You’ll need (1) the 10-digit DID that you provided to the management company for calls from the CallBox. (2) the 10-digit phone number that the Call Box uses to call you, and (3) a security PIN which the visitor must enter to gain door access. In the sample code below, (1) substitute your 10-digit DID for 8881234567 on the 14 lines (twice on lines 3 and 5), (2) substitute the Call Box 10-digit phone number for 9990000000 on line 4, (3) in line 7 replace 90210 with the security PIN you want visitors to enter to gain door access, and (4) enter your email address on line 11 replacing yourname@gmail.com so you’re notified when visitors arrive.

[from-callbox]
exten => 8881234567,1,Answer
exten => 8881234567,n,Wait(1)
exten => 8881234567,n,NoOp(*** Incoming call on 8881234567 DID ***)
exten => 8881234567,n,GotoIf($["${CALLERID(number)}" = "9990000000"]?BUZZMEUP)
exten => 8881234567,n,Goto(from-trunk,8881234567,1)
exten => 8881234567,n,Hangup
exten => 8881234567,n(BUZZMEUP),Authenticate(90210)
exten => 8881234567,n,Playback(access-granted)
exten => 8881234567,n,agi(picotts.agi,"The door is opening. Please come in.")
exten => 8881234567,n,SendDTMF(9,50,2000)
exten => 8881234567,n,system(echo "Condo door opened" | /usr/bin/mail -s ALERT yourname@gmail.com)
exten => 8881234567,n,Wait(3)
exten => 8881234567,n,Playback(goodbye)
exten => 8881234567,n,Hangup
exten => s,1,Hangup
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next, copy the edited code to the end of /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf and reload your dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload".

Finally, using a browser, open the FreePBX GUI. Edit the trunk corresponding to your DID above and change the context to from-callbox. Also make certain you have an Inbound Route for your 10-digit DID to redirect non-CallBox calls to whatever destination is desired.

Now leave your building (with your key) and use the Call Box to test your new setup. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, April 5, 2021



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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



Revolutionary: Incredible PBX & Fax 2020 for Raspberry Pi



Enhancements to the Raspberry Pi 4 platform have been fast and furious this fall. Last week we introduced a $45 bootable SSD for the Raspberry Pi. And this week we’re showcasing the $70 Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard PC and a new release of the Incredible PBX 2020 image supporting both of these additions with all the latest Raspberry Pi firmware.

As we’re all hunkered down hiding from the Coronavirus, it seemed a perfect time to finally tackle the project we’ve been putting off for longer than we care to publish, integrating Incredible Fax with HylaFax and Avantfax into the base image of Incredible PBX® 2020 on the Raspberry Pi 4 platform. This build also features Asterisk® 16 with the latest FreePBX® 15 GPL modules plus the feature sets of Incredible PBX® and RasPBX and RonR’s latest build. It includes support for plug-and-play Incredible IP Phones and a new trunking platform that integrates SMS messaging into your Asterisk platform. And it’s all rolled into one terrific bundle that can be installed in about a minute after you burn the image to a microSD card.

Unlike other aggregations, there’s nothing to compile with Incredible PBX/FAX 2020 for Raspbian 10. And, unlike the FreePBX Distro, we don’t rely on static packages which make it difficult to add future modifications on your own. Instead, Incredible PBX/Fax 2020 offers a snapshot image with a complete toolkit to make future modifications as desired. Last, but not least, Incredible PBX/Fax 2020 features the new ClearlyIP module repository which protects you from proprietary modifications that limit or cripple your PBX moving forward.

What’s Included? Incredible PBX/Fax 2020 for Raspbian 10 serves up a never before available VoIP powerhouse featuring Asterisk 16 and all FreePBX 15 GPL modules, an Apache web server, the latest MariaDB SQL server (formerly MySQL), Exim4 mail server, Incredible Fax with turnkey Hylafax and AvantFax, and most of the Incredible PBX feature set including SIP, SMS, voice recognition, AsteriDex, PicoTTS Text-to-Speech VoIP applications plus email delivery of faxes in PDF format, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Telephone Reminders, and hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Email Delivery of transcribed voicemails, Voicemail Blasting, and more. We’ve also incorporated the Zero Trunk Configuration feature from the LITE build which lets you sign up with one of four VoIP providers and start making and receiving calls instantly. Or you can use the new ClearlyIP trunking module included in the GUI for seamless integration of SMS messaging into FreePBX and its User Control Panel.

Choosing a SIP Provider. As we mentioned, Incredible PBX/Fax 2020 comes preconfigured to support five of the major SIP providers: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, VoIP.ms, V1VoIP, and Anveo Direct. We obviously hope you’ll choose ClearlyIP, Skyetel, or VoIP.ms trunking because they financially support Nerd Vittles and our open source projects. As the old saying goes, they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. With all five providers, you only pay for minutes you use so signing up with more than one provider is a smart idea.

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Assembling the Required Raspberry Pi Components

Before you can deploy Incredible PBX 2020, you’ll first need the necessary Raspberry Pi hardware. To support the enhanced Incredible PBX/Fax platform, we strongly recommend either the Raspberry Pi 400 or the Raspberry Pi 4B with at least 2GB RAM for under $42. You can choose a reseller below for quicker delivery. Assuming you already own an HDMI-compatible monitor and a USB keyboard (only required if you don’t buy a RasPi 400)…

  • Raspberry Pi 4B or Raspberry Pi 400
  • $8 USB-C RasPi 4 (only) Power Supply
  • $8 32GB microSDHC Class 10 card (strongly recommended!)
  • $5 Official RasPi 4B Case or see above for our favorite
  • Getting Started with Incredible PBX 2020

    Here’s our 10-Step Guide to installation and setup. "Automatic" means just watch. Steps #1 and #2: follow the links. For the remaining steps, we’ll further document the procedures.

    1. Download and unzip latest Incredible PBX/FAX 2020.3 image from SourceForge
    2. Transfer Incredible PBX/FAX 2020 image to microSD card and Boot server
    3. Login to RasPi console as root:password to initialize your server (Automatic)
    4. In Localization Options, set Locale, TimeZone, Keyboard, & WiFi Country
    5. Reboot after writing down your server IP address (Automatic)
    6. Login via SSH or Putty as root:password to set passwords & setup firewall (Automatic)
    7. Enter an email address for receipt of incoming faxes in PDF format
    8. Run admin-pw-change to set the admin password for access to the web GUI
    9. Register for and configure at least one trunk provider for Incredible PBX 2020
    10. Set up and test your Exim mail server as documented below

    ALERT: Reportedly, the latest Raspberry Pi 4 board will not boot with the image above. We will post an updated image as soon as we can get our hands on a new Raspberry Pi. In the meantime, there’s a workaround if you have an older (working) Raspberry Pi. Begin by installing the Incredible PBX image above onto a new microSD card and boot the older RasPi 4 with that card. Login as root and immediately press Ctrl-C. Then issue the following commands and, following shutdown, insert the new microSD card into your new RasPi 4.

    apt update
    apt dist-upgrade
    halt
    

    First Boot of Incredible PBX 2020 with Wi-Fi

    Incredible PBX 2020 requires Internet connectivity to complete its automated install. If you’re using a wired network connection, you can skip to the next section. With the Raspberry Pi 3B, 4B and 400, WiFi is built into the hardware. But you still have to insert your SSID name and SSID password to make a connection to your WiFi network. To do so, follow these next steps carefully. Insert the Incredible PBX 2020 microSD card into your Raspberry Pi and apply power to the hardware. When the bootup procedure finishes, login as root with the default password: password. At the first prompt, DO NOT PRESS THE ENTER KEY! Instead, press Ctrl-C to break out of the setup script. At the command prompt, issue the following commands to bring up the WiFi config file:

    cd /etc/wpa_supplicant
    nano -w wpa_supplicant.conf
    

    If your WiFi network does not require a password, uncomment or insert the four lines below and save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Now restart your server: reboot. When the reboot finishes, you now should have network connectivity.

    network={
     key_mgmt=NONE
     priority=1
     country=US
    }
    

    If your WiFi network requires a password, uncomment or insert the following into wpa_supplicant.conf:

    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    country=US
    
    network={
     ssid="YourSSID"
     psk="YourSSIDpassword"
     key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
     scan_ssid=1
     priority=7
    }
    

     
    Then scroll down to the SSID entry and replace YourSSID with the actual SSID of your WiFi network. Make sure you preserve the entry with the quotes as shown. Next, replace YourSSIDpassword with the SSID password of your WiFi network. Save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Now restart your server: reboot. When the reboot finishes, you now should have network connectivity.

    Once the reboot process finishes, you should see an entry on about the middle line displayed on your monitor which reads: "My IP address is…". Write down the IP address shown. You’ll need it in a minute. Skip the next section since you are using a WiFi connection.

    If you don’t see an IP address assigned to your server, then correct the network deficiency (invalid WiFi credentials, DHCP not working, Internet down), and reboot until you see an IP address assigned to your server. DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT AN ASSIGNED IP ADDRESS. NOTE: The Raspberry Pi 400 requires the latest Incredible PBX image for Wi-Fi connectivity.

    You’ll also need to change the default PortKnocker setting to your wireless LAN connection:

    sed -i 's|eth0|wlan0|' /etc/default/knockd
    service knockd restart
    

     

    First Boot of Incredible PBX Using Wired Connection

    Incredible PBX 2020 requires Internet connectivity to complete its automated install. After connecting your server to your local network with a network cable, insert the Incredible PBX 2020 microSD card into your Raspberry Pi and apply power to the hardware. When the bootup procedure finishes, you should see an entry on about the middle line displayed on your monitor which reads: "My IP address is…". Write down the IP address shown. You’ll need it in the next step.

    If you don’t see an IP address assigned to your server, then correct the network deficiency (cable not connected, DHCP not working, Internet down), and reboot until you see an IP address assigned to your server. DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT AN ASSIGNED IP ADDRESS.

    Completing the Incredible PBX Initialization Procedure

    Unless your desktop PC and RasPi are both on the same private LAN, the remainder of the install procedure should be completed from a desktop PC using SSH or Putty. This will assure that your desktop PC is also whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Using the console to complete the install is NOT recommended as your desktop PC will not be whitelisted in the firewall. This may result in your not being able to log in to your server. Once you have network connectivity, log in to your server as root from a desktop PC using the default password: password. Accept the license agreement by pressing ENTER. You then will be redirected to raspi-config. This is the utility used to expand your Incredible PBX 2020 image to use your entire microSD card; however, this new build does this for you so you can skip this step. Next, choose Localization Options and set Locale, TimeZone, Keyboard, & WiFi Country. Review the other items and then exit and reboot.

    Once your server reboots and you log back in as root, you’ll first be prompted to enter an email address for delivery of incoming faxes in PDF format. All of your passwords then will be randomly assigned with the exception of the root user Linux password and your admin passwords for access to the web GUI and AvantFax. You can set the root password by issuing the command: passwd. Set the admin password for access to the web GUI with this command: /root/admin-pw-change. Set the admin password for access to AvantFax with this command: /root/avantfax-pw-change. With the exception of these passwords, the remaining passwords can be displayed using the command: /root/show-passwords.

    Finally, if your PBX is sitting behind a NAT-based router, you’ll need to redirect incoming UDP 5060-5061 and UDP 10000-20000 traffic to the private IP address of your RasPi. This is required for all of the SIP providers included in the Incredible PBX 2020 build. Otherwise, all inbound calls will fail.

    Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020

    If you’ve decided to go with Skyetel, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service and take advantage of the Nerd Vittles Free $10 credit and BOGO special. First, complete the Prequalification Form here. You then will be provided a link to the Skyetel site to complete your registration. Once you have registered on the Skyetel site and your account has been activated, open a support ticket and request the $10 credit for your account by referencing the Nerd Vittles special offer. Once you are happy with the service, open another ticket after funding your account and request that Skyetel match your deposit of up to $250. That gets you up to $500 of helf-price calling. Credit is limited to one per person/company/address/location. If you have numbers to port in, you can do it at no cost after funding your account. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.

    Skyetel does not use SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel utilizes Endpoint Groups to identify which servers can communicate with the Skyetel service. An Endpoint Group consists of a Name, an IP address, a UDP or TCP port for the connection, and a numerical Priority for the group. For incoming calls destined to your PBX, DIDs are associated with an Endpoint Group to route the calls to your PBX. For outgoing calls from your PBX, a matching Endpoint Group is required to authorize outbound calls through the Skyetel network. Thus, the first step in configuring the Skyetel side for use with your PBX is to set up an Endpoint Group. Here’s a typical setup for Incredible PBX 2020:

    • Name: MyPBX
    • Priority: 1
    • IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
    • Port: 5060
    • Protocol: UDP
    • Description: 2020.incrediblepbx.com

    To receive incoming PSTN calls, you’ll need at least one DID. On the Skyetel site, you acquire DIDs under the Phone Numbers tab. You have the option of Porting in Existing Numbers (free for the first 60 days after you fund your account) or purchasing new ones under the Buy Phone Numbers menu option.

    Once you have acquired one or more DIDs, navigate to the Local Numbers or Toll Free Numbers tab and specify the desired SIP Format and Endpoint Group for each DID. Add SMS/MMS and E911 support, if desired. Call Forwarding and Failover are also supported. That completes the VoIP setup on the Skyetel side. System Status is always available here.

    Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for VoIP.ms service, may we suggest you use our signup link so that Nerd Vittles gets a referral credit for your signup. Once your account is set up, you’ll need to set up a SIP SubAccount and, for Authentication Type, choose Static IP Authentication and enter your Incredible PBX 2020 server’s public IP address. For Transport, choose UDP. For Device Type, choose Asterisk, IP PBX, Gateway or VoIP Switch. Order a DID in their web panel, and then point the DID to the SubAccount you just created. Be sure to specify atlanta1.voip.ms as the POP from which to receive incoming calls. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the VoIPms trunk and save your update.

    Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for V1VoIP service, sign up on their web site. Then login to your account and order a DID under the DIDs tab. Once the DID has been assigned, choose View DIDs and click on the Forwarding button beside your DID. For Option #1, choose Forward to IP Address/PBX. For the Fowarding Address, enter the public IP address of your server. For the T/O (timeout) value, set it to 2o seconds. Then click the Update button. Under the Termination tab, create a new Endpoint with the public IP address of your server so that you can place outbound calls through V1VoIP. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the V1VoIP trunks and save your updates.

    Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for Anveo Direct service, sign up on their web site and then login. After adding funds to your account, purchase a DID under Inbound Service -> Order DID. Next, choose Configure Destination SIP Trunk. Give the Trunk a name. For the Primary SIP URI, enter $[E164]$@server-IP-address. For Call Options, select your new DID from the list. You also must whitelist your public IP address under Outbound Service -> Configure. Create a new Call Termination Trunk and name it to match your server. For Dialing Prefix, choose six alphanumeric characters beginning with a zero. In Authorized IP Addresses, enter the public IP address of your server. Set an appropriate rate cap. We like $0.01 per minute to be safe. Set a concurrent calls limit. We like 2. For the Call Routing Method, choose Least Cost unless you’re feeling extravagant. For Routes/Carriers, choose Standard Routes. Write down your Dialing Prefix and then click the Save button. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the AnveoDirect trunks and save your updates.

    Before you can make outbound calls through Anveo Direct from your PBX, you first must configure the Dialing Prefix that you wrote down in the previous step. Using a browser, login to the GUI as admin. Navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks -> Anveo-Out. Click the Pencil icon to edit the trunk settings. Then click the Custom Settings tab. Replace anveo-pin with your actual Anveo PIN. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    By default, incoming Anveo Direct calls will be processed by the Default inbound route on your PBX. If you wish to redirect incoming Anveo Direct calls using DID-specific inbound routes, then you’ve got a bit more work to do. In addition to creating the inbound route using the 11-digit Anveo Direct DID, enter the following commands after logging into your server as root using SSH/Putty:

    cd /etc/asterisk
    echo "[from-anveo]" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,1,Ringing" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,n,Goto(from-trunk,\\${SIP_HEADER(X-anveo-e164)},1)" >> extensions_custom.conf
    asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
    

    Adding a Bootable SSD to Raspberry Pi

    Shown below are the two components that make up the 256GB storage solution for the Raspberry Pi. These include the M.2 SSD SATA drive and the M.2 enclosure which provides a USB connector that’s compatible with your RasPi. Assembly of the components takes less than a minute as shown in the steps below:




    You can order the M.2 SSD SATA drive and the UGREEN M.2 enclosure using our Amazon referral links which help support Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX open source project.

    Once you have assembled your SSD in the sleeve, log back in as root using SSH or Putty. For best performance, insert the SSD drive into one of the blue USB 3.0 ports and verify that /dev/sda device is shown when you issue the command: fdisk -l

    Now proceed with the following steps to copy the image from your microSD card to the new SSD SATA drive:

    rpi-clone -l -e sda -f sda
    # answer prompts with yes and incred2020
    # once the image is copied, dismount the drive when prompted
    mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/clone
    cd /mnt/clone/boot
    cp -p -r /boot/* .
    sed -i 's|sda2|mmcblk0p2|' /boot/cmdline.txt
    cd /
    umount /mnt/clone
    halt
    

     
    Now you’re ready to restart your Raspberry Pi from the SSD SATA drive. Remove the microSD card and reboot your server.



    Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2020

    We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

    We recommend YateClient for Windows which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.

    Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place some test calls to the numerous apps that are preconfigured on Incredible PBX. Dial a few of these to get started:

    DEMO - Apps Demo
    123 - Reminders
    947 - Weather by ZIP Code
    951 - Yahoo News
    TODAY - Today in History
    LENNY - The Telemarketer's Worst Nightmare
    

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

    Audio Issues with Incredible PBX 2020

    Only if you experience one-way or no audio on some calls, add your external IP address and LAN subnet in the GUI by navigating to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. In the NAT Settings section, click Detect Network Settings. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    Configuring Gmail as Exim Smart Relay Host

    Most Raspberry Pi implementations will be on networks managed by companies like Comcast, Spectrum, and AT&T that block downstream mail servers (that’s you) from sending email. The solution is to use Gmail or your local ISP as a smart relay host to send mail from your server. You’ll need this to deliver voicemails via email. 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
    

    Once you have email messages flowing, incoming faxes automatically will be delivered to the email address you assigned when setting up your PBX. You can change this email address with the command: avantfax-email-change.

    Some prefer an email notification whenever your server is booted. Once you have configured a relay host above, you can add the feature by editing /etc/rc.local and adding the following lines with your actual email address just above the service knockd start line:

    _PRIVATE="Private IP: `cat /etc/hostip | cut -f1-2 -d " "`"
    _PUBLIC=" Public IP: `curl -s -S --user-agent \\
    "Mozilla/4.0" http://myip.incrediblepbx.com | awk 'NR==2'`"
    echo "$_PRIVATE\\n$_PUBLIC" | mail -s "RasPi 2020 has booted" yourname@yourmailserver.com
    

    Configuring Inbound Routes for Fax Detection

    Not all VoIP trunks support fax transmission, e.g. Vitelity. Assuming yours do and you’ll only know by trial and error, here’s how to configure FreePBX to automatically detect incoming faxes and process them for PDF delivery by email. The default inbound route is preconfigured to support email delivery of your faxes. So, any trunks using that default route require no further configuration. If you add additional Inbound Routes, here’s how to enable fax detection on those routes.

    Under the Fax tab of each new Inbound Route, enter the following settings:

    Detect Faxes: YES
    Fax Detection Type: SIP
    Fax Ring: YES
    Fax Detect Time: 4
    Fax Destination: Custom Destinations -> Fax (Hylafax)
    



    Managing Faxes with AvantFax

    You can manage your incoming and outgoing faxes using AvantFax. Click on the AvantFax tab in FreePBX to access it. The default credentials are admin:password. When you first access AvantFax with a browser, you may get a missing page error. Just press the back arrow key in your browser and the AvantFax main page will appear.

    If you want to change the admin password for AvantFax, log into your server as root with SSH/Putty and issue the command: /root/avantfax-pw-change.

    Send yourself a fax at no cost in the United States from FaxZero.

    Building the Incredible PBX Demo IVR

    If you’d like to try your hand at building an IVR, here are the steps to build the Incredible PBX Demo IVR. From the FreePBX Dashboard, choose Applications -> IVR -> Add IVR. Then fill in the template using the entries shown below. Then click Submit and Reload Dialplan.



    Building the Incredible PBX Stealth AutoAttendant

    Many users prefer to play an announcement to incoming callers with a brief pause thereafter which indicates that the call is being connected. If configured properly, this lets you embed several dial codes which can be entered while the announcement is playing and the call is being transferred. For example, you might wish to route incoming calls to Lenny if a caller presses 0. Or you might wish to immediately route an incoming call to a Ring Group if the caller presses 1. Here’s a sample IVR setup to get you started.


    Incredible PBX 2020 Administration

    We’ve eased the pain of administering your new PBX with a collection of scripts which you will find in the /root folder after logging in with SSH or Putty. Here’s a quick summary of what each of the scripts does.

    admin-pw-change lets you update the admin password for web browser access to the Incredible PBX GUI.

    apache-pw-change lets you update the admin password for Apache applications such as AsteriDex and Reminders.

    avantfax-pw-change lets you update the root password for AvantFax access (coming soon!).

    add-fqdn is used to whitelist a fully-qualified domain name in the firewall. Because Incredible PBX 2020 blocks all traffic from IP addresses that are not whitelisted, this is what you use to authorize an external user for your PBX. The advantage of an FQDN is that you can use a dynamic DNS service to automatically update the IP address associated with an FQDN so that you never lose connectivity.

    add-ip is used to whitelist a public IP address in the firewall. See the add-fqdn explanation as to why this matters.

    del-acct is used to remove an IP address or FQDN from the firewall’s whitelist.

    configure-exim-email lets you reconfigure the email server if you need to use an SMTP relay such as Google to get outbound email flowing. Tutorial here.

    iptables-restart is the ONLY command you should ever use to restart the IPtables firewall and Fail2Ban.

    knock.FAQ contains your PortKnocker credentials for emergency access to your server if the firewall locks you out. Tutorial here.

    proximity (once configured) will automatically forward calls to your cellphone when you are out of BlueTooth range from your RasPi. Also must enable running of script in /etc/crontab.

    reset-conference-pins is a script that automatically and randomly resets the user and admin pins for access to the preconfigured conferencing application. Dial C-O-N-F from any registered SIP phone to connect to the conference.

    reset-extension-passwords is a script that automatically and randomly resets ALL of the SIP passwords for extensions 701-705. Be careful using this one, or you may disable existing registered phones and cause Fail2Ban to blacklist the IP addresses of those users. HINT: You can place a call to the Ring Group associated with all five extensions by dialing 777.

    reset-reminders-pin is a script that automatically and randomly resets the pin required to access the Telephone Reminders application by dialing 123. It’s important to protect this application because a nefarious user could set up a reminder to call a number anywhere in the world assuming your SIP provider’s account was configured to allow such calls.



    rpi-clone is a utility that makes it easy to make a bootable image of the microSD card used to start your Raspberry Pi. You’ll need a USB-to-microSD adapter to begin. Insert a backup microSD card large enough to hold all of the data on the primary microSD card (df -h). Insert the USB stick with the card. Identify the backup microSD card, usually sda (fdisk -l). Format the backup microSD card: mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 && mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2. Then issue the following command to clone the primary microSD card: rpi-clone -f sda. Tutorial here.

    show-feature-codes is a cheat sheet for all of the feature codes which can be dialed from any registered SIP phone. It documents how powerful a platform Incredible PBX 2020 actually is. A similar listing is available in the GUI at Admin -> Feature Codes.

    show-passwords is a script that displays ALL of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX 2020. This includes SIP extension passwords, voicemail pins, conference pins, telephone reminders pin, and your Anveo Direct outbound calling pin (if configured). Note that voicemail pins are configured by the user of a SIP extension the first time the user accesses the voicemail system by dialing *97.

    timezone-setup lets you reconfigure the correct time zone for your server.

    purge-cdr-cel-records cleans out all existing entries in both the CDR and CEL tables of the Asterisk CDR database.

    log-cleanup removes all entries from most of the logs in /var/log.

    sig-fix disables module signature checking in FreePBX. It is automatically disabled upon installation.

    readme-RonR.txt documents the scripts provided from RonR build. We do NOT recommend using the FCC Blacklist because of its current size.

    update-asterisk16 is a utility that updates Asterisk 16 to the latest release. This should only be necessary when a security issue or bug is identified that affects the operation of your PBX.

    update-IncrediblePBX is the Automatic Update Utility which checks for server updates from incrediblepbx.com every time you log into your server as root using SSH or Putty. Do NOT disable it as it is used to load important fixes and security updates when necessary. We recommend logging into your server at least once a week.

    pbxstatus (shown above) displays status of all major components of Incredible PBX 2020.

    Forwarding Calls to Your Cellphone. Keep in mind that inbound calls to your DIDs automatically ring all five SIP extensions, 701-705. The easiest way to also ring your cellphone is to set one of these five extensions to forward incoming calls to your cellphone. After logging into your PBX as root, issue the following command to forward calls from extension 705 to your cellphone: asterisk -rx "database put CF 705 6781234567"

    To remove call forwarding: asterisk -rx "database del CF 705"

    Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

    We strongly recommend that you periodically update all of your FreePBX modules to eliminate bugs and to reduce security vulnerabilities. Make a backup image with rpi-clone first! From the Linux CLI, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

    rm -f /tmp/*
    fwconsole ma upgradeall
    fwconsole reload
    /root/sig-fix
    systemctl restart apache2
    /root/sig-fix
    

    Upgrading Asterisk 16 to Asterisk 18

    For those that enjoy living on the bleeding edge, we’ve create a script which makes it easy to upgrade Incredible PBX 2020 to Asterisk 18. The tutorial is available on the new Incredible PBX Wiki along with dozens of other tutorials.

    Continue Reading: Icing on the Cake for Incredible PBX and Raspberry Pi

    Now Available: Amazon’s Polly TTS for Incredible PBX. Works great on the RasPi platform!

    Originally published: Tuesday, March 24, 2020  Updated: Monday, February 22, 2021



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


     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



    Happy New Decade: It’s Incredible PBX 2020 for Raspberry Pi

    As we begin a new decade, it seemed a fitting time for a terrific new project for you and your Raspberry Pi 4. It features Asterisk® 16 with all the latest FreePBX® 15 GPL modules plus the feature sets of Incredible PBX® and RasPBX and RonR’s latest build. The icing on the cake is support for plug-and-play Incredible IP Phones and a new trunking platform that integrates SMS messaging into your Asterisk platform. And it’s all rolled into one terrific (free) bundle.

    This is the first of several articles on Incredible PBX 2020. Today, we’ll get your platform built and walk you through what’s included in the new build. In coming weeks, we’ll integrate the CentOS 7 platform enhancements into the Raspbian 10 Buster image for the Raspberry Pi. In the meantime, come enjoy and explore the powerful, new feature set that comes with Incredible PBX 2020 out of the box. Unlike other aggregations, there’s nothing to compile with Incredible PBX 2020 for Raspbian 10. And, unlike the FreePBX Distro, we don’t rely on static packages which make it difficult to make future modifications on your own. Instead, Incredible PBX 2020 offers a snapshot image with a complete toolkit to make future modifications as desired. Last, but not least, Incredible PBX 2020 features the new ClearlyIP module repository which protects you from proprietary modifications that limit or cripple your PBX moving forward.

    What’s Included? Incredible PBX 2020 for Raspbian 10 serves up a VoIP powerhouse featuring Asterisk 16 and all FreePBX 15 GPL modules, an Apache web server, the latest MariaDB SQL server (formerly MySQL), Exim4 mail server, and most of the Incredible PBX feature set including SIP, SMS, voice recognition, AsteriDex, PicoTTS Text-to-Speech VoIP applications plus fax support, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Telephone Reminders, and hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Email Delivery of Voicemail, Voicemail Blasting, and more. We’ve also incorporated the Zero Trunk Configuration feature from the LITE build which lets you sign up with one of four VoIP providers and start making and receiving calls instantly. Or you can use the new ClearlyIP trunking module included in the GUI for a seamless integration of SMS messaging into FreePBX and its User Control Panel.

    Choosing a SIP Provider. As we mentioned, Incredible PBX 2020 comes preconfigured to support five of the major SIP providers: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, VoIP.ms, V1VoIP, and Anveo Direct. We obviously hope you’ll choose ClearlyIP or Skyetel trunking because both financially support Nerd Vittles and our open source projects. As the old saying goes, they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. With all five providers, you only pay for minutes you use so signing up with more than one provider is a smart idea.


    Assembling the Required Raspberry Pi Components

    Before you can deploy Incredible PBX 2020, you’ll first need the necessary Raspberry Pi hardware. Here’s the short list and, if you’re in a hurry, the $35 Raspberry Pi 3B+ will cost you less than $3 extra to get it quickly from Amazon using our referral link. If you prefer to wait for a Raspberry Pi 4, read on. Either way, the RasPi remains one of the world’s best bargains! Assuming you already own an HDMI-compatible monitor and a USB keyboard

  • Raspberry Pi 4B from a Raspberry Pi reseller
  • $8 USB-C RasPi 4 (only) Power Supply
  • $10 32GB microSDHC Class 10 card (strongly recommended!)
  • $5 Official RasPi 4 Case
  • Getting Started with Incredible PBX 2020

    Here’s our 10-Step Guide to installation and setup. "Automatic" means just watch. Steps #1 and #2: follow the links. For the remaining steps, we’ll further document the procedures.

    1. Download and unzip Incredible PBX 2020.3 image from SourceForge
    2. Transfer Incredible PBX 2020 image to microSD card
    3. Boot Raspberry Pi from new microSD card (16GB minimum)
    4. Login to RasPi console as root:password to initialize your server (Automatic)
    5. In raspi-config Advanced Options, Expand FileSystem to fill your SD card
    6. In Localization Options, set Locale, TimeZone, Keyboard, & WiFi Country
    7. Reboot after writing down your server IP address (Automatic)
    8. Login via SSH or Putty as root:password to set passwords & setup firewall (Automatic)
    9. Run admin-pw-change to set the admin password for access to the web GUI
    10. Register for and configure at least one trunk provider for Incredible PBX 2020
    11. Enjoy!

    First Boot of Incredible PBX 2020 with Wi-Fi

    Incredible PBX 2020 requires Internet connectivity to complete its automated install. If you’re using a wired network connection, you can skip to the next section. With the Raspberry Pi 3B and 4B, WiFi is built into the hardware. But you still have to insert your SSID name and SSID password to make a connection to your WiFi network. To do so, follow these next steps carefully. Insert the Incredible PBX 2020 microSD card into your Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 and apply power to the hardware. When the bootup procedure finishes, login as root with the default password: password. At the first prompt, DO NOT PRESS THE ENTER KEY! Instead, press Ctrl-C to break out of the setup script. At the command prompt, issue the following commands to bring up the WiFi config file:

    cd /etc/wpa_supplicant
    nano -w wpa_supplicant.conf
    

    If your WiFi network does not require a password, uncomment or insert the four lines below and save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Now restart your server: reboot. When the reboot finishes, you now should have network connectivity.

    network={
     key_mgmt=NONE
     priority=1
    }
    

    If your WiFi network requires a password, uncomment or insert the following into wpa_supplicant.conf:

    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
    update_config=1
    
    network={
     ssid="YourSSID"
     psk="YourSSIDpassword"
     key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
     scan_ssid=1
     priority=7
    }
    

    Then scroll down to the SSID entry and replace YourSSID with the actual SSID of your WiFi network. Make sure you preserve the entry with the quotes as shown. Next, replace YourSSIDpassword with the SSID password of your WiFi network. Save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Now restart your server: reboot. When the reboot finishes, you now should have network connectivity.

    Once the reboot process finishes, you should see an entry on about the middle line displayed on your monitor which reads: "My IP address is…". Write down the IP address shown. You’ll need it in a minute. Skip the next section since you are using a WiFi connection.

    If you don’t see an IP address assigned to your server, then correct the network deficiency (invalid WiFi credentials, DHCP not working, Internet down), and reboot until you see an IP address assigned to your server. DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT AN ASSIGNED IP ADDRESS.

    First Boot of Incredible PBX Using Wired Connection

    Incredible PBX 2020 requires Internet connectivity to complete its automated install. After connecting your server to your local network with a network cable, insert the Incredible PBX 2020 microSD card into your Raspberry Pi and apply power to the hardware. When the bootup procedure finishes, you should see an entry on about the middle line displayed on your monitor which reads: "My IP address is…". Write down the IP address shown. You’ll need it in the next step.

    If you don’t see an IP address assigned to your server, then correct the network deficiency (cable not connected, DHCP not working, Internet down), and reboot until you see an IP address assigned to your server. DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT AN ASSIGNED IP ADDRESS.

    Completing the Incredible PBX Initialization Procedure

    Unless your desktop PC and RasPi are both on the same private LAN, the remainder of the install procedure should be completed from a desktop PC using SSH or Putty. This will assure that your desktop PC is also whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Using the console to complete the install is NOT recommended as your desktop PC will not be whitelisted in the firewall. This may result in your not being able to log in to your server. Once you have network connectivity, log in to your server as root from a desktop PC using the default password: password. Accept the license agreement by pressing ENTER. You then will be redirected to raspi-config. This is the utility used to expand your Incredible PBX 2020 image to use your entire microSD card. If you fail to complete this step, your microSD card will be restricted to 16GB. In the raspi-config utility, choose Localization Options and set Locale, TimeZone, Keyboard, & WiFi Country. Then choose Advanced Options. All of the defaults should be satisfactory with the exception of the first item: Expand Filesystem. Choose this option and activate the resizing directive. Review the other items and then exit and reboot.

    Once your server reboots and you log back in as root, all of your passwords will be randomly assigned with the exception of the root user Linux password and your admin password for access to the web GUI. You can set the root password by issuing the command: passwd. Set the admin password for access to the web GUI with this command: /root/admin-pw-change. With the exception of these two passwords, the remaining passwords can be displayed using the command: /root/show-passwords.

    Finally, if your PBX is sitting behind a NAT-based router, you’ll need to redirect incoming UDP 5060-5061 and UDP 10000-20000 traffic to the private IP address of your PBX. This is required for all of the SIP providers included in the Incredible PBX 2020 build. Otherwise, all inbound calls will fail.

    A Word About FreePBX Module Morphing

    If you’ve been following the latest FreePBX module saga, then we probably don’t need to repeat that now is not a good time to be indiscriminately updating FreePBX modules using the Module Admin utility. Chances are pretty good that you may irreparably break something. Should an alert appear in the Dashboard indicating that a particular module has a security vulnerability, please post a note on the PIAF Forum and await a response before attempting to upgrade the module. We also strongly recommend backing up your microSD card as documented below to avoid future surprises.

    Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020

    If you’ve decided to go with Skyetel, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service and take advantage of the Nerd Vittles Free $10 credit and BOGO special. First, complete the Prequalification Form here. You then will be provided a link to the Skyetel site to complete your registration. Once you have registered on the Skyetel site and your account has been activated, open a support ticket and request the $10 credit for your account by referencing the Nerd Vittles special offer. Once you are happy with the service, open another ticket after funding your account and request that Skyetel match your deposit of up to $250. That gets you up to $500 of helf-price calling. Credit is limited to one per person/company/address/location. If you have numbers to port in, you can do it at no cost after funding your account. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.

    Skyetel does not use SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel utilizes Endpoint Groups to identify which servers can communicate with the Skyetel service. An Endpoint Group consists of a Name, an IP address, a UDP or TCP port for the connection, and a numerical Priority for the group. For incoming calls destined to your PBX, DIDs are associated with an Endpoint Group to route the calls to your PBX. For outgoing calls from your PBX, a matching Endpoint Group is required to authorize outbound calls through the Skyetel network. Thus, the first step in configuring the Skyetel side for use with your PBX is to set up an Endpoint Group. Here’s a typical setup for Incredible PBX 2020:

    • Name: MyPBX
    • Priority: 1
    • IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
    • Port: 5060
    • Protocol: UDP
    • Description: 2020.incrediblepbx.com

    To receive incoming PSTN calls, you’ll need at least one DID. On the Skyetel site, you acquire DIDs under the Phone Numbers tab. You have the option of Porting in Existing Numbers (free for the first 60 days after you fund your account) or purchasing new ones under the Buy Phone Numbers menu option.

    Once you have acquired one or more DIDs, navigate to the Local Numbers or Toll Free Numbers tab and specify the desired SIP Format and Endpoint Group for each DID. Add SMS/MMS and E911 support, if desired. Call Forwarding and Failover are also supported. That completes the VoIP setup on the Skyetel side. System Status is always available here.

    Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for VoIP.ms service, may we suggest you use our signup link so that Nerd Vittles gets a referral credit for your signup. Once your account is set up, you’ll need to set up a SIP SubAccount and, for Authentication Type, choose Static IP Authentication and enter your Incredible PBX 2020 server’s public IP address. For Transport, choose UDP. For Device Type, choose Asterisk, IP PBX, Gateway or VoIP Switch. Order a DID in their web panel, and then point the DID to the SubAccount you just created. Be sure to specify atlanta1.voip.ms as the POP from which to receive incoming calls. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the VoIPms trunk and save your update.

    Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for V1VoIP service, sign up on their web site. Then login to your account and order a DID under the DIDs tab. Once the DID has been assigned, choose View DIDs and click on the Forwarding button beside your DID. For Option #1, choose Forward to IP Address/PBX. For the Fowarding Address, enter the public IP address of your server. For the T/O (timeout) value, set it to 2o seconds. Then click the Update button. Under the Termination tab, create a new Endpoint with the public IP address of your server so that you can place outbound calls through V1VoIP. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the V1VoIP trunks and save your updates.

    Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for Anveo Direct service, sign up on their web site and then login. After adding funds to your account, purchase a DID under Inbound Service -> Order DID. Next, choose Configure Destination SIP Trunk. Give the Trunk a name. For the Primary SIP URI, enter $[E164]$@server-IP-address. For Call Options, select your new DID from the list. You also must whitelist your public IP address under Outbound Service -> Configure. Create a new Call Termination Trunk and name it to match your server. For Dialing Prefix, choose six alphanumeric characters beginning with a zero. In Authorized IP Addresses, enter the public IP address of your server. Set an appropriate rate cap. We like $0.01 per minute to be safe. Set a concurrent calls limit. We like 2. For the Call Routing Method, choose Least Cost unless you’re feeling extravagant. For Routes/Carriers, choose Standard Routes. Write down your Dialing Prefix and then click the Save button. On the Incredible PBX side, simply Enable the AnveoDirect trunks and save your updates.

    Before you can make outbound calls through Anveo Direct from your PBX, you first must configure the Dialing Prefix that you wrote down in the previous step. Using a browser, login to the GUI as admin. Navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks -> Anveo-Out. Click the Pencil icon to edit the trunk settings. Then click the Custom Settings tab. Replace anveo-pin with your actual Anveo PIN. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    By default, incoming Anveo Direct calls will be processed by the Default inbound route on your PBX. If you wish to redirect incoming Anveo Direct calls using DID-specific inbound routes, then you’ve got a bit more work to do. In addition to creating the inbound route using the 11-digit Anveo Direct DID, enter the following commands after logging into your server as root using SSH/Putty:

    cd /etc/asterisk
    echo "[from-anveo]" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,1,Ringing" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,n,Goto(from-trunk,\\${SIP_HEADER(X-anveo-e164)},1)" >> extensions_custom.conf
    asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
    

    Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2020

    We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

    We recommend YateClient for Windows which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.

    Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place some test calls to the numerous apps that are preconfigured on Incredible PBX. Dial a few of these to get started:

    DEMO - Apps Demo
    123 - Reminders
    947 - Weather by ZIP Code
    951 - Yahoo News
    TODAY - Today in History
    LENNY - The Telemarketer's Worst Nightmare
    

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

    Audio Issues with Incredible PBX 2020

    Only if you experience one-way or no audio on some calls, add your external IP address and LAN subnet in the GUI by navigating to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. In the NAT Settings section, click Detect Network Settings. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    Configuring Gmail as Exim Smart Relay Host

    Most Raspberry Pi implementations will be on networks managed by companies like Comcast, Spectrum, and AT&T that block downstream mail servers (that’s you) from sending email. The solution is to use Gmail or your local ISP as a smart relay host to send mail from your server. You’ll need this to deliver voicemails via email. 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.

    *.google.com:AcctName@gmail.com:AcctPW
    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
    

    Some prefer an email notification whenever your server is booted. Once you have configured a relay host above, you can add the feature by editing /etc/rc.local and adding the following lines with your actual email address just above the service knockd start line:

    _PRIVATE="Private IP: `cat /etc/hostip | cut -f1-2 -d " "`"
    _PUBLIC=" Public IP: `curl -s -S --user-agent \\
    "Mozilla/4.0" http://myip.incrediblepbx.com | awk 'NR==2'`"
    echo "$_PRIVATE\\n$_PUBLIC" | mail -s "RasPi 2020 has booted" yourname@yourmailserver.com
    

    Building the Incredible PBX Demo IVR

    If you’d like to try your hand at building an IVR, here are the steps to build the Incredible PBX Demo IVR. From the FreePBX Dashboard, choose Applications -> IVR -> Add IVR. Then fill in the template using the entries shown below. Then click Submit and Reload Dialplan.



    Building the Incredible PBX Stealth AutoAttendant

    Many users prefer to play an announcement to incoming callers with a brief pause thereafter which indicates that the call is being connected. If configured properly, this lets you embed several dial codes which can be entered while the announcement is playing and the call is being transferred. For example, you might wish to route incoming calls to Lenny if a caller presses 0. Or you might wish to immediately route an incoming call to a Ring Group if the caller presses 1. Here’s a sample IVR setup to get you started.


    Incredible PBX 2020 Administration

    We’ve eased the pain of administering your new PBX with a collection of scripts which you will find in the /root folder after logging in with SSH or Putty. Here’s a quick summary of what each of the scripts does.

    admin-pw-change lets you update the admin password for web browser access to the Incredible PBX GUI.

    apache-pw-change lets you update the admin password for Apache applications such as AsteriDex and Reminders.

    avantfax-pw-change lets you update the root password for AvantFax access (coming soon!).

    add-fqdn is used to whitelist a fully-qualified domain name in the firewall. Because Incredible PBX 2020 blocks all traffic from IP addresses that are not whitelisted, this is what you use to authorize an external user for your PBX. The advantage of an FQDN is that you can use a dynamic DNS service to automatically update the IP address associated with an FQDN so that you never lose connectivity.

    add-ip is used to whitelist a public IP address in the firewall. See the add-fqdn explanation as to why this matters.

    del-acct is used to remove an IP address or FQDN from the firewall’s whitelist.

    configure-exim-email lets you reconfigure the email server if you need to use an SMTP relay such as Google to get outbound email flowing. Tutorial here.

    iptables-restart is the ONLY command you should ever use to restart the IPtables firewall and Fail2Ban.

    knock.FAQ contains your PortKnocker credentials for emergency access to your server if the firewall locks you out. Tutorial here.

    proximity (once configured) will automatically forward calls to your cellphone when you are out of BlueTooth range from your RasPi. Also must enable running of script in /etc/crontab.

    reset-conference-pins is a script that automatically and randomly resets the user and admin pins for access to the preconfigured conferencing application. Dial C-O-N-F from any registered SIP phone to connect to the conference.

    reset-extension-passwords is a script that automatically and randomly resets ALL of the SIP passwords for extensions 701-705. Be careful using this one, or you may disable existing registered phones and cause Fail2Ban to blacklist the IP addresses of those users. HINT: You can place a call to the Ring Group associated with all five extensions by dialing 777.

    reset-reminders-pin is a script that automatically and randomly resets the pin required to access the Telephone Reminders application by dialing 123. It’s important to protect this application because a nefarious user could set up a reminder to call a number anywhere in the world assuming your SIP provider’s account was configured to allow such calls.



    rpi-clone is a utility that makes it easy to make a bootable image of the microSD card used to start your Raspberry Pi. You’ll need a USB-to-microSD adapter to begin. Insert a backup microSD card large enough to hold all of the data on the primary microSD card (df -h). Insert the USB stick with the card. Identify the backup microSD card, usually sda (fdisk -l). Format the backup microSD as an MSDOS partition. Then issue the following command to clone the primary microSD card: rpi-clone -f sda. Complete tutorial here.

    show-feature-codes is a cheat sheet for all of the feature codes which can be dialed from any registered SIP phone. It documents how powerful a platform Incredible PBX 2020 actually is. A similar listing is available in the GUI at Admin -> Feature Codes.

    show-passwords is a script that displays ALL of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX 2020. This includes SIP extension passwords, voicemail pins, conference pins, telephone reminders pin, and your Anveo Direct outbound calling pin (if configured). Note that voicemail pins are configured by the user of a SIP extension the first time the user accesses the voicemail system by dialing *97.

    timezone-setup lets you reconfigure the correct time zone for your server.

    purge-cdr-cel-records cleans out all existing entries in both the CDR and CEL tables of the Asterisk CDR database.

    log-cleanup removes all entries from most of the logs in /var/log.

    sig-fix disables module signature checking in FreePBX. It is automatically disabled upon installation.

    readme-RonR.txt documents the scripts provided from RonR build. We do NOT recommend using the FCC Blacklist because of its current size.

    update-asterisk16 is a utility that updates Asterisk 16 to the latest release. This should only be necessary when a security issue or bug is identified that affects the operation of your PBX.

    update-IncrediblePBX is the Automatic Update Utility which checks for server updates from incrediblepbx.com every time you log into your server as root using SSH or Putty. Do NOT disable it as it is used to load important fixes and security updates when necessary. We recommend logging into your server at least once a week.

    pbxstatus (shown above) displays status of all major components of Incredible PBX 2020.

    Forwarding Calls to Your Cellphone. Keep in mind that inbound calls to your DIDs automatically ring all five SIP extensions, 701-705. The easiest way to also ring your cellphone is to set one of these five extensions to forward incoming calls to your cellphone. After logging into your PBX as root, issue the following command to forward calls from extension 705 to your cellphone: asterisk -rx "database put CF 705 6781234567"

    To remove call forwarding: asterisk -rx "database del CF 705"

    Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

    We strongly recommend that you periodically update all of your FreePBX modules to eliminate bugs and to reduce security vulnerabilities. Make a backup image with rpi-clone first! From the Linux CLI, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

    rm -f /tmp/*
    fwconsole ma upgradeall
    fwconsole reload
    /root/sig-fix
    systemctl restart apache2
    /root/sig-fix
    

    Continue Reading: Icing on the Cake for Incredible PBX and Raspberry Pi

    Originally published: Monday, January 27, 2020



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


     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



    Meet Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS 7



    We are pleased to introduce the production-ready release of Incredible PBX® 2020 for CentOS 7 with the latest version of Asterisk® 16 and the Clearly IP-enhanced FreePBX® 15 components supporting the new Incredible PBX line of SIP phones. Today’s the final day to score some incredible deals on Incredible PBX hardware (above) and, for those that prefer cloud-based platforms, the new Incredible PBX 2020 installer for CentOS 7 is now available as well. Complete documentation is provided below for do-it-yourselfers.

    In addition to the latest Asterisk 16 release, you also get the entire FreePBX 15 GPL module collection including the ClearlyIP-enhanced User Control Panel (UCP) plus the Incredible PBX device management module which lets you provision the entire Incredible PBX phone line from within the GUI. The module also allows direct integration with PBX functions allowing your end-users to control their button maps, BLF, speed dials and applications such as presence control, follow-me settings and login-logout coming soon. As new applications are added or developed they will be available for use on the Incredible PBX phones.

    Incredible PBX 2020 is plug-and-play with immediate calling capability using any of four commercial SIP providers. And ClearlyIP self-configuring trunks will be available later this month with native SMS capability as well as inbound AND outbound CNAM and E911 support. For do-it-yourselfers, you can choose one of 16 other preconfigured SIP providers, enter your credentials, and enjoy instant connectivity without worrying about SIP settings. Last, but not least, you can easily turn your Incredible PBX 2020 server into a secure public-facing PBX, add fax support, or interconnect a Raspberry Pi for traveling so that you never miss a call.



    What’s Included? Incredible PBX 2020 serves up a VoIP powerhouse featuring Asterisk 16, the FreePBX 15 GPL platform including User Control Panel (UCP), an Apache web server, the latest MariaDB SQL server (formerly MySQL), SendMail, and the Incredible PBX feature set including SIP, SMS, Opus, voice recognition, PicoTTS Text-to-Speech VoIP applications plus fax support, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Reminders, ODBC, and hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Email Delivery of Voicemails, and much more.

    Choosing a SIP Provider. Incredible PBX 2020 comes preconfigured with support for five SIP extensions and four of the major SIP providers: Skyetel, VoIP.ms, V1VoIP, and Anveo Direct. We obviously hope you’ll choose Skyetel not only because they financially support Nerd Vittles and our open source projects, but also because it is a clearly superior platform offering crystal-clear communications and triple-redundancy so you never miss a call. Skyetel also sets itself apart from the other providers in the support department. They actually respond to issues, and there’s never a charge. As the old saying goes, they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Even without taking advantage of Nerd Vittles half-price offer on up to $500 of Skyetel services, they’re still dirt cheap compared to the Bell Sisters and cable companies. Skyetel is so sure you’ll love their service that they give you a $10 credit to kick the tires before you ever spend a dime. Traditional DIDs are $1 per month. Outbound conversational calls are $0.012 per minute. Incoming conversational calls are a penny a minute, and CallerID lookups are $0.004. You only pay for minutes you use. Once you’re satisfied with the service and fund your account, you can port in your existing DIDs at no cost for 60 days after signup. In short, you have nothing to lose by trying out the Skyetel service. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.

    Choosing a Platform for Incredible PBX 2020

    As with our other open source offerings, the platform choice for Incredible PBX 2020 depends upon a number of factors. For on-premise installations, we recommend you consider the Incredible PBX server which works well for home or SOHO implementations. Cloud-based platforms are available for about $2-$5 a month. We no longer recommend the OpenVZ offerings below because of a bug in the SolusVM systemd implementation with CentOS 7. KVM platforms are much more robust and reliable, but you still need off-site backups AND a tested backup plan. Three providers previously listed have closed their doors in 2019. You’ve been warned.

    Vultr, Digital Ocean, and OVH are your best bets at the moment. And Vultr and Digital Ocean both support Nerd Vittles through referral credits.

    ProviderRAMDiskBandwidthPerformance as of 12/1/19Cost
    CrownCloud KVM (LA)1GB20GB +
    Snapshot
    1TB/month598Mb/DN 281Mb/UP
    2CPU Core
    $25/year
    Best Buy!
    Naranjatech KVM (The Netherlands)1GB20GB1TB/monthHosting since 2005
    VAT: EU res.
    20€/year w/code:
    SBF2019
    BudgetNode KVM (LA)1GB40GB RAID101TB/monthAlso available in U.K PM @Ishaq on LET before payment$24/year
    FreeRangeCloud KVM (Ashburn VA, Winnipeg, Freemont CA)1GB20GB SSD3TB/monthPick EGG loc'n
    Open ticket for last 5GB SSD
    $30/year w/code:
    LEBEGG30

    Installing Incredible PBX 2020 with CentOS 7

    NOTE: The generic Incredible PBX 2020 tarball below is suitable for ALL CentOS 7 platforms. If you are installing Incredible PBX on dedicated hardware, a slightly enhanced implementation of Asterisk is possible using the BUILD_NATIVE flag. Do not use this option on virtual machine platforms or in environments where the processor may change if you may migrate to new hardware down the road as Asterisk will not load successfully. To download the enhanced version, replace the incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz lines below with this tarball: incrediblepbx2020.1.native.tar.gz.

    If you’ve installed previous iterations of Incredible PBX, today’s drill is similar. Here is a thumbnail sketch of the install procedure for Incredible PBX 2020. Begin by installing a minimal CentOS 7 (64-bit) platform or pick the CentOS 7 option with 1GB RAM and 20GB of storage from your cloud provider’s menu of choices. Then log into your server as root using SSH or Putty from a desktop PC that you will use to manage your PBX. This assures that your desktop machine gets whitelisted in the firewall setup. Now issue the following commands:

    passwd
    yum -y update
    yum -y install net-tools nano wget tar
    cd /root
    wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz
    tar zxvf incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz
    rm -f incrediblepbx2020.1.tar.gz
    # to add swap file on non-OpenVZ cloud platforms with no swap file
    ./create-swapfile-DO
    # kick off Phase I install
    ./IncrediblePBX2020.sh
    # after reboot, kick off Phase II install
    ./IncrediblePBX2020.sh
    # set desired timezone
    ./timezone-setup
    # set FreePBX admin password
    ./admin-pw-change
    # set Apache admin password for AsteriDex and Reminders
    ./apache-pw-change
    # display your passwords
    ./show-passwords
    # optionally install Incredible Fax 2020
    ./incrediblefax2020.sh
    # remember to enable TUN/TAP if using VPS Control Panel with OpenVZ
    # reconfigure PortKnocker if installing on an OpenVZ platform
    echo 'OPTIONS="-i venet0:0"' >> /etc/sysconfig/knockd
    service knockd restart
    # set up NeoRouter VPN client, if desired
    nrclientcmd
    # check network speed
    wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest.py
    chmod +x speedtest-cli
    ./speedtest-cli
    

    WebMin is also installed and configured as part of the base install. The root password for access is the same as your Linux root password. We strongly recommend that you not use WebMin to make configuration changes to your server. You may inadvertently damage the operation of your PBX beyond repair. WebMin is an excellent tool to LOOK at how your server is configured. When used for that purpose, we highly recommend WebMin as a way to become familiar with your Linux configuration.

    Planning Ahead for That Rainy Day

    If you haven’t already learned the hard way, let us save you from a future shock. Hardware fails. All of it. So spend an extra hour now so that you’ll be prepared when (not if) disaster strikes. First, once you have your new PBX configured the way you plan to use it, make a backup of your PBX by running the Incredible Backup script: /root/incrediblebackup16

    Copy down the name of the backup file that was created. You’ll need it in a few minutes.

    Second, build yourself an identical VirtualBox platform on your desktop PC. It’s the same steps as outlined above.

    Next, create a /backup folder on your VirtualBox PBX and copy the backup file from your main server to your VirtualBox server and restore it after logging in to VirtualBox PBX as root:

    mkdir /backup
    scp root@main-pbx-ip-address:/backup/backup-file-name.tar.gz /backup/.
    /root/incrediblerestore16 /backup/backup-file-name.tar.gz
    

    Complaints that you "forgot" to make a backup and your hardware has failed or your provider has gone out of business are not welcomed. We’re sorry for your loss. Case closed.

    Completing the Incredible PBX Setup Procedure

    Unless your desktop PC and server are both on the same private LAN, the install procedure should be performed from a desktop PC using SSH or Putty. This will insure that your desktop PC is also whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Using the console to perform the install is NOT recommended as your desktop PC will not be whitelisted in the firewall. This may result in your not being able to log in to your server. Once you have network connectivity, log in to your server as root from a desktop PC using your root password. Accept the license agreement by pressing ENTER.

    Kick off the Phase I install. Once your server reboots and you log back in as root, start the Phase II install. All of your passwords will be randomly assigned with the exception of the root user Linux password. You can set it at any time by issuing the command: passwd. You also must set up an admin password to access the FreePBX web GUI with the command: /root/admin-pw-change. With the exception of your root user and FreePBX admin passwords, most of the remaining passwords can be displayed using the command: /root/show-passwords.

    Finally, if your PBX is sitting behind a NAT-based router, you’ll need to redirect incoming UDP 5060 and UDP 10000-20000 traffic to the private IP address of your PBX. This is required for all of the SIP providers included in the Incredible PBX 2020 default build that don’t require a SIP registration. Otherwise, inbound calls will fail.

    Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020

    If you’ve decided to go with Skyetel, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service and take advantage of the Nerd Vittles specials. First, complete the Prequalification Form here. You then will be provided a link to the Skyetel site to complete your registration. Once you have registered on the Skyetel site and your account has been activated, open a support ticket and request the $10 credit for your account by referencing the Nerd Vittles special offer. Once you are satisfied with the service, fund your account as desired, and Skyetel will match your deposit of up to $250 simply by opening another ticket. That gets you up to $500 of half-price calling. Credit is limited to one per person/company/address/location.

    Skyetel does not use SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel utilizes Endpoint Groups to identify which servers can communicate with the Skyetel service. An Endpoint Group consists of a Name, an IP address, a UDP or TCP port for the connection, and a numerical Priority for the group. For incoming calls destined to your PBX, DIDs are associated with an Endpoint Group to route the calls to your PBX. For outgoing calls from your PBX, a matching Endpoint Group is required to authorize outbound calls through the Skyetel network. Thus, the first step in configuring the Skyetel side for use with your PBX is to set up an Endpoint Group. Here’s a typical setup for Incredible PBX 2020:

    • Name: MyPBX
    • Priority: 1
    • IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
    • Port: 5060
    • Protocol: UDP
    • Description: my.incrediblepbx.com

    To receive incoming PSTN calls, you’ll need at least one DID. On the Skyetel site, you acquire DIDs under the Phone Numbers tab. You have the option of Porting in Existing Numbers (free for the first 60 days after you sign up for service) or purchasing new ones under the Buy Phone Numbers menu option.

    Once you have acquired one or more DIDs, navigate to the Local Numbers or Toll Free Numbers tab and specify the desired SIP Format and Endpoint Group for each DID. Add SMS/MMS and E911 support, if desired. Call Forwarding and Failover are also supported. That completes the VoIP setup on the Skyetel side. System Status is always available here.

    Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for VoIP.ms service, may we suggest you use our signup link so that Nerd Vittles gets a referral credit for your signup. Once your account is set up, you’ll need to set up a SIP SubAccount and, for Authentication Type, choose Static IP Authentication and enter your Incredible PBX 2020 server’s public IP address. For Transport, choose UDP. For Device Type, choose Asterisk, IP PBX, Gateway or VoIP Switch. Order a DID in their web panel, and then point the DID to the SubAccount you just created. Be sure to specify atlanta1.voip.ms as the POP from which to receive incoming calls. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable the VoIP.ms trunk.

    Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for V1VoIP service, sign up on their web site. Then login to your account and order a DID under the DIDs tab. Once the DID has been assigned, choose View DIDs and click on the Forwarding button beside your DID. For Option #1, choose Forward to IP Address/PBX. For the Forwarding Address, enter the public IP address of your server. For the T/O (timeout) value, set it to 2o seconds. Then click the Update button. Under the Termination tab, create a new Endpoint with the public IP address of your server so that you can place outbound calls through V1VoIP. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable all of the V1VoIP trunks.

    Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX 2020

    To sign up for Anveo Direct service, sign up on their web site and then login. After adding funds to your account, purchase a DID under Inbound Service -> Order DID. Next, choose Configure Destination SIP Trunk. Give the Trunk a name. For the Primary SIP URI, enter $[E164]$@server-IP-address. For Call Options, select your new DID from the list. You also must whitelist your public IP address under Outbound Service -> Configure. Create a new Call Termination Trunk and name it to match your server. For Dialing Prefix, choose six alphanumeric characters beginning with a zero. In Authorized IP Addresses, enter the public IP address of your server. Set an appropriate rate cap. We like $0.01 per minute to be safe. Set a concurrent calls limit. We like 2. For the Call Routing Method, choose Least Cost unless you’re feeling extravagant. For Routes/Carriers, choose Standard Routes. Write down your Dialing Prefix and then click the Save button.

    Before you can make outbound calls through Anveo Direct from your PBX, you first must configure the Dialing Prefix that you wrote down in the previous step. Log into the GUI as admin using a web browser and edit the Anveo-Out trunk in Connectivity -> Trunks. Enable the Trunk. Then click on the custom-Settings tab and replace anveo-pin with your actual Dialing Prefix. Click Submit and Apply Config to complete the setup. In the Incredible PBX GUI, be sure to enable all of the remaining Anveo trunks.

    By default, incoming Anveo Direct calls will be processed by the Default inbound route on your PBX. If you wish to redirect incoming Anveo Direct calls using DID-specific inbound routes, then you’ve got a bit more work to do. In addition to creating the inbound route using the 11-digit Anveo Direct DID, enter the following commands after logging into your server as root using SSH/Putty:

    cd /etc/asterisk
    echo "[from-anveo]" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,1,Ringing" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,n,Goto(from-trunk,\\${SIP_HEADER(X-anveo-e164)},1)" >> extensions_custom.conf
    asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
    

    Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2020

    We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

    We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.

    Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place some test calls to the numerous apps that are preconfigured on Incredible PBX. Dial a few of these to get started:

    DEMO - Apps Demo
    123 - Reminders
    947 - Weather by ZIP Code
    951 - Yahoo News
    TODAY - Today in History
    LENNY - The Telemarketer's Worst Nightmare
    

    If you are a Mac user, another great no-frills softphone is Telephone. Just download and install it from the Mac App Store. For Android users, check out the terrific new VitalPBX Communicator. Works flawlessly with Incredible PBX.

    Audio Issues with Incredible PBX 2020

    If you experience one-way or no audio on some calls, add your external IP address and LAN subnet in the GUI by navigating to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. In the NAT Settings section, click Detect Network Settings. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    Incredible PBX 2020 Administration

    We’ve eased the pain of administering your new PBX with a collection of scripts which you will find in the /root folder after logging in with SSH or Putty. Here’s a quick summary of what each of the scripts does.

    add-fqdn is used to whitelist a fully-qualified domain name in the firewall. Because Incredible PBX 2020 blocks all traffic from IP addresses that are not whitelisted, this is what you use to authorize an external user for your PBX. The advantage of an FQDN is that you can use a dynamic DNS service to automatically update the IP address associated with an FQDN so that you never lose connectivity.

    add-ip is used to whitelist a public IP address in the firewall. See the add-fqdn explanation as to why this matters.

    del-acct is used to remove an IP address or FQDN from the firewall’s whitelist.

    admin-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to the FreePBX/Incredible PBX web GUI using a browser pointed to the local IP address of your server.

    apache-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to Apache/Incredible PBX apps including AsteriDex and Reminders. This provides a password layer of protection for access to these applications.

    reset-conference-pins is a script that automatically and randomly resets the user and admin pins for access to the preconfigured conferencing application. Dial C-O-N-F from any registered SIP phone to connect to the conference.

    reset-extension-passwords is a script that automatically and randomly resets ALL of the SIP passwords for extensions 701-705. Be careful using this one, or you may disable existing registered phones and cause Fail2Ban to blacklist the IP addresses of those users. HINT: You can place a call to the Ring Group associated with all five extensions by dialing 777.

    reset-reminders-pin is a script that automatically and randomly resets the pin required to access the Telephone Reminders application by dialing 123. It’s important to protect this application because a nefarious user could set up a reminder to call a number anywhere in the world assuming your SIP provider’s account was configured to allow such calls.

    show-feature-codes is a cheat sheet for all of the feature codes which can be dialed from any registered SIP phone. It documents how powerful a platform Incredible PBX 2020 actually is. A similar listing is available in the GUI at Admin -> Feature Codes.

    show-passwords is a script that displays most of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX 2020. This includes SIP extension passwords, voicemail pins, conference pins, telephone reminders pin, and your Anveo Direct outbound calling pin (if configured). Note that voicemail pins are configured by the user of a SIP extension the first time the user accesses the voicemail system by dialing *97.

    update-IncrediblePBX is the Automatic Update Utility which checks for server updates from incrediblepbx.com every time you log into your server as root using SSH or Putty. Do NOT disable it as it is used to load important fixes and security updates when necessary. We recommend logging into your server at least once a week.

    pbxstatus (shown above) displays status of all major components of Incredible PBX 2020.

    Forwarding Calls to Your Cellphone. Keep in mind that inbound calls to your DIDs automatically ring all five SIP extensions, 701-705. The easiest way to also ring your cellphone is to set one of these five extensions to forward incoming calls to your cellphone. After logging into your PBX as root, issue the following command to forward calls from extension 705 to your cellphone: asterisk -rx "database put CF 705 6781234567"

    To remove call forwarding: asterisk -rx "database del CF 705"

    Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX 2020

    In order to receive voicemails by email delivery, outbound mail functionality from your server obviously is required. If you’ve deployed your server in your home, your Internet Service Provider probably blocks downstream mail servers such as Incredible PBX from sending mail. This is done to reduce SPAM. In this case, you will need to configure SendMail using either your ISP or Gmail as an SMTP Relay Host. NOTE: If you are using a Gmail account with 2-step verification enabled, you MUST use a Gmail App Key instead of your Gmail account password. You also must enable Less Secure Apps access to the Gmail account. Here are the steps using a Gmail account:

    cd /etc/mail
    yum -y install sendmail-cf
    hostname -f > genericsdomain
    touch genericstable
    cd /usr/bin
    rm -f makemap
    ln -s ../sbin/makemap.sendmail makemap
    cd /etc/mail
    makemap -r hash genericstable.db < genericstable
    mv sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.original
    wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmail.mc.gmail
    cp sendmail.mc.gmail sendmail.mc
    mkdir -p auth
    chmod 700 auth
    cd auth
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" > client-info
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:587 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:465 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info
    # Stop here and edit client-info (nano -w client-info) in all three lines.
    # Replace  user_id with your gMail account name without @gmail.com
    # Replace password with your real gMail password OR
    #  use your Gmail App Key if 2-step verification is enabled
    # Be sure to replace the double-quotes shown above if they don't appear in the file!!!
    # Save your changes (Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter)
    chmod 600 client-info
    makemap -r hash client-info.db < client-info
    cd ..
    # on Debian servers, uncomment next line
    # sed -i 's|sendmail-cf|sendmail/cf|' Makefile
    make
    systemctl restart sendmail
    

    If your server is hosted in the cloud and your provider does not block TCP port 25, then you can send mail without using a SmartHost; however, your server's hostname must actually be real or downstream mail servers will reject your mail. You can set your server's hostname like this: hostname myserver.myhost.com. This is usually sufficient; however, it's a good idea to also add the hostname in /etc/hostname and in /etc/hosts as the first entry on 127.0.0.1 line:

    127.0.0.1   myserver.myhost.com pbx.local localhost localhost.localdomain
    

    Next, test outbound mail using this command with your actual email address:

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

    Once you are sure your emails are being delivered reliably, here's a sample GUI voicemail configuration for an extension:



    Getting Started with Incredible Fax 2020

    Believe it or not, there still are lots of folks that use faxes in their everyday lives. If you're one of them, Incredible PBX has your back. Begin by logging into your server as root and running incrediblefax2020.sh to install HylaFax and AvantFax on your server. You'll be prompted a dozen or more times for information. Answer no to the secure fax question. For the rest of the prompts, just press ENTER to accept the default entries. Rebooting your server is required when the install finishes. Once your server is back on line, there will be a new AvantFax tab in the GUI. Before proceeding, be sure to set an Apache web apps password by running /root/apache-pw-change. Next, login to AvantFax with your browser. You first will be prompted for your Apache credentials. Enter admin for the username and whatever password you set up in the previous step. Then you will be prompted for your AvantFax credentials. The default is admin:password. After you enter the username and password, you will be prompted to change your admin password. The old password is still password. Then enter your desired password twice and save the setting. The AvantFax dashboard then will display. If nothing has come unglued, you should see four green Idle icons:



    You can Send Faxes from within AvantFax by choosing the Send Fax tab, or you can use one of many HylaFax clients. Google is your friend.

    Getting Started with ODBC for Asterisk

    If you're new to the ODBC World, here's a quick primer. The idea behind Open Data Base Connectivity is to simplify the task of connecting up any flavor database management system so that it can talk to applications and foreign databases without having to write custom code to support every different DBMS. ODBC serves in much the same way as a translator who sits between you and foreign visitors. With the benefit of a translator, whatever is spoken is understood on both ends of the conversation. The real beauty of ODBC is that it is conversant with almost every DBMS offering on the planet including Oracle, Informix, SAS, MS Access, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and even dBase, FoxPro, and XDB. All you really need is the ODBC connector for your operating system plus one or more database drivers for the DBMS data sources you wish to use.

    Because the FreePBX modules are driven by MySQL tables, we've included the MySQL connector for Asterisk in Incredible PBX 2020 together with two sample applications to get you started. If you add your own MySQL databases, it's easy to connect them with ODBC by simply running the odbc-gen.sh script in /root again. The two sample applications we've included will show you how to integrate ODBC queries into your Asterisk dialplan. The code is available in odbc.conf in the /etc/asterisk folder. The first sample is a typical employee database. By dialing 222, you will be prompted to enter the employee number (12345), and the ODBC app then will look up the employee number and read you the name of the employee. The second sample is a speed dialer using the AsteriDex database. The sample entries in the database include a 3-numeric-digit DIALCODE which simply matches the first three letters of each AsteriDex name spelled out on a phone, e.g. 335 = DELta Airlines and 263 = AMErican Airlines. As you add new entries to AsteriDex, you can add dialcodes in the same way or in any other scheme you prefer. Once you have signed up with a provider so that you can make outbound calls, just dial 223 and enter the AsteriDex dialcode to place the call. Think of it as a Speed Dialer on Steroids.

    Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

    We strongly recommend that you periodically update all of your FreePBX modules to eliminate bugs and to reduce security vulnerabilities. From the Linux CLI, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

    mysql -u root -ppassw0rd asterisk -e "UPDATE freepbx_settings SET value = 'https://mirror.clearlyip.com' where keyword = 'MODULE_REPO';"
    rm -f /tmp/*
    fwconsole ma upgradeall
    fwconsole reload
    /root/sig-fix
    service httpd restart
    /root/sig-fix
    

    Where To Go From Here

    Complete documentation on the ClearlyIP Devices Module is available here.

    Complete documentation on the FreePBX GPL Modules is available here.

    Complete documentation on the Incredible PBX additions is available here.

    An introduction to configuring extensions, trunks, and routes is available here.

    Originally published: Monday, December 2, 2019



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


     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



    Honeymoon Time: Meet Incredible PBX 16-15.2 for CentOS 7



    After two months of development, we are pleased to announce the production-ready release of Incredible PBX 16-15 on the CentOS 7 platform with the latest Asterisk® 16 and FreePBX® 15 components. After years of frustrating upgrades, we are equally pleased to announce that those running Incredible PBX 13-13 can upgrade to the new Incredible PBX 16-15 platform with a handful of button clicks. And you’ll never miss a beat. What are you waiting for?

    In addition to the latest Asterisk 16 release, you also get the entire FreePBX 15 GPL module collection including their new User Control Panel (UCP) and a much enhanced web GUI plus the entire Incredible PBX feature set. As with Incredible PBX LITE, it’s plug-and-play with immediate calling capability using any of four commercial SIP providers. Or you can choose one of 16 other preconfigured SIP providers, enter your credentials, and enjoy instant connectivity without worrying about SIP settings. Last, but not least, you can easily turn your Incredible PBX 16-15 server into a secure public-facing PBX or interconnect a Raspberry Pi for traveling so that you never miss a call.

    What’s Included? Incredible PBX 16-15 serves up a VoIP powerhouse featuring Asterisk 16, the FreePBX 15 GPL platform including User Control Panel (UCP), an Apache web server, the latest MariaDB SQL server (formerly MySQL), SendMail, and the Incredible PBX feature set including SIP, SMS, Opus, voice recognition, PicoTTS Text-to-Speech VoIP applications plus fax support, Click-to-Dial, News, Weather, Reminders, ODBC, and hundreds of features that typically are found in commercial PBXs: Conferencing, IVRs and AutoAttendants, Email Delivery of Voicemails, and much more.

    Choosing a SIP Provider. Incredible PBX 16-15 comes preconfigured with support for five SIP extensions and four of the major SIP providers: Skyetel, VoIP.ms, V1VoIP, and Anveo Direct. We obviously hope you’ll choose Skyetel not only because they financially support Nerd Vittles and our open source projects, but also because it is a clearly superior platform offering crystal-clear communications and triple-redundancy so you never miss a call. Skyetel also sets itself apart from the other providers in the support department. They actually respond to issues, and there’s never a charge. As the old saying goes, they may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Even without taking advantage of Nerd Vittles half-price offer on up to $500 of Skyetel services, they’re still dirt cheap compared to the Bell Sisters and cable companies. Skyetel is so sure you’ll love their service that they give you a $10 credit to kick the tires before you ever spend a dime. Traditional DIDs are $1 per month. Outbound conversational calls are $0.012 per minute. Incoming conversational calls are a penny a minute, and CallerID lookups are $0.004. You only pay for minutes you use. Once you’re satisfied with the service and fund your account, you can port in your existing DIDs at no cost for 60 days after signup. In short, you have nothing to lose by trying out the Skyetel service. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.

    Choosing a Platform for Incredible PBX 16-15

    As with our other open source offerings, the platform choice for Incredible PBX 16-15 depends upon a number of factors. For most folks, you’d be crazy to go out and purchase hardware to use in your home or office when cloud-based platforms are available for about a dollar a month. Unless you plan to publicly expose your server on the Internet to facilitate remote SIP connections, the OpenVZ offerings below are perfectly adequate while in business with the cautionary note that you need off-site backups AND a tested backup plan. Three providers previously listed have closed their doors in 2019. You’ve been warned.

    ProviderRAMDiskBandwidthPerformance as of 12/1/19Cost
    CrownCloud KVM (LA)1GB20GB +
    Snapshot
    1TB/month598Mb/DN 281Mb/UP
    2CPU Core
    $25/year
    Best Buy!
    Naranjatech KVM (The Netherlands)1GB20GB1TB/monthHosting since 2005
    VAT: EU res.
    20€/year w/code:
    SBF2019
    BudgetNode KVM (LA)1GB40GB RAID101TB/monthAlso available in U.K PM @Ishaq on LET before payment$24/year
    FreeRangeCloud KVM (Ashburn VA, Winnipeg, Freemont CA)1GB20GB SSD3TB/monthPick EGG loc'n
    Open ticket for last 5GB SSD
    $30/year w/code:
    LEBEGG30

    Installing Incredible PBX 16-15 with CentOS 7

    9/21 ALERT UPDATE: A recent SolusVM update has broken systemd upon which Incredible PBX and Asterisk depend. SolusVM is the virtualizer used by many of the bargain-basement cloud providers. For the time being, these installs fail so you are cautioned to avoid any SolusVM-based cloud platform. Vultr, Digital Ocean, and OVH are your best bets at the moment. And Vultr and Digital Ocean both support Nerd Vittles through referral credits. We will post an update when the situation changes.

    If you’ve installed previous iterations of Incredible PBX, today’s drill is similar. Here is a thumbnail sketch of the install procedure for Incredible PBX 16-15. Begin by installing a minimal CentOS 7 (64-bit) platform or pick the CentOS 7 option with 1GB RAM and 20GB of storage from your cloud provider’s menu of choices. Then log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

    passwd
    yum -y update
    yum -y install net-tools nano wget tar
    wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx16-15.2.tar.gz
    tar zxvf incrediblepbx16-15.2.tar.gz
    rm -f incrediblepbx16-15.2.tar.gz
    # to add swap file on non-OpenVZ cloud platforms with no swap file
    ./create-swapfile-DO
    # kick off Phase I install
    ./IncrediblePBX16-15.sh
    # after reboot, kick off Phase II install
    ./IncrediblePBX16-15.sh
    # add HylaFax/AvantFax, if desired
    ./incrediblefax16.sh
    # set desired timezone
    ./timezone-setup
    # display your passwords
    ./show-passwords
    # remember to enable TUN/TAP if using VPS Control Panel with OpenVZ
    # reconfigure PortKnocker if installing on an OpenVZ platform
    echo 'OPTIONS="-i venet0:0"' >> /etc/sysconfig/knockd
    service knockd restart
    # set up NeoRouter VPN client, if desired
    nrclientcmd
    # check network speed
    wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest.py
    chmod +x speedtest-cli
    ./speedtest-cli
    

    WebMin is also installed and configured as part of the base install. The root password for access is the same as your Linux root password. We strongly recommend that you not use WebMin to make configuration changes to your server. You may inadvertently damage the operation of your PBX beyond repair. WebMin is an excellent tool to LOOK at how your server is configured. When used for that purpose, we highly recommend WebMin as a way to become familiar with your Linux configuration.

    Planning Ahead for That Rainy Day

    If you haven’t already learned the hard way, let us save you from a future shock. Hardware fails. All of it. So spend an extra hour now so that you’ll be prepared when (not if) disaster strikes. First, once you have your new PBX configured the way you plan to use it, make a backup of your PBX by running the Incredible Backup script: /root/incrediblebackup16

    Copy down the name of the backup file that was created. You’ll need it in a few minutes.

    Second, build yourself an identical VirtualBox platform on your desktop PC. It’s the same steps as outlined above.

    Next, create a /backup folder on your VirtualBox PBX and copy the backup file from your main server to your VirtualBox server and restore it after logging in to VirtualBox PBX as root:

    mkdir /backup
    scp root@main-pbx-ip-address:/backup/backup-file-name.tar.gz /backup/.
    /root/incrediblerestore16 /backup/backup-file-name.tar.gz
    

    Complaints that you "forgot" to make a backup and your hardware has failed or your provider has gone out of business are not welcomed. We’re sorry for your loss. Case closed.

    Completing the Incredible PBX Setup Procedure

    Unless your desktop PC and server are both on the same private LAN, the install procedure should be performed from a desktop PC using SSH or Putty. This will insure that your desktop PC is also whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Using the console to perform the install is NOT recommended as your desktop PC will not be whitelisted in the firewall. This may result in your not being able to log in to your server. Once you have network connectivity, log in to your server as root from a desktop PC using your root password. Accept the license agreement by pressing ENTER.

    Kick off the Phase I install. Once your server reboots and you log back in as root, start the Phase II install. All of your passwords will be randomly assigned with the exception of the root user Linux password. You can set it at any time by issuing the command: passwd. You also must set up an admin password to access the FreePBX web GUI with the command: /root/admin-pw-change. With the exception of your root user and FreePBX admin passwords, most of the remaining passwords can be displayed using the command: /root/show-passwords.

    Finally, if your PBX is sitting behind a NAT-based router, you’ll need to redirect incoming UDP 5060 and UDP 10000-20000 traffic to the private IP address of your PBX. This is required for all of the SIP providers included in the Incredible PBX 16-15 default build that don’t require a SIP registration. Otherwise, inbound calls will fail.

    Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 16-15

    If you’ve decided to go with Skyetel, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service and take advantage of the Nerd Vittles specials. First, complete the Prequalification Form here. You then will be provided a link to the Skyetel site to complete your registration. Once you have registered on the Skyetel site and your account has been activated, open a support ticket and request the $10 credit for your account by referencing the Nerd Vittles special offer. Once you are satisfied with the service, fund your account as desired, and Skyetel will match your deposit of up to $250 simply by opening another ticket. That gets you up to $500 of half-price calling. Credit is limited to one per person/company/address/location.

    Skyetel does not use SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel utilizes Endpoint Groups to identify which servers can communicate with the Skyetel service. An Endpoint Group consists of a Name, an IP address, a UDP or TCP port for the connection, and a numerical Priority for the group. For incoming calls destined to your PBX, DIDs are associated with an Endpoint Group to route the calls to your PBX. For outgoing calls from your PBX, a matching Endpoint Group is required to authorize outbound calls through the Skyetel network. Thus, the first step in configuring the Skyetel side for use with your PBX is to set up an Endpoint Group. Here’s a typical setup for Incredible PBX 16-15:

    • Name: MyPBX
    • Priority: 1
    • IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
    • Port: 5060
    • Protocol: UDP
    • Description: my.incrediblepbx.com

    To receive incoming PSTN calls, you’ll need at least one DID. On the Skyetel site, you acquire DIDs under the Phone Numbers tab. You have the option of Porting in Existing Numbers (free for the first 60 days after you sign up for service) or purchasing new ones under the Buy Phone Numbers menu option.

    Once you have acquired one or more DIDs, navigate to the Local Numbers or Toll Free Numbers tab and specify the desired SIP Format and Endpoint Group for each DID. Add SMS/MMS and E911 support, if desired. Call Forwarding and Failover are also supported. That completes the VoIP setup on the Skyetel side. System Status is always available here.

    Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 16-15

    To sign up for VoIP.ms service, may we suggest you use our signup link so that Nerd Vittles gets a referral credit for your signup. Once your account is set up, you’ll need to set up a SIP SubAccount and, for Authentication Type, choose Static IP Authentication and enter your Incredible PBX 16-15 server’s public IP address. For Transport, choose UDP. For Device Type, choose Asterisk, IP PBX, Gateway or VoIP Switch. Order a DID in their web panel, and then point the DID to the SubAccount you just created. Be sure to specify atlanta1.voip.ms as the POP from which to receive incoming calls.

    Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX 16-15

    To sign up for V1VoIP service, sign up on their web site. Then login to your account and order a DID under the DIDs tab. Once the DID has been assigned, choose View DIDs and click on the Forwarding button beside your DID. For Option #1, choose Forward to IP Address/PBX. For the Forwarding Address, enter the public IP address of your server. For the T/O (timeout) value, set it to 2o seconds. Then click the Update button. Under the Termination tab, create a new Endpoint with the public IP address of your server so that you can place outbound calls through V1VoIP.

    Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX 16-15

    To sign up for Anveo Direct service, sign up on their web site and then login. After adding funds to your account, purchase a DID under Inbound Service -> Order DID. Next, choose Configure Destination SIP Trunk. Give the Trunk a name. For the Primary SIP URI, enter $[E164]$@server-IP-address. For Call Options, select your new DID from the list. You also must whitelist your public IP address under Outbound Service -> Configure. Create a new Call Termination Trunk and name it to match your server. For Dialing Prefix, choose six alphanumeric characters beginning with a zero. In Authorized IP Addresses, enter the public IP address of your server. Set an appropriate rate cap. We like $0.01 per minute to be safe. Set a concurrent calls limit. We like 2. For the Call Routing Method, choose Least Cost unless you’re feeling extravagant. For Routes/Carriers, choose Standard Routes. Write down your Dialing Prefix and then click the Save button.

    Before you can make outbound calls through Anveo Direct from your PBX, you first must configure the Dialing Prefix that you wrote down in the previous step. Log into the GUI as admin using a web browser and edit the Anveo-Out trunk in Connectivity -> Trunks. Click on the custom-Settings tab and replace anveo-pin with your actual Dialing Prefix. Click Submit and Apply Config to complete the setup.

    By default, incoming Anveo Direct calls will be processed by the Default inbound route on your PBX. If you wish to redirect incoming Anveo Direct calls using DID-specific inbound routes, then you’ve got a bit more work to do. In addition to creating the inbound route using the 11-digit Anveo Direct DID, enter the following commands after logging into your server as root using SSH/Putty:

    cd /etc/asterisk
    echo "[from-anveo]" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,1,Ringing" >> extensions_custom.conf
    echo "exten => _.,n,Goto(from-trunk,\\${SIP_HEADER(X-anveo-e164)},1)" >> extensions_custom.conf
    asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
    

    Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 16-15

    We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

    We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.

    Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place some test calls to the numerous apps that are preconfigured on Incredible PBX. Dial a few of these to get started:

    DEMO - Apps Demo
    123 - Reminders
    947 - Weather by ZIP Code
    951 - Yahoo News
    TODAY - Today in History
    LENNY - The Telemarketer's Worst Nightmare
    

    If you are a Mac user, another great no-frills softphone is Telephone. Just download and install it from the Mac App Store. For Android users, check out the terrific new VitalPBX Communicator. Works flawlessly with Incredible PBX.

    Audio Issues with Incredible PBX 16-15

    If you experience one-way or no audio on some calls, add your external IP address and LAN subnet in the GUI by navigating to Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. In the NAT Settings section, click Detect Network Settings. Click Submit and Apply Settings to save your changes.

    Incredible PBX 16-15 Administration

    We’ve eased the pain of administering your new PBX with a collection of scripts which you will find in the /root folder after logging in with SSH or Putty. Here’s a quick summary of what each of the scripts does.

    add-fqdn is used to whitelist a fully-qualified domain name in the firewall. Because Incredible PBX 16-15 blocks all traffic from IP addresses that are not whitelisted, this is what you use to authorize an external user for your PBX. The advantage of an FQDN is that you can use a dynamic DNS service to automatically update the IP address associated with an FQDN so that you never lose connectivity.

    add-ip is used to whitelist a public IP address in the firewall. See the add-fqdn explanation as to why this matters.

    del-acct is used to remove an IP address or FQDN from the firewall’s whitelist.

    admin-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to the FreePBX/Incredible PBX web GUI using a browser pointed to the local IP address of your server.

    apache-pw-change is used to set the admin password for access to Apache/Incredible PBX apps including AsteriDex and Reminders. This provides a password layer of protection for access to these applications.

    reset-conference-pins is a script that automatically and randomly resets the user and admin pins for access to the preconfigured conferencing application. Dial C-O-N-F from any registered SIP phone to connect to the conference.

    reset-extension-passwords is a script that automatically and randomly resets ALL of the SIP passwords for extensions 701-705. Be careful using this one, or you may disable existing registered phones and cause Fail2Ban to blacklist the IP addresses of those users. HINT: You can place a call to the Ring Group associated with all five extensions by dialing 777.

    reset-reminders-pin is a script that automatically and randomly resets the pin required to access the Telephone Reminders application by dialing 123. It’s important to protect this application because a nefarious user could set up a reminder to call a number anywhere in the world assuming your SIP provider’s account was configured to allow such calls.

    show-feature-codes is a cheat sheet for all of the feature codes which can be dialed from any registered SIP phone. It documents how powerful a platform Incredible PBX 16-15 actually is. A similar listing is available in the GUI at Admin -> Feature Codes.

    show-passwords is a script that displays most of the passwords associated with Incredible PBX 16-15. This includes SIP extension passwords, voicemail pins, conference pins, telephone reminders pin, and your Anveo Direct outbound calling pin (if configured). Note that voicemail pins are configured by the user of a SIP extension the first time the user accesses the voicemail system by dialing *97.

    update-IncrediblePBX is the Automatic Update Utility which checks for server updates from incrediblepbx.com every time you log into your server as root using SSH or Putty. Do NOT disable it as it is used to load important fixes and security updates when necessary. We recommend logging into your server at least once a week.

    pbxstatus (shown above) displays status of all major components of Incredible PBX 16-15.

    Forwarding Calls to Your Cellphone. Keep in mind that inbound calls to your DIDs automatically ring all five SIP extensions, 701-705. The easiest way to also ring your cellphone is to set one of these five extensions to forward incoming calls to your cellphone. After logging into your PBX as root, issue the following command to forward calls from extension 705 to your cellphone: asterisk -rx "database put CF 705 6781234567"

    To remove call forwarding: asterisk -rx "database del CF 705"

    Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX 16-15

    In order to receive voicemails by email delivery, outbound mail functionality from your server obviously is required. If you’ve deployed your server in your home, your Internet Service Provider probably blocks downstream mail servers such as Incredible PBX from sending mail. This is done to reduce SPAM. In this case, you will need to configure SendMail using either your ISP or Gmail as an SMTP Relay Host. Here are the steps using a Gmail account:

    cd /etc/mail
    yum -y install sendmail-cf
    hostname -f > genericsdomain
    touch genericstable
    cd /usr/bin
    rm -f makemap
    ln -s ../sbin/makemap.sendmail makemap
    cd /etc/mail
    makemap -r hash genericstable.db < genericstable
    mv sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.original
    wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmail.mc.gmail
    cp sendmail.mc.gmail sendmail.mc
    mkdir -p auth
    chmod 700 auth
    cd auth
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" > client-info
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:587 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info
    echo AuthInfo:smtp.gmail.com:465 \\"U:smmsp\\" \\"I:user_id\\" \\"P:password\\" \\"M:PLAIN\\" >> client-info
    # Stop here and edit client-info (nano -w client-info) in all three lines.
    # Replace  user_id with your gMail account name without @gmail.com
    # Replace password with your real gMail password OR
    #  use your Gmail App Key if 2-step verification is enabled
    # Be sure to replace the double-quotes shown above if they don't appear in the file!!!
    # Save your changes (Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter)
    chmod 600 client-info
    makemap -r hash client-info.db < client-info
    cd ..
    make
    systemctl restart sendmail
    

    If your server is hosted in the cloud and your provider does not block TCP port 25, then you can send mail without using a SmartHost; however, your server's hostname must actually be real or downstream mail servers will reject your mail. You can set your server's hostname like this: hostname myserver.myhost.com. This is usually sufficient; however, it's a good idea to also add the hostname in /etc/hostname and in /etc/hosts as the first entry on 127.0.0.1 line:

    127.0.0.1   myserver.myhost.com pbx.local localhost localhost.localdomain
    

    Next, test outbound mail using this command with your actual email address:

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

    Once you are sure your emails are being delivered reliably, here's a sample GUI voicemail configuration for an extension:



    Getting Started with Incredible Fax 16

    Believe it or not, there still are lots of folks that use faxes in their everyday lives. If you're one of them, Incredible PBX has your back. Begin by logging into your server as root and running incrediblefax16.sh to install HylaFax and AvantFax on your server. You'll be prompted a dozen or more times for information. Answer no to the secure fax question. For the rest of the prompts, just press ENTER to accept the default entries. Rebooting your server is required when the install finishes. Once your server is back on line, there will be a new AvantFax tab in the GUI. Before proceeding, be sure to set an Apache web apps password by running /root/apache-pw-change. Next, login to AvantFax with your browser. You first will be prompted for your Apache credentials. Enter admin for the username and whatever password you set up in the previous step. Then you will be prompted for your AvantFax credentials. The default is admin:password. After you enter the username and password, you will be prompted to change your admin password. The old password is still password. Then enter your desired password twice and save the setting. The AvantFax dashboard then will display. If nothing has come unglued, you should see four green Idle icons:



    You can Send Faxes from within AvantFax by choosing the Send Fax tab, or you can use one of many HylaFax clients. Google is your friend.

    Receiving faxes currently has issues not the least of which are fax detection being broken and incoming faxes never reaching the specified destination. We will continue to work on this and provide updates when they become available. For the time being, the simple workaround if you're using Skyetel as your provider is to designate a DID as a fax line (Call Routing: vFax) in the Skyetel Dashboard. Then Skyetel will manage the incoming faxes without any additional configuration on your PBX. You still can send faxes from within the AvantFax GUI.

    Getting Started with ODBC for Asterisk

    If you're new to the ODBC World, here's a quick primer. The idea behind Open Data Base Connectivity is to simplify the task of connecting up any flavor database management system so that it can talk to applications and foreign databases without having to write custom code to support every different DBMS. ODBC serves in much the same way as a translator who sits between you and foreign visitors. With the benefit of a translator, whatever is spoken is understood on both ends of the conversation. The real beauty of ODBC is that it is conversant with almost every DBMS offering on the planet including Oracle, Informix, SAS, MS Access, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and even dBase, FoxPro, and XDB. All you really need is the ODBC connector for your operating system plus one or more database drivers for the DBMS data sources you wish to use.

    Because the FreePBX modules are driven by MySQL tables, we've included the MySQL connector for Asterisk in Incredible PBX 16-15 together with two sample applications to get you started. If you add your own MySQL databases, it's easy to connect them with ODBC by simply running the odbc-gen.sh script in /root again. The two sample applications we've included will show you how to integrate ODBC queries into your Asterisk dialplan. The code is available in odbc.conf in the /etc/asterisk folder. The first sample is a typical employee database. By dialing 222, you will be prompted to enter the employee number (12345), and the ODBC app then will look up the employee number and read you the name of the employee. The second sample is a speed dialer using the AsteriDex database. The sample entries in the database include a 3-numeric-digit DIALCODE which simply matches the first three letters of each AsteriDex name spelled out on a phone, e.g. 335 = DELta Airlines and 263 = AMErican Airlines. As you add new entries to AsteriDex, you can add dialcodes in the same way or in any other scheme you prefer. Once you have signed up with a provider so that you can make outbound calls, just dial 223 and enter the AsteriDex dialcode to place the call. Think of it as a Speed Dialer on Steroids.

    Beginning the Incredible PBX 13-13 Migration

    For anyone that's been involved with Asterisk and FreePBX, you already know what a pain it was to move from one release to another. It's still not quite automatic, but it's damn close. You can't perform an in-place migration to move from Asterisk 13 and FreePBX 13 to Asterisk 16 with FreePBX 15. So you'll need to first bring up an Incredible PBX 16-15.2 platform as documented above. It must be separate and apart from your already functioning Incredible PBX 13-13.10 server. Once you've done that, use add-ip to whitelist the IP address of your 13-13 server on the 16-15 PBX and whitelist the IP address of your 16-15 server on the 13-13 PBX. This will make it easy to copy files between the two servers.

    In addition to the whitelisting procedure above, there are three more steps to complete on the Incredible PBX 13-13 server. First, you'll need to update the backup module:

    cd /root
    ./gpl-install-fpbx backup
    

    Next, login to the GUI as admin using a browser and make a backup of your FreePBX components. Access Admin -> Backup & Restore and click Backup Wizard. Give the backup a name and description: incrediblepbx. Choose to run the backup Monthly. Choose Yes for voicemails, recordings, and CDR data. Choose Email Notifications and enter your email address. For Remote Save, choose No. Your backup will be saved locally in /var/spool/asterisk/backup/incrediblepbx. Click Finish.

    Click the Pencil icon under incrediblepbx Actions to edit the files to be backed up. Using the + icon, make your Items list look like the following:

    Click Save & Run button when you've made the necessary changes to kick off the backup. Unless you want monthly backups, you can click the trashcan icon under incrediblepbx Actions to remove the task we just created once the backup completes.

    Copy the backup file from /var/spool/asterisk/backup/incrediblepbx to your desktop PC.

    Restoring Your Data to Incredible PBX 16-15

    Now let's continue on the Incredible PBX 16-15.2 server. Login to the GUI as admin using your favorite browser. From the FreePBX Dashboard, choose Admin -> Backup & Restore. Click the Restore tab. Click on Upload a Backup File and choose the backup file from your desktop. Once the backup is loaded, click Restore with CDR Data button to begin. When the whirring stops, there may be an error message. Just ignore it. Return to the Dashboard. Clear the warning about Bind Ports. It's incorrect. Your setup was copied correctly with chan_SIP on UDP 5060 and PJsip on UDP 5061 (unless you changed them). You now can use your browser to review your setup and verify that your 13-13 data came over correctly. Finally, verify that voicemail settings for your extensions got properly configured, and you should be good to go with Incredible PBX 16-15. Enjoy!

    Where To Go From Here

    Complete documentation on the FreePBX GPL Modules is available here.

    Complete documentation on the Incredible PBX additions is available here.

    An introduction to configuring extensions, trunks, and routes is available here.

    Originally published: Monday, September 16, 2019



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


     

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

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

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

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

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



    Mastering the Incredible PBX 16-15 Feature Set with Raspbian



    This week we’ll finish up our introduction of Incredible PBX® 16-15 for the Raspberry Pi with a quick look at some of the additional features that are offered on this new platform and that were not covered in our first and second articles. These include text-to-speech apps for news, weather, and today in history as well as the sample ODBC apps for speed dialing and employee data base lookups. We’ll also walk you through the conferencing setup and document the easiest way to deploy an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system or a Stealth AutoAttendant with or without Direct Inward System Access (DISA) which provides a way to call into your PBX from anywhere and obtain dial tone to make calls or access features just as if you were using a local phone connected to your PBX. We’ll finish up with a review of the Incredible PBX security model: Travelin’ Man 3 IPtables firewall, Fail2Ban, and PortKnocker.

    Introduction to Incredible PBX TTS Apps

    Text-to-Speech (TTS) applications are included in Incredible PBX for two reasons. First, they provide useful information by phone. Second, they document the procedure required to build your own TTS applications using Asterisk®. That process typically includes a dialplan code addition to /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf plus a PHP/AGI script which must be stored in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin. The actual interaction with the caller is handled in the dialplan code using a TTS engine to convert the text results of the PHP/AGI query into audio suitable for playback over the telephone. The (free) PicoTTS engine is included in the Incredible PBX image for the Raspberry Pi. The commercial IBM TTS engine is also available.

    The job of the dialplan code is to answer the incoming call and prompt the caller for any necessary information that needs to be passed to the PHP/AGI script to obtain the information sought by the caller. For example, with the Weather by ZIP code app, the caller dials Z-I-P (947) and the dial plan code prompts the caller for the ZIP code of the desired weather report. This ZIP code is then passed to the nv-weather-zip.php AGI script to retrieve the requested weather forecast. The text results of the query then are passed back to the dialplan code which plays back the results to the caller using the PicoTTS engine.

    Three sample TTS applications are included. Dial 951 for the latest Yahoo News headlines. Dial 947 to obtain a weather report for any American city using its ZIP code. Dial T-O-D-A-Y to listen to Today in History events for the current day of the year.

    Introduction to Incredible PBX ODBC Apps

    As with TTS apps, sample ODBC apps are included in Incredible PBX to provide useful information to callers and to document the procedure required to build your own ODBC applications with Asterisk. For those unfamiliar with ODBC, it is a middleware component that lets you build generic database applications that will work with almost any data base management system. In our case, we are using the MySQL clone, MariDB, as the backend database. But the same ODBC API could be used with a database stored in SQLite, or SQL Server, or PostgreSQL. To interact with your own database, the first step is to install an ODBC connector for your particular database so that it can "talk" to Linux and to Asterisk. On the Linux side, take a look at /etc/odbc.ini for examples of how this is done for individual databases. If you’re using a backend database other than MySQL/MariaDB, then the driver must be installed and added to /etc/odbcinst.ini. On the Asterisk side, there are three pieces that need to be put in place in /etc/asterisk. res_odbc_custom.conf houses the actual linkages to the ODBC databases defined in /etc/odbc.ini. func_odbc.conf houses the actual ODBC queries that will be used to read and write information from and to your databases. Finally, odbc.conf contains the dialplan code that will be used to interact with the caller. It answers the incoming calls, prompts the caller for necessary data to complete the query, executes the query defined in func_odbc.conf, and then converts the text results to audio and passes the results back to the caller using the PicoTTS app.

    Two sample ODBC applications are included. Dial 222 to obtain an employee name lookup from the employee timeclock database by entering the employee number, e.g. 12345. Dial 223 for a speed dial application using the AsteriDex dialcode (the first 3 letters of a name). For example, enter D-E-L to obtain phone number of Delta Airlines and optionally place the call.

    Introduction to Incredible PBX Conference Bridge

    The Incredible PBX platform includes a preconfigured conference application which makes it easy for two or more parties to confer regarding any subject matter of common interest. Those with a local extension on the PBX can join the conference by dialing C-O-N-F (2663). For callers outside the PBX to participate, you would need to add a DID that points to the conference number. We’ve made it easy by including this option in the sample IVR created by Allison Smith. Simply designate the IVR as the destination for a DID and tell users to choose option 2. Local users can call D-E-M-O (3366) and choose option 2.

    Before using the conference application, you will want to reset the conference passwords. There’s one for users and a second one for the conference leader. After logging into your server as root, issue the command: ./reset-conference-pins. You can display most of the passwords on your PBX including the conference PINs: ./show-passwords.

    The conference bridge setup is configured in the GUI: Applications -> Conferences. Here you can decide whether to require the conference administrator to be present before users can join the conference, you can force termination of the conference when the admin leaves, you can enable the menus for users and administrators by pressing *, you can choose whether to record the conference, you can set the maximum number of conference participants, and much more. Simply click on the ? icons for explanations of the various features. CAUTION: Be advised that saving new settings for the conference bridge will reset the conference PINs to the entries shown or entered into the template, e.g. 1234 and 4321 as shown above!

    Configuring Incredible PBX IVRs and AutoAttendants

    We’ve included a sample IVR and the Stealth AutoAttendant as part of the Incredible PBX install. The easiest way to master the process of building these is to examine the included samples and try them out: Applications -> IVR -> DemoIVR. The demo IVR comes with all the options preconfigured. Be very careful exposing this through a DID unless you have hardened the passwords, especially for the Telephone Reminders app since this application allows any caller to set up calls to external phone numbers which may cost you money!

    The IVR options themselves are self-explanatory and well-documented under the ? icon. The IVR Entries at the bottom of the template define the destinations for caller button presses during a call. The Stealth AutoAttendant is worth examining further since it does not include predefined destinations. You would need to add these yourself. The idea behind a Stealth AutoAttendant is to provide options to a caller which are not explained when the AutoAttendant answers the call. In this way, it allows you to "hide" certain features of your PBX from the average caller. While standing alone, it’s obviously not secure since anyone can press a number on their phone after being connected, it does at least obscure the existence of the options. One good use for this is a DISA option which would let you call into your PBX to obtain dialtone to perform other functions on the PBX with an appropriate password, of course. This is documented in the next section and would need to be set up BEFORE adding the option as a choice on the AutoAttendant.

    Configuring DISA with Incredible PBX

    Before setting up a DISA option with Incredible PBX, be aware of the risks. Anyone that guesses your DISA password basically gets a blank check to perform any function that could be executed from any phone registered to your PBX. If you’ve decided to proceed anyway, access the GUI and choose Applications -> DISA -> Add DISA. Here’s what a typical DISA setup would look like. You’d obviously want a much more secure PIN!

    Once you have saved the template and reloaded your dialplan, you then can add DISA as an option in your IVR or AutoAttendant. Be sure to test it carefully before exposing it for public access. You’ve been warned!

    Incredible PBX Security Model Overview

    Unlike most other free PBX offerings, Incredible PBX is always deployed as a secure platform. Attempts to access Incredible PBX from outside your local area network will fail unless the IP address has been whitelisted in the IPtables firewall using one of the Travelin’ Man 3 utilities: add-ip or add-fqdn. Repeated attempts to access the PBX will be blocked by Fail2Ban and subsequent attempts to whitelist a blocked IP address will not be successful until the Fail2Ban quarantine expires. Thus, it is important to set up Incredible PBX initially using a desktop PC from which you will subsequently manage the PBX. This assures that at least this desktop PC’s IP address is whitelisted.

    To whitelist a static IP address, log into your server as root and issue the following command: ./add-ip my-log-cabin 12.34.56.78 where my-log-cabin is the descriptive name you wish to associate with the whitelisted IP address and 12.34.56.78 is the actual IP address.

    Obviously, everyone doesn’t have a static IP address. That’s what the add-fqdn utility is for. It allows you to use a dynamic DNS service to assign an FQDN to a dynamic IP address and rely upon the dynamic IP address provider to keep the FQDN synchronized as the IP address changes. Search your favorite search engine, search for "free dynamic dns raspberry pi" to find available providers. On the Incredible PBX, the setup is much the same except you’ll use the FQDN assigned to the IP address: ./add-fqdn my-log-cabin logcabin.myip.com. Incredible PBX actually runs a script every 10 minutes to keep dynamic IP addresses synchronized. Don’t make any changes to /root/ipchecker. If you’d prefer to have the script run more frequently, adjust the 10 entry in the ipchecker line in /etc/crontab.

    Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes the PortKnocker utility which provides an emergency "back door" into your PBX if you ever find yourself locked out by the firewall rules. The idea behind PortKnocker is that you send a packet to three random, pre-defined ports in a particular sequence and, if there’s a match, PortKnocker whitelists your IP address for further access to the server until the firewall is restarted or the server is rebooted. You’ll find your credentials and documentation in /root/knock.FAQ. If your PBX is sitting behind a hardware-based router or firewall, be sure to map the three TCP ports to the LAN IP address of your PBX. Enjoy!

    Originally published: Wednesday, August 28, 2019



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


     

    Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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