asterisk – Page 13 – Nerd Vittles

Clearly Anywhere: The Ultimate Mobile User VoIP Companion

Monday, September 21, 2020 / 3 Comments on Clearly Anywhere: The Ultimate Mobile User VoIP Companion

The wait is over! If you like sliced bread, then today’s your lucky day to enjoy the next best thing. Perhaps the single most important component in the VoIP toolbox for any PBX deployment that includes mobile users is a softphone for Android and iOS devices. We began this month with a tip for users of a limited number of Android smartphones. And we have previously written about Linphone and Zoiper and Telephone. We’ve also sung the praises of earlier releases of Google’s Pixel smartphone which makes a perfect VoIP companion even without a cellphone provider. Today we’re pleased to introduce Clearly Anywhere for Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC platforms that checks all the boxes: security, reliability, flexibility, feature set, emergencies, and a very reasonable price that covers unlimited devices per user extension. Downloading Clearly Anywhere onto your smartphone from the App Store or Google Play, setup is instantaneous using Clearly Anywhere’s native QR code activation.

Security: SIP credentials need not be shared with the Softphone provider
Reliability: Incoming calls arrive via Push Notifications whether app is running or not
Flexibility: With PJsip, multiple iOS & Android devices can share the same extension
Feature Set: SMS, BLFs, recording, video calls, DND per phone with Custom Scheduling
Emergencies: Easily reroute 911 calls to the cell carrier for reliable location identification
Intro Price: Through October 31: $9.99 per user per year with grandfathered rate lock

Clearly Anywhere Setup on Incredible PBX 2020

Before you deploy Clearly Anywhere on your smartphones, you first must set things up on the PBX side. Here’s how the process works. First, you will need to deploy the PUBLIC version of Incredible PBX 2020. This will reconfigure the IPtables firewall to support Clearly Anywhere. It requires assignment of a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) for your server. The FreePBX® Clearly Anywhere module is licensed on a per PBX basis. In order to activate the FreePBX module, you’ll next need to purchase one or more user licenses from our Incredible PBX Store. As part of the purchase process, you’ll be prompted to provide the FQDN of your Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server plus the TCP port that Clearly Anywhere clients will use to communicate with your PBX. By default, that port is TCP 2267. We will whitelist TCP port 2267 (or a port of your choice) as part of this setup process. Finally, you will be provided a Registration Token to activate the Clearly Anywhere module when you first run it in FreePBX. Then you simply activate the Clearly Anywhere client for the extensions corresponding to the number of licenses you have purchased.

1. Let’s begin by installing the Clearly Anywhere module for FreePBX. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands from the CLI. NOTE: After this initial install, future updates to the Clearly Anywhere module will be handled in the traditional way using the Module Admin utility in FreePBX.

fwconsole ma downloadinstall http://incrediblepbx.com/clearlysp-14.0.2.tgz
fwconsole reload
/root/sig-fix
/root/sig-fix

2. Purchase one or more client licenses from the Incredible PBX Store. Keep in mind that, if multiple users will be sharing access the same extension, you only need a single license for each extension. And, if you will be setting up multiple smartphones using the same extension on your PBX, that only requires a single license as well.

3. When prompted, provide the FQDN of your server as well as the TCP port that will be used by Clearly Anywhere clients to communicate with your PBX. Default is TCP 2267. To avoid service interruptions, we strongly recommend against using a dynamic IP address for your server. Even with a dynamic DNS utility, there will be times when your Clearly Anywhere clients cannot reach the PBX unless it has a static, public IP address. If you need a cloud-based solution, the $25/year offering from Crown Cloud has no equal.

4. Decipher the Registration Token from the Clearly IP email confirmation.

5. Using a web browser, access the FreePBX GUI using your admin credentials. Navigate to Settings -> Clearly Anywhere. Enter your Registration Token at the prompt. Your Clearly Anywhere configuration will display. NOTE: If you purchase additional client licenses down the road, revisit this page and click Refresh to update your license count.

6. Next, you need to activate Clearly Anywhere for each PJsip extension that will be used with the softphone clients. Each additional extension requires a separate Clearly Anywhere license. Navigate to Admin -> User Management and then Edit the desired Username. Click on the Clearly Anywhere tab and set Enable Softphone to ENABLE. If you previously have subscribed to Incredible SIP Trunking in our ClearlyIP Store, then you also have the option of enabling SMS Messaging on any of the DIDs assigned to your account. As the video above explains, this SMS messaging carries across all of the Clearly Anywhere clients as well as the UCP connected to this same extension on your PBX. IMPORTANT: In PJsip Advanced settings, remember to increase the Max Contacts entry by two for each softphone that will be connecting to the PJsip extension.

7. Whitelist TCP 2267 assigned for Clearly Anywhere API client connections to your server:

cd /etc/sysconfig
sed -i 's/10000:20000 -j ACCEPT/&\\n-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 2267 -j ACCEPT/' iptables
iptables-restart

Clearly Anywhere Setup on Smartphones

The setup process on the smartphone side is simple. Begin by downloading the Clearly Anywhere app from either the App Store or Google Play for your device. Once the client softphone is installed, run the app. You will be prompted for the UCP user credentials and FQDN of your PBX. You can manually enter these, or you can access the User Control Panel (UCP) for the desired user/extension and activate the QR code Provisioning widget for the account. Then, instead of entering the credentials manually on every softphone, you can choose the QR code option and simply point your smartphone at the QR code displayed in UCP. Connections are virtually instantaneous.NOTE: The beauty of this design is SIP credentials need not be shared with the provider.¹ While UCP accounts, by default, are created using the extension numbers to which they are associated, these usernames can be changed to anything you like. So, for the 701 extension, if you want to change the UCP login name in your extension settings to BettyBoop, that’s perfectly okay.

Once connected, click on the Settings icon in Clearly Anywhere. Verify that Push Notifications are enabled for Incoming Calls. In the Preferences tab, set a Ring Tone for incoming calls and decide whether to record calls. The Network preference by default will choose WiFi and then Cellular with automatic roll-over when needed. If you want 911 calls routed through your cell carrier instead of through your PBX, choose Number Rewriting, click +. For Conditions, choose Equals 911. For Actions, choose Override Dial Action and select gsmCall. Click Done.

You’re now a Clearly Anywhere Expert. We hope you enjoy using the Ultimate Softphone with Incredible PBX 2020.

Originally published: Monday, September 21, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

If you activate Push Notifications, SIP credentials must be stored on the SIPIS server in order to reregister your softphone with your PBX when incoming calls arrive. This is an Asterisk and PJsip limitation. [↩]

SPAM Blocker & CNAM Cornucopia for Incredible PBX 2020

Monday, September 14, 2020

If you enjoy calls from politicians and car warranty offers as much as we do, then today’s your lucky day. Blocking spam phone calls has been a challenge to put it charitably. Thanks to some earlier work by Stewart Nelson on the DSLR forum as well as Stewart’s considerable hand-holding in the development of our previous tutorials, we want to introduce a refined call screening approach to block these calls. The way it works is first time callers that are not on your WhiteList will be prompted to "press 5 to connect." Since most spam calls sit in a queue for several seconds before a live person chimes in, that person won’t hear the prompt. After 10 seconds or an invalid response, the call is sent to voicemail. In the alternative, you can play a SIT tone and disconnect the call or you can send the call to your favorite uncle, Lenny. When a successful caller calls again, the caller will be connected without a prompt.¹

While today’s approach won’t block every robocaller, our testing suggests that it will catch more than 95% of these annoying calls. Using CallerID Superfecta coupled with the Asterisk® Phanebook will provide an extremely low-cost solution both for blocking spammers AND for displaying accurate CNAM data for incoming calls. The silver lining is you’ll only pay for CNAM lookups from legitimate callers once, and you have a choice of using OpenCNAM or BulkCNAM with the scripts we’ll provide today. Last, but not least, you’ll also get CNAM data for outgoing calls in your CDR logs.

Here’s the actual dialplan addition that will monitor your incoming calls:

[sub-log-caller]
exten => s,1,NoOp(*** begin sub-log-caller ***)
exten => s,n,GotoIf(${DB_EXISTS(cidname/${CALLERID(num)})}?CNAMOK)
exten => s,n,Playback(silence/1)
exten => s,n,Playback(to-call-num-press)
exten => s,n,Playback(digits/5)
exten => s,n,Read(MYCODE,beep,1,n,1,10)
exten => s,n,GotoIf($["${MYCODE}" = "5"]?ANONTEST)
exten => s,n(FLUNKED),NoOp(*** Caller FLUNKED screening ***)
;exten => s,n,Dial(local/*701@from-internal) ; uncomment to send to 701 VM
exten => s,n,Dial(local/53669@from-internal) ; uncomment to send to Lenny
exten => s,n,Zapateller()
exten => s,n,Hangup
exten => s,n,Return()
exten => s,n(CNAMOK),Set(CALLERID(name)=${DB(cidname/${CALLERID(number)})})
exten => s,n,Goto(WHITELISTED)
exten => s,n(ANONTEST),GotoIf($[${CALLERID(num)} > 0]?WHITELISTNOW:CONNECTNOW) 
exten => s,n(WHITELISTNOW),Set(DB(cidname/${CALLERID(number)})=${CALLERID(name)})
exten => s,n,Set(CALLERID(all)="${CALLERID(name)} <${CALLERID(number)}>")
exten => s,n,Goto(SENDEMAIL)
exten => s,n(WHITELISTED),Set(CALLERID(all)="${CALLERID(name)} <${CALLERID(number)}>")
exten => s,n,Goto(CONNECTNOW)
exten => s,n(SENDEMAIL),NoOp(WhiteListed: ${CALLERID(all)})
exten => s,n,Set(email="root")
exten => s,n,GotoIf($[${email} = "root"]?CONNECTNOW)
exten => s,n,system(echo "In Asterisk Phone Book, verify new CNAM entry of ${CALLERID(name)} for ${CALLERID(number)}." | /usr/bin/mail -s "Incredible PBX CNAM Reminder" ${email})
exten => s,n(CONNECTNOW),NoOp(*** end of sub-log-caller ***)
exten => s,n,Return()
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The beauty of today’s design is that it won’t interfere with your existing call processing rules. In other words, FreePBX® Inbound Routes sent to IVRs, Ring Groups, Conferences, and even incoming Faxes still will be processed exactly as they have been in the past once the CallerID number makes it onto your WhiteList. In order to preserve all of this existing functionality, we’ve tweaked the FreePBX Core module slightly, but it will be transparent going forward. The only caveat is that whenever you upgrade the Core module, you’ll always need to run the /root/sig-fix script to reimplement this new call screening process and to disable Module Signature Checking which has always been an integral part of Incredible PBX.

We first introduced some of these concepts in our previous article in 2018. That article also documented the procedure for adding inbound call processing logic into FreePBX. If you already have implemented the steps outlined in that article, then today’s installer will back up your prior version and overwrite it with this new, improved release.

Here are the basic steps to get this working:

Configuring CallerID Superfecta in FreePBX
Enabling CallerID Superfecta on Inbound Routes
Setting the Proper Context for Your Trunks
Downloading & Installing Call Screener
Importing Previous Callers into WhiteList

1. Configuring CallerID Superfecta in FreePBX

CallerID Superfecta is an integral component in today’s new call screening design. It will be used both to populate the Asterisk Phonebook’s WhiteList and to provide CallerID Name (CNAM) data about your callers while assuring that you only pay for one CNAM query even though grandma may call you a dozen times a day. We use the Asterisk Phonebook as the whitelist of authorized callers. The way CallerID Superfecta works is it checks multiple sources for a match on the incoming CallerID Number. As soon as a match is found, the checking ends and the CallerID Number and Name are passed to our Call Screening script.

The CallerID Superfecta lookup sequence needs to be set as follows in the United States: AsteriDex, Asterisk Phonebook, and then one of the following commercial CNAM lookup services: OpenCNAM or BulkCNAM. In other countries, there still may be free CNAM services, but they’ve all disappeared in the U.S. market. We’ve documented the other available sources in a previous Nerd Vittles article.

Low-volume OpenCNAM Value pricing provides global lookups for $0.0028 each. BulkCNAM provides CNAM queries with RoboCall identification for $0.002 per query. If you sign up with OpenCNAM, you will need your Account SID and Auth Token to configure CallerID Superfecta and to populate our Call Screening script. If you sign up with BulkVS, you will need your API Key from the API Credentials tab in your BulkVS Dashboard.

With your credentials in hand, login into FreePBX as admin and navigate to Admin -> CID Superfecta -> Default. Arrange and enable the lookup sources in the following order: AsteriDex, Asterisk Phonebook, and then either OpenCNAM or BulkCNAM (in the U.S. market) or your country’s best CNAM lookup source. Be sure to enter your credentials for the CNAM provider by clicking on the wrench icon beside the provider. If your incoming trunks already provide CNAM lookups (such as BulkVS and Incredible PBX Trunking), then you can substitute Trunk Provided as your CNAM lookup service. With Incredible PBX Trunking, in addition to free CNAM lookups, you also get SPAM detection at no additional cost. For details on the service, follow this link. Then we typically set Telco Data as the last lookup source which will at least give you the city and state of the caller.

2. Enabling CallerID Superfecta on Inbound Routes

By default, CallerID Superfecta is not enabled for incoming calls to your PBX. You must enable it on every Inbound Route by navigating to Connectivity -> Inbound Routes and then editing each of your routes. Then click on the Other tab and set Enable Superfecta Lookup to YES and set the Superfecta Scheme to DEFAULT. Click SUBMIT to save your route settings and then reload the dialplan when prompted.

3. Setting the Proper Context for Your Trunks

It’s equally important to make certain that the CallerID Numbers for all of your incoming calls arrive in the same format. Computers are stupid. 8005551212 and 18005551212 and +18005551212 are completely different callers as far as your PBX is concerned. If different trunks deliver calls with CallerID Numbers formatted differently, then you would need to whitelist ALL of the various permutations for every caller in the Asterisk Phonebook. For those in the U.S. and Canada that primarily receive calls from the U.S. and Canada, we recommend setting the context entry in every trunk to from-pstn-e164-us. This will handle the translation of all 3 number formats above into 10-digit numbers. Calls from other countries will not be affected.

4. Downloading & Installing Call Screener

Now let’s put all the Call Screener components in place and configure the screening setup to meet your own requirements. To get started, log into Incredible PBX as root and issue the following commands:

mkdir /tmp/CALL-SCREENER
cd /tmp/CALL-SCREENER
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/CallScreener.tar.gz
tar zxvf CallScreener.tar.gz
rm -f CallScreener.tar.gz
./install

Once the install is begun, the editor will open to the dialplan code. In the [sub-log-caller] context, you have a few options. First, you need to choose how to handle incoming calls where the caller does not enter the "press 5″ number prompt in a timely manner. The default setup (line 9) sends these callers to voicemail for extension 701. You can change the voicemail extension, or you can elect to treat the calls differently. We’ve provided two additional options. Line 10 will send the calls to Lenny at extension 53669. Line 11 will send the calls to Zapateller which is the universal tone for numbers that are not in service. You should enable only one of these three options and comment out the other two by placing a semicolon (;) at the start of the other two lines. If you have fax detection enabled on your PBX, you probably would not want to send failed calls to either Lenny or Zapateller since you may never know the incoming faxes failed. Similarly, if you get calls from people with rotary dial phones such as Grandma, you probably don’t want her talking to Lenny or listening to Zapateller tones.

The next option is which number to prompt callers to press. The default is 5. But you can change it by modifying the existing 5 entry on BOTH lines 5 and 7.

The final option in the [sub-log-caller] context is to activate email notifications for new callers that pass the screening test. This is especially important if you receive lots of calls from cellphone users. Most of those calls will arrive with a CNAM entry of nothing more than the caller’s City and State. Activating an email reminder will notify you to update the Asterisk Phonebook entry for such callers to replace the City, State entry with the caller’s actual name so that your CDR listings and future calls provide accurate CNAM information for the caller. To activate email reminders, replace root in Set(email="root") line with your actual email.

The [macro-dialout-trunk-predial-hook] context handles populating the Asterisk Phonebook WhiteList for outbound calls you make to people that are not yet in your Asterisk Phonebook. These numbers will automatically be added to your whitelist, but you also have the option of adding CNAM entries for these outbound calls using either OpenCNAM or BulkCNAM for outbound calls to numbers that are not yet in your Asterisk Phonebook. To activate CNAM lookups, simply uncomment either line 4 or 5 in the context. For the service you have activated, remember to also enter your Account SID and Auth Token in the case of OpenCNAM or your API Key in the case of BulkCNAM. If you leave both lines commented out which is the default, the callee’s phone number will be entered as both the CNAM and CNUM entry in the Asterisk Phonebook.

Once you have made all the changes desired, save the template by pressing Ctl-X, then Y, then ENTER. The installer then will complete installation of the Call Screener components.

5. Importing Previous Callers into WhiteList

We appreciate that you may not want to aggravate callers that have been calling you for years by making them jump through hoops the next time they call. So here’s a quick way to populate your Asterisk Phonebook with the names and numbers of previous callers. For entries where the CNAM is merely the CallerID Number, future calls from these numbers still will be looked up with OpenCNAM or BulkCNAM to obtain an actual CNAM match. We’ve made a couple of assumptions that you are more than welcome to adjust to meet your own needs. First, we’ve limited the list to callers from the past two calendar years. Second, we’ve only captured calls that lasted more than 15 seconds. We’ll drop down to the Linux CLI to build the list of callers to import. Then we’ll use the FreePBX GUI to import the list into the Asterisk Phonebook. While building the import list, you’ll have an opportunity to prune the list and remove any undesirable entries using nano. To generate the .csv file, issue the following commands:

cd /root
./export-CDR

Now you should have a 2YR-clean.csv file in its final form for import. Copy the file to your desktop PC and open FreePBX in your browser. Navigate to Admin -> Asterisk Phonebook. Click Import Phonebook and then Browse. Select the 2YR-clean.csv file from your desktop. Then click Upload. Take a final look at the new entries in your Asterisk Phonebook to make sure nothing came unglued, and you’re all set.

Originally published: Monday, September 14, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Once installed, you can change the voice prompt to a number other than 5 by modifying lines 10 and 12 of the context sub-log-caller which you will find in extensions_custom.conf in the /etc/asterisk directory at the completion of this install. [↩]

Frozen in Time: Sangoma at a Crossroads or the Cliff

Tuesday, September 8, 2020 / 2 Comments on Frozen in Time: Sangoma at a Crossroads or the Cliff

We are fast approaching the 18 month anniversary since the mass exodus of talent from Sangoma and Digium. During that time, Asterisk® and FreePBX® have languished in limbo with FreePBX commercial modules mired in discontinued encryption methods and the Asterisk and FreePBX feature set frozen. Sangoma’s acquisition of Digium gave the company a well-respected business phone system in Switchvox® while relegating FreePBX deployments with commercial modules to second-class citizen status.

Now Sangoma has a difficult and expensive decision to make. In order to continue to deploy FreePBX commercial modules on a current operating system and PHP platform, they are facing a multi-million dollar investment to retool all of the commercial modules using an entirely different encryption platform which will generate additional headaches with their module repositories which now must manage and maintain two different sets of modules. Think of it as migrating from an English-based operation to one in which the customer base speaks either English or French, but not both. In the meantime, Asterisk 17 is fast approaching end-of-life while Asterisk 16 is getting long in the tooth with only minor fixes of late. And there’s FreePBX 15 which hasn’t seen significant upgrades since the departure of the former Schmoozecom staff in April of 2019.

While we have never agreed with the Sangoma CEO about much of anything, let’s take over the management reins for a moment and look at the landscape. The Digium acquisition coupled with some other purchases has left Sangoma with a mountain of debt in the middle of a global pandemic. Coronavirus also has forced many businesses to reassess their long-term office strategy. With nearly everyone on the planet now carrying a smartphone and most current employees having high-speed Internet connectivity at home neither of which the company has to pay for, does a fancy office for every employee still make good business sense? When you have a well-positioned business phone offering in Switchvox, does it make good business sense to continue to pump boatloads of money into a competing FreePBX commercial product simply to preserve its functionality? At the same time, Sangoma’s open source Asterisk and FreePBX products need a serious shot in the arm to remain viable. For example, FreePBX 15 with its User Control Panel won’t run on CentOS 8, and CentOS 7 reaches EOL status in December.

So here’s our first act as Sangoma CEO. Convert all of the existing FreePBX commercial modules into open source, GPL code while offering existing FreePBX commercial module customers a 50% discount to migrate to Switchvox within the next six months. We would stagger conversion of the commercial modules to GPL code by releasing three on the first day of every month. This would keep Sangoma in the news for many months to come. The move would not only restore Asterisk and FreePBX to their well-deserved position at the forefront of the open source community, but it would also give Switchvox a leg up in the commercial phone system marketplace. By keeping the identity of the monthly releases a secret, it would build much needed momentum for Sangoma’s open source offerings while reinforcing Sangoma’s commitment to the open source community. Give it some thought, Sangoma!

Originally published: Tuesday, September 8, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Android Alert: Unmasking Your Hidden SIP Phone

Tuesday, September 1, 2020 / 2 Comments on Android Alert: Unmasking Your Hidden SIP Phone

Perhaps the single most important component in the VoIP toolbox for any PBX deployment that includes traveling users is the softphone whether it’s deployed on notebook computers or smartphones. We’re kicking off football season with reviews of some of our favorite SIP softphones for mobile users. We’ve previously written about Linphone and Zoiper and Telephone. We’ve also sung the praises of earlier releases of Google’s Pixel smartphone which makes a perfect VoIP companion even without a cellphone provider. Today we’re passing along an Android tip from @w1ve on the VoIP-Info.org Forum for anyone needing PBX connectivity while away from the home or office. And it won’t cost you a dime so long as you already have an Android smartphone with either a Wi-Fi connection or a data plan with any cellphone carrier.

You may be unaware that Android has been shipping with a native SIP phone since as far back as Android Marshmallow which will be five years old next month. Some phone manufacturers such as Chinese-owned Lenovo/Moto disable the SIP functionality, but many do not including Google, Samsung, and OnePlus. If you’ve deployed an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server in the Cloud with a PJsip extension, the beauty of this discovery is that you’ll always have VoIP connectivity through your PBX with only a WiFi connection. No SIM is required!

To determine if your Android smartphone includes the SIP dialer, simply open the native Phone app and tap the three vertical bar icon at the top of the dialer menu. From the pull-down menu, choose Settings, Calls, and Calling Accounts. If your Android smartphone includes support for the native SIP dialer, there will be a SIP Accounts option in the menu.

TIP: Even if the SIP Menu doesn’t appear on your smartphone, it may be that the manufacturer simply disabled the menu without actually trashing the SIP functionality as Lenovo has done. To determine whether the menu has simply been hidden, install QuickShortcutMaker from the Play Store. Run the app and scroll down and tap the SIP Settings option and click Test. It should bring up the SIP Accounts menu shown below.

Tapping SIP Accounts and then + icon will open a dialog to add a SIP account to your phone.

With an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server, the entries should look like the following:

Username: Your PJsip extension
Password: Your PJsip password
Server: FQDN of Your PBX
Optional Settings -> Port: 5061

Keep in mind that an FQDN for the Server address is required with an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server. If your server is using a dynamic IP address, you also would want to configure the FQDN using a Dynamic DNS service and refresh that FQDN periodically on your PBX using a cron job. Once you’ve entered your credentials, tap SAVE to activate the SIP account on your smartphone. It should then appear in the SIP Accounts window as shown above.

Next, you have some choices to make as to how the SIP account is actually used. As you can see from our setup (shown above), we allow outbound calls using either the SIM card or the SIP phone, and the phone will prompt for a choice whenever you make a call. We also have activated Inbound SIP calling which, as the dialog explains, uses some battery life. Finally, if you elect to use a chan_SIP extension on your PBX, make certain that you have enabled NAT Mode in the Advanced tab, or you will experience one-way or no audio on calls. This is not required with PJsip extensions. One of the other beauties of PJsip extensions is that you can assign this extension to multiple SIP devices including softphones and desktop phones so long as you increase the Max Contacts entry in the Advanced tab for the PJsip extension. In this way, you can answer incoming calls on your desktop phone when you’re at home or in the office and answer the same calls on your smartphone when you’re out and about. Enjoy!

Originally published: Tuesday, September 1, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

The Asterisk Superfecta: Incredible PBX 2020 Finishes First

Monday, August 24, 2020

At the track, picking the first four winning horses pays big bucks, and you’ll never forget winning the Superfecta. When it comes to unified communications, it’s equally advantageous to have cloud, on-premise, VirtualBox, and VMware offerings from which to choose. With the latest rollouts of Incredible PBX® 2020, you literally have the Asterisk® Superfecta. With the exception of the cloud offering, you don’t even have to buy a ticket. The CrownCloud offerings for $25/year in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Germany, and the Netherlands have no equal.¹ And soon we’ll roll out IncredibleBackup2020 so you can move transparently between all the platforms.

The current Incredible PBX 2020 offerings include the following:

Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS 7 and Raspbian 10
Incredible PBX 2020 for VirtualBox®
Incredible PBX 2020 for VMware®
Incredible PBX 2020 for CrownCloud

Snapshot images are available for Raspbian 10, VirtualBox, VMware, and CrownCloud which means all of these builds can be installed in just a few minutes. The Incredible PBX 2020 offering for CentOS 7 is built from source code on the fly which typically takes about 30 minutes once you have your CentOS 7 Minimal platform in place. And, of course, Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS 7 can be installed on any platform offering a CentOS 7 base image. Unlike most of the other Asterisk aggregations, all Incredible PBX 2020 offerings include both Asterisk and FreePBX® source code which makes upgrades incredibly flexible whether upgrading Asterisk 16 to the latest, trying out Asterisk 17, or updating FreePBX 15 modules.

Upgrading to the Latest Asterisk 16 Release. All Incredible PBX 2020 platforms include an Asterisk 16 upgrade script in the /root folder which will build you the latest release of Asterisk 16 from source code. It also provides the flexibility to choose which modules to include in the build as well as whether to enhance performance on a particular platform by turning on the BUILD_NATIVE Compiler Flag, a feature that is not available with packaged RPMs.

Upgrading to the Latest Asterisk 17 Release. Appreciating that some of you like to live on the bleeding edge, we now have released an Asterisk 17 upgrade script for the CentOS 7, VirtualBox, VMware, and CrownCloud platforms. Just issue the following commands, and you’ll be off to the races.

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/upgrade-asterisk17.tar.gz
tar zxvf upgrade-asterisk17.tar.gz
rm -f upgrade-asterisk17.tar.gz
./upgrade-asterisk17

Updating Your FreePBX 15 Modules. While the Module Admin utility in FreePBX gives you the flexibility to update any or all of your FreePBX modules, a simpler method is available to do a bulk upgrade from the Linux CLI. After logging into your PBX as root, issue these commands:

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

Regardless of the Incredible PBX 2020 platform you choose, always remember our Automatic Update Utility will keep your PBX current, running reliably, and as bug-free as we possibly can make it. No one else in the VoIP community has anything close. Enjoy the free ride!

Originally published: Monday, August 24, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

We don’t make a dime on the CrownCloud platforms, and the on-premise, VirtualBox, and VMware offerings all are free. [↩]

Virtual Paradise: It’s Incredible PBX 2020 for VMware

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Let’s face it. Virtual Machines are the future of server administration. Whether you prefer your own dedicated hardware or cloud-based resources managed by you or someone else, virtual platforms are the way to go. You get more bang for the buck out of your hardware by pooling resources for multiple tasks. VMware® and VirtualBox® make it easy. Today we’re pleased to introduce a summer refresh of our VMware build. It provides the latest Asterisk® 16 and FreePBX® 15 components and now includes Incredible Fax featuring HylaFax and AvantFax. All are built from source, and the install only takes a few minutes.

Just download the VMware tarball image from SourceForge to your desktop. Fire up your browser and login to your VMware Web Console. With a few mouse clicks, you’ll have a CentOS 7 platform in place with Incredible PBX® and Incredible Fax just a single keystroke away. It doesn’t get much easier. And, you get the very latest release of Asterisk 16 compiled from source code that you can actually examine, enhance, and share… just like the GPL license says.

Choosing a Virtual Machine Platform

Making the right deployment choice for your virtual machine platform depends upon a number of factors. We’ve already sung the praises of VirtualBox so we won’t repeat it here. VMware also is rock-solid and has been for decades. VMware typically runs on dedicated hardware. If you don’t have the funds for a hardware purchase to support your virtualization requirements, then VirtualBox on your desktop machine is a no-brainer. For many, however, some separation of the virtualization environment from your desktop computing environment is desirable. That choice is equally easy. VMware wins, hands down. Better yet, you can make snapshot backups of your virtual machines in seconds with a single button click. If you’ve wrestled with backups on standalone hardware with Linux, you’ll quickly appreciate the difference.

Getting Started with VMware ESXi

Many of you have VMware platforms already in place at work. For you, installing Incredible PBX 2020 is as simple as downloading the image to your desktop and importing it into your existing platform. Better yet, your system administrator can do it for you. If you’re new to VMware, here’s an easy way to get started, and the software won’t cost you a dime. VMware offers a couple of free products that will give you everything you need to run a robust VMware platform on relatively inexpensive hardware. The choice is up to you.

A Free VMware Platform for SOHO Apps

Before you can download the components for the free VMware ESXi platform, you’ll need to sign up for a free account at my.vmware.com. Once you’re signed up, log in and follow these simple steps to sign up for a free ESXi license key and download the ESXi version 6 software:

Write down your assigned License Key
Manually download the VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.5 ISO
Manually download the VMware vSphere Client 6.5

Next, burn the ISO to a CD/DVD and boot your dedicated VM hardware platform with it. Follow the instructions to complete the install. Next install the vSphere Client on a Windows computer, if desired. Don’t forget to add your ESXi License Key when you complete the installation. Once the ESXi server is up and running, you can stick the hardware on a shelf somewhere out of the way. You will rarely interact with it. That’s all handled using the VMware Web Console. Don’t forget to apply your License Key once VMware ESXi is up: Virtual Machines -> Licensing -> Apply License.

Installing the vSphere Web Client

Most of the feature set of the former Windows vSphere Client now is available from the convenience of your browser. Just point it to the IP address of your VMware server like this: https://ip-address/ui/.

Here’s how to install the vSphere Web Client:

1. Log into the console of your ESXi server as root using your root password.

2. Press F2 to Customized System.

3. Choose Troubleshooting Options.

4. Choose Enable SSH.

5. Using a Terminal window on a Mac or Linux machine or using Putty with Windows, log into the IP address of your ESXi server as root.

6. Issue the following commands to install the latest vSphere Web Client vib and disable http firewall blockage:

esxcli software vib install -v http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/esxui/esxui-signed-latest.vib
esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

7. Using a web browser, login to the web client as root at https://ESXi-server-IP-address/ui/

8. Should you ever wish to remove the web client from your server:

esxcli software vib remove -n esx-ui

9. You may wish to disable SSH access when you’re finished. Just repeat steps 1-4 above.

Here’s what a typical Incredible PBX Virtual Machine looks like in the web client once you’ve added the VMware Tools to your virtual machine as documented below. There’s even a Console window.

Under the Virtual Machines tab, you now can manage and add new VMs directly.

Installing VMware Tools in a Virtual Machine

If you plan to manage your virtual machines using the vSphere Web Client and a browser, then you definitely will want to install the VMware Tools in each of your virtual machines.

For ESXi 6.5, install the new GPL VMware open-vm-tools. Here’s how:

1. Start up your VM and login to the VM as root using SSH or Putty.

2. From the Linux CLI, issue the following commands:

yum -y install --enablerepo=epel open-vm-tools
reboot

Special thanks to John Borhek (@unsichtbarre on the PIAF Forum) for the VMware lessons. 🙂

Deploying the Incredible PBX Template

Deploying an Incredible PBX template only takes a few minutes, but first you need to download the Incredible PBX 2020 tarball template from SourceForge onto your Desktop PC. Then untar the tar.gz file which will create the IncrediblePBX folder with the VMware image components.

Once the Incredible PBX template components are on your desktop, here are the install steps:

1. Using a browser, login to the VMware Web Console using the root account you set up when you installed ESXi. Choose File, Deploy OVF/OVA Template.

2. Drag-and-drop the IncrediblePBX folder from your Desktop PC onto the web console.

3. Click Next.

4. Give the new Virtual Machine a name.

5. IMPORTANT: Choose Thin Provision option and click Next.

6. Review your entries and click Next to create the new Virtual Machine.

7. It only takes a few minutes to create the new Virtual Machine.

8. The Main Client window will redisplay and your new VM should now be shown in the left panel. (1) Click on it. (2) Then click the Green start icon. (3) Then click the Console Window icon.

9. When the VM’s Console Window opens, click in the window in the black area. Log into your virtual machine as root using the default password: password.

10. To complete the Incredible PBX 2020 setup, you will automatically be walked through the short installation procedure when you start the virtual machine. Following the automatic reboot, just log in a second time as root and the install will complete. We recommend using SSH for your second login so that your desktop PC gets whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall.

11. Set up the proper time zone for your server: /root/timezone-setup.

12. Reset admin passwords by running: ./admin-pw-change, ./apache-pw-change, and ./avantfax-pw-change.

13. Choose an email delivery address for your faxes: ./avantfax-email-change.

That should be enough tutorial for today. Enjoy your new VMware platform.

Continue Reading: Configuring Extensions, Trunks & Routes

Don’t Miss: Incredible PBX Application User’s Guide covering the 31 Whole Enchilada apps

Originally published: Monday, February 17, 2020 Updated: Sunday, August 16, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

One-Minute Wonder: It’s Incredible PBX 2020 for VirtualBox

Thursday, July 30, 2020

If you’re new to the VoIP world and want to kick the tires to see what you’re missing, then today’s one minute setup is for you. You’ll get a $10 credit to try out some penny-a-minute calls and to purchase a $1 a month phone number in your choice of area codes. If you decide VoIP is not for you, you don’t have to buy anything ever. And you can use almost any desktop computer you already own to bring up the VirtualBox® edition of Incredible PBX® 2020.

If you’ve followed Nerd Vittles over the years, you already know that VirtualBox from Oracle® is one of our favorite platforms. Once VirtualBox is installed on your desktop computer, adding Incredible PBX is a snap. Download the latest Incredible PBX 2020 image from SourceForge, double-click on the downloaded image, check the initialize MAC address box, and boom. In less than a minute, your PBX is ready to use with the very latest components of Asterisk® 16 and FreePBX® 15. There are no hidden fees or crippleware to hinder your use of Incredible PBX for as long as you like. Just set up an account with our Platinum provider, Skyetel, and you can start making calls in minutes. Of course, the Incredible PBX feature set is included as well which brings you nearly three dozen applications for Asterisk® that will revolutionize your communications platform. Speech-to-text, voice recognition, and a Siri-like telephony interface are as close as your SIP phone.

Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

Oracle’s virtual machine platform inherited from Sun is amazing. It’s not only free, but it’s pure GPL2 code. VirtualBox gives you a virtual machine platform that runs on top of any desktop operating system. In terms of limitations, we haven’t found any. We even tested this on an Atom-based Windows 7 machine with 2GB of RAM, and it worked without a hiccup. So step #1 today is to download one or more of the VirtualBox installers from VirtualBox.org or Oracle.com. Our recommendation is to put all of the 100MB installers on a 4GB thumb drive.¹ Then you’ll have everything in one place whenever and wherever you happen to need it. Once you’ve downloaded the software, simply install it onto your favorite desktop machine. Accept all of the default settings, and you’ll be good to go. For more details, here’s a link to the Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual.

NOTE: The Incredible PBX 2020 VM requires a VirtualBox 6.x platform. Adjust screen size in View -> Virtual Screen.

Installing the Incredible PBX 2020 Image

To begin, download the Incredible PBX 2020 image (3.5 GB) onto your desktop.

Next, double-click on the Incredible PBX .ova image on your desktop. Be sure to check the box to initialize the MAC address of the image if you’re using an older version of VirtualBox. Then click Import. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new Incredible PBX 2020 virtual machine in the VM List of the VirtualBox Manager Window. Let’s make a couple of one-time adjustments to the Incredible PBX configuration to account for possible differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

(1) Click once on the Incredible PBX virtual machine in the VM List. Then (2) click the Settings button. In System tab, check Hardware Clock in UTC Time. In the Audio tab, check the Enable Audio option and choose your sound card. In the Network tab for Adapter 1, check the Enable Network Adapter option. From the Attached to pull-down menu, choose Bridged Adapter. Then select your network card from the Name list. Then click OK. That’s all the configuration that is necessary for Incredible PBX.

Running Incredible PBX 2020 in VirtualBox

Once you’ve imported and configured the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight the Incredible PBX virtual machine in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The standard Linux boot procedure will begin and, within a few seconds, you’ll get the familiar Linux login prompt. During the bootstrap procedure, you’ll see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and your virtual machine. Remember, you still have full access to your desktop computer. Incredible PBX is merely running as a task in a VM window. Always gracefully halt Incredible PBX just as you would on any computer.

Here’s what you need to know. To work in the Incredible PBX virtual machine, just left-click your mouse while it is positioned inside the VM window. To return to your host operating system desktop, press the right Option key on Windows machines or the left Command key on any Mac. On Linux desktops, press the right Ctrl key. For other operating systems, read the dialogue boxes for instructions on moving around. To access the Linux CLI, login as root with the default password: password. Change your root password when you are prompted to do so. Then update your admin password for web access: ./admin-pw-change. Also update your admin password for web applications: ./apache-pw-change. You’ll need these admin passwords to access the web GUI to manage your PBX as well as to use the AsteriDex and Reminders web apps. The above password updates are automatically requested when you first activate the virtual machine. You can update all of your other passwords using the scripts provided in /root. For example, you’ll want to set the email delivery address for incoming faxes by running: ./avantfax-email-change. And set the AvantFax admin password by running: ./avantfax-pw-change. When running the AvantFax web application, be advised that you first will be prompted for your Apache admin credentials. Then you will be prompted for your AvantFax admin credentials.

Setting the Date and Time with VirtualBox

On some platforms, VirtualBox has a nasty habit of mangling the date and time of your virtual machine. Verify that you have enabled the Hardware Clock in UTC Time option for your virtual machine as documented above. If pbxstatus still shows an incorrect time, manually set the date and time and then update the hardware clock. Here’s how assuming 08130709 is the month (August), day (13), and correct time (7:09 a.m.) of your server:

date 08130709
clock -w

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020

If you’d like to try out the Skyetel service at no charge, here’s the drill. Sign up for Skyetel service to 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, and address. 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 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.

If VirtualBox is sitting behind a router or firewall on a private LAN, you’ll need to forward ports UDP 5060 and 10000-20000 in your router to the private LAN address of your Incredible PBX server. Also edit your extensions in the GUI and set NAT=YES in the Advanced tab of every extension. In Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings, click the Detect Network Settings button and then Submit your changes and reload the Asterisk dialplan when prompted.

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.

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.

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. 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 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.

Configuring Incredible PBX 2020 for VirtualBox

In order to take advantage of all the Incredible PBX applications, you’ll need to obtain IBM text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-text (STT) credentials as well as a (free) Application ID for Wolfram Alpha.

This Nerd Vittles tutorial will walk you through getting your IBM account set up and obtaining both your TTS and STT credentials. Be sure to write down BOTH sets of credentials which you’ll need in a minute. For home and SOHO use, IBM access and services are mostly FREE even though you must provide a credit card when signing up. The IBM signup process explains their pricing plans.

To use Wolfram Alpha, sign up for a free Wolfram Alpha API account. Just provide your email address and set up a password. It takes less than a minute. Log into your account and click on Get An App ID. Make up a name for your application and write down (and keep secret) your APP-ID code. That’s all there is to getting set up with Wolfram Alpha. If you want to explore costs for commercial use, there are links to let you get more information.

In addition to your Wolfram Alpha APPID, there are two sets of IBM credentials to plug into the Asterisk AGI scripts. Keep in mind that there are different usernames and passwords for the IBM Watson TTS and STT services. The TTS credentials will look like the following: $IBM_username and $IBM_password. The STT credentials look like this: $API_USERNAME and $API_PASSWORD. Don’t mix them up. 🙂

All of the scripts requiring credentials are located in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin so switch to that directory after logging into your server as root. Edit each of the following files and insert your TTS credentials in the variables already provided: nv-today2.php, ibmtts.php, and ibmtts2.php. Edit each of the following files and insert your STT credentials in the variables already provided: getquery.sh, getnumber.sh, and getnumber2.sh. Finally, edit 4747 and insert your Wolfram Alpha APPID.

Using AsteriDex with Incredible PBX

AsteriDex is a web-based dialer and address book application for Asterisk and Incredible PBX. It lets you store and manage phone numbers of all your friends and business associates in an easy-to-use SQLite3 database. You simply call up the application with your favorite web browser: http://pbx-ip-address/asteridex4/. When you click on a contact that you wish to call, AsteriDex first calls you at extension 701, and then AsteriDex connects you to your contact through another outbound call made using your default outbound trunk that supports numbers in the 1NXXNXXXXXX format.

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:

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

Taking Incredible PBX for a Test Drive

You can take Incredible PBX on a test drive by dialing D-E-M-O (3366) from any phone connected to your PBX.

With Allison’s Demo IVR, you can choose from the following options:

0. Chat with Operator — connects to extension 701
1. AsteriDex Voice Dialer – say "Delta Airlines" or "American Airlines" to connect
2. Conferencing – log in using 1234 as the conference PIN
3. Wolfram Alpha Almanac – say "What planes are flying overhead"
4. Lenny – The Telemarketer’s Worst Nightmare
5. Today’s News Headlines — courtesy of Yahoo! News
6. Weather by ZIP Code – enter any 5-digit ZIP code for today’s weather
7. Today in History — courtesy of OnThisDay.com
8. Chat with Nerd Uno — courtesy of SIP URI connection to 3CX iPhone Client
9. DISA Voice Dialer — say any 10-digit number to be connected
*. Current Date and Time — courtesy of Incredible PBX

Originally published: Monday, December 16, 2019 Updated: Thursday, July 30, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. [↩]

Harnessing the Cloud to Start An Incredible PBX Business

Monday, July 27, 2020

If you’ve ever wanted to start your own VoIP business and earn some big bucks through consulting and hosting cloud-based PBXs, now’s your chance. One of the requests we often receive from those that deploy Incredible PBX 2020® for a living is a quicker way to produce new Incredible PBX servers on cloud platforms such as Vultr and Digital Ocean while also preserving Incredible PBX’s unique ability to upgrade source components for Asterisk® and FreePBX®. For small businesses, these cloud providers offer a perfect $5 a month platform for Incredible PBX. You can mark it up to $10 or $15 a month and make a handsome 100% to 200% profit without lifting a finger as a VoIP consultant. And Vultr and Digital Ocean will spot you a $100 credit to get the ball rolling.

Today’s solution was especially designed for those that would like to host virtual machines for customers in your own cloud account. It would work equally well for anyone wanting a quick way to create multiple Incredible PBX platforms in 5 minutes for friends and neighbors.

To begin, you’ll need to create a master image of Incredible PBX 2020 on the cloud platform of your choice using the recommended $5/month platform with CentOS 7. The July 1, 2020 or later tarball of Incredible PBX 2020 is required. Here are the Five Easy Steps:

1. Create the base Incredible PBX 2020 platform in the traditional way:

# create a secure root password to hand out to future customers
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
# optionally install Incredible Fax 2020
./incrediblefax2020.sh

2. Once you complete the Phase I and Phase II installs and optionally install Incredible Fax, log out of your server and log back in so that the Automatic Update Utility can do its thing.

3. Next, we need to configure your master image so that it can be replicated using a simple image snapshot. A snapshot is free on the Vultr platform and will cost you about $5 a month with Digital Ocean. While still logged into your server as root, issue the following commands and then shut down your server gracefully:

cd /etc/sysconfig
cp -p rules.v4.tm3 iptables
sed -i 's|#-A|-A|' iptables
touch /etc/update_hostconfig
touch /etc/update_serverconfig
halt

4. Once your server has halted, create a snapshot image of the server from Vultr or Digital Ocean dashboard. You do NOT need to preserve your Master VM once the snapshot is created.

5. Create a new virtual machine but, instead of choosing CentOS 7 as the base platform, choose the snapshot image built in the previous step. Once the 5-minute install completes, it’s ready for handover to a new customer by providing the root password from the Master Image together with the IP address of the new virtual machine.

When the new customer logs in via SSH using the root password from the Master Image, the Incredible PBX reconfiguration script will complete the setup of the new platform in a couple minutes prompting the user to change all of the passwords, resetting the ports for PortKnocker, and reconfiguring the firewall by whitelisting the customer’s IP addresses. If the build includes Incredible Fax, the customer should be instructed to change the AvantFax password. Run: /root/avantfax-pw-change. If the customer is in a different time zone, the customer should run /root/timezone-setup. Whooda thunk making money could be this easy.

The real beauty of this design is that you keep control of all the virtual machines you create. If a customer fails to pay, it’s easy to either shut down their VM or even delete it. You also can schedule automatic backups for the customer while recovering the extra $1 per month charge from the provider. In addition, if the customer ever needs hands-on support, you can use the Console link in the Dashboard without the need to whitelist your IP address. The customer still retains full control over the root password which would have to be provided.

Originally published: Monday, July 27, 2020

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

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1. Configuring CallerID Superfecta in FreePBX

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Choosing a Virtual Machine Platform

Getting Started with VMware ESXi

A Free VMware Platform for SOHO Apps

Installing the vSphere Web Client

Installing VMware Tools in a Virtual Machine

Deploying the Incredible PBX Template

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Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

Installing the Incredible PBX 2020 Image

Running Incredible PBX 2020 in VirtualBox

Setting the Date and Time with VirtualBox

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2020

Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2020

Configuring V1VoIP for Incredible PBX 2020

Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX 2020

Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2020

Configuring Incredible PBX 2020 for VirtualBox

Using AsteriDex with Incredible PBX

Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

Taking Incredible PBX for a Test Drive

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