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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING

Introducing Plug-and-Play Incredible PBX IP Phones

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Let’s face it. One of the most tedious tasks in setting up a new PBX is configuring all of the buttons on all of the SIP phones connected to your PBX. Finally, there’s a one-click solution with the new Incredible IP Phones from ClearlyIP. Using the Clearly IP Devices module included in every Incredible PBX 2020 platform, you can use a web browser to point-and-click your way through setting up one or multiple phone configurations which can be pushed to every phone by simply entering its MAC address and extension number. When changes are needed, simply modify the web configuration for the desired phones and the modifications are immediately pushed to the affected devices without ever rebooting any of the affected phones. If you only have a couple extensions attached to your PBX, this may not sound like a big deal; however, if you have hundreds of phones in dozens of locations, you’ve just saved yourself hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in labor costs.

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Unlike the Sangoma "solution" there’s no costly FreePBX module required to auto-provision Incredible PBX phones. It’s an integral component of Incredible PBX 2020.



 
But don’t take our word for it. Watch Chris Sherwood’s YouTube video above and chuckle to yourself knowing that the first two of the four setup steps are already in place with every new Incredible PBX 2020 install.

Better yet, sign up for one of the (free) Tony Lewis webinars currently scheduled for this Tuesday, January 7, at 2 p.m. Eastern time or Friday, January 10 at 9 a.m. Eastern time. You may remember Tony as the former Chief Operating Officer at Sangoma until he resigned and started the new ClearlyIP organization in which he now serves as the CEO. Come join us!

We’ll hold off the tutorial for a bit to give everyone an opportunity to watch the video and attend one of the webinars on Tuesday. Be sure to sign up to reserve your place. Then check back here soon for the Incredible IP Phones tutorial.

Continue reading: ClearlyIP Introduces New Features for Incredible PBX Phones

Originally published: Sunday, January 5, 2020


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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The Next Best Thing to (formerly free) Google Voice

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Today we want to once again shine the spotlight on LocalPhone, an oft-overlooked VoIP service that’s been around forever. You can call to and be called from any LocalPhone user at no cost. They also offer phone numbers (DIDs) of your choice almost anywhere in the world with free or almost free incoming calls. For those wanting a U.S. DID, the cost is 99¢ a month with a $3 setup fee. That gets you up to 100 free incoming calls a day to your PBX or any SIP phone. Additional calls are a penny per call. There are no limitations on the duration of the calls. If you prefer to forward the calls to your cellphone number in the contiguous U.S., there’s an additional fee of 0.5¢ per minute. But there’s little reason to do that when sending the calls to a SIP softphone on your Android device or iPhone is free. And now the mobile LocalPhone app supports PUSH Notifications. We’ll show you how.

FYI: Nerd Vittles receives a referral credit to keep the lights on when you sign up for service.

Deciphering Your SIP Credentials with LocalPhone

Once you have signed up for a LocalPhone account, the first thing you’ll want to do is make note of your Internet Phone credentials under My Account. These are what we typically refer to as SIP credentials consisting of a SIP ID, SIP password, and SIP server (localphone.com). That’s all you’ll need to configure an incoming LocalPhone trunk on any Incredible PBX® server. And these are the same settings you’d use to configure any SIP phone running on any Android or iOS device. As we noted, you and any other LocalPhone user can call any Internet Phone number worldwide at no cost without limitation. For world travelers, you’ll want to download the LocalPhone app for your smartphone (Android or iOS) and take advantage of their extremely competitive international calling rates.1

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Ordering Incoming Numbers (DIDs) from LocalPhone

Begin by funding your account under My Account -> Add Credit. $10 will last you a long time.

The next step is to order one or more incoming phone numbers from LocalPhone.2 If you have friends in far away places that call you frequently, you can purchase DIDs in those locations to eliminate the cost of incoming calls both to them and to you. If you only want a dirt cheap U.S. DID for your home or small office, then LocalPhone is also a perfect fit. Navigate to My Account -> Incoming Numbers and choose the United States as the desired Country. Next, pick the State and City for the desired DID. For free incoming calls, set Call Forwarding and Caller ID for Internet Phone to your assigned Internet Phone SIP ID. You can also elect to forward calls to a SIP URI, if desired. Agree to the terms of use and make your purchase.

Configuring a LocalPhone Trunk with Incredible PBX

We’ve previously covered the LocalPhone trunk setup with Wazo. Most other releases of Incredible PBX include preconfigured LocalPhone trunks for incoming and outgoing calls. Login to the Incredible PBX GUI as admin using your favorite browser and navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks and edit the LocalPhone-In trunk. Set Disable Trunk to NO. Then click the sip-Settings tab. Insert your LocalPhone SIP ID in the username, fromuser, and authuser fields. Insert your LocalPhone SIP Password in the secret field. Change the context field entry to from-trunk. Click on the Incoming tab, and modify the Register String 9999999:yourpassword@localphone.com/9999999 replacing 9999999 with your LocalPhone SIP ID and yourpassword with your LocalPhone SIP Password. Click the Submit button and reload your dialplan when prompted.

Navigate to Connectivity -> Inbound Routes and create a new Inbound Route for LocalPhone using your SIP ID as the DID Number and choosing a desired Destination for incoming calls from your LocalPhone DID. Save your settings and reload the dialplan when prompted.

Configuring a LocalPhone Trunk with VitalPBX

Login to the VitalPBX GUI as admin using your favorite browser and navigate to PBX -> External -> Trunks. Create a new SIP trunk with the following settings replacing 999999 with your LocalPhone SIP ID and 1234 with the LocalPhone SIP Password. Leave the Device for Incoming Calls (User) section blank. Then click SAVE and reload your dialplan.

  • Description: LocalPhone
  • Codecs: ulaw,alaw
  • Local Username: 999999
  • Remote Host: localphone.com
  • Remote Port: 5060
  • Local Secret: 1234
  • Insecure: Port,Invite
  • Allow Inbound Calls: YES
  • Username: [leave blank]
  • Host: [leave blank]
  • Local Secret: [leave blank]
  • Remote Username: 999999
  • Remote Secret: 1234
  • From User: 999999
  • From Domain: localphone.com
  • Qualify: YES
  • Insecure: [leave blank]
  • IP Authentication: NO
  • Qualify: [leave default]
  • Register String: 999999:1234@localphone.com/999999

Navigate to PBX -> External -> Inbound Routes. Create a new Inbound Route for LocalPhone using your SIP ID as the DID Number and choosing a desired Destination for incoming calls from your LocalPhone DID. Save your settings and reload the dialplan when prompted.

Configuring a LocalPhone Trunk with FreePBX

Login to the FreePBX® GUI as admin using your favorite browser and navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks. Add a new chan_sip trunk named localphone. Then click on the sipSettings tab and enter the following replacing 999999 with your LocalPhone SIP ID and 1234 with the LocalPhone SIP Password.

  • username=9999999
  • type=friend
  • secret=1234
  • nat=no
  • insecure=port,invite
  • host=localphone.com
  • fromuser=9999999
  • fromdomain=localphone.com
  • dtmfmode=rfc2833
  • disallow=all
  • context=from-trunk
  • canreinvite=no
  • authuser=9999999
  • allow=ulaw&alaw

Next, click on the Incoming tab and enter the following Register String replacing 999999 with your LocalPhone SIP ID and 1234 with the LocalPhone SIP Password:

9999999:1234@localphone.com/9999999

Then click SUBMIT and reload your dialplan.

Navigate to Connectivity -> Inbound Routes and create a new Inbound Route for LocalPhone using your SIP ID as the DID Number and choosing a desired Destination for incoming calls from your LocalPhone DID. Save your settings and reload the dialplan when prompted.

Using Local Numbers for International Calls

LocalPhone has a unique feature that lets you dial a local number from a phone number you have whitelisted in your country and reach almost anyone in the world that you’ve added to your Contacts List. You only pay LocalPhone’s discounted international calling rate for the calls. For example, to call a landline in the U.K. from the U.S. using a LocalPhone-provided U.S. phone number, the calling rate is less than a penny a minute. A call to Cyprus by dialing a U.S. number assigned to your account for your whitelisted phone numbers is 4.5 cents per minute. To get started setting up your whitelisted phone numbers and contacts list, navigate to My Account -> Local Numbers in your LocalPhone account. In your Local Numbers list, first add and verify phone numbers you want to authorize to make calls on your nickel. Next, add the names and phone numbers of international destinations you wish to reach by dialing a local number. LocalPhone will immediately assign a local number for each destination. Simply add these local numbers to the contacts list on your smartphone, and you can call from anywhere in your country at the discounted LocalPhone international calling rates. There are no double-dialing or call menus to navigate. Dialing the assigned local number transparently connects you directly to your destination with no intermediate hurdles.

Using LocalPhone with Other Trunk Providers

So long as your PBX doesn’t have more than two incoming calls to a single DID at the same time, the most economical PBX design is to use LocalPhone DIDs as your published DIDs. This reduces the cost of incoming calls to less than a dollar a month per DID for up to 3,000 incoming calls of unlimited duration. Then use one of our Platinum Sponsors, Skyetel or our soon-to-be-available ClearlyIP SIP trunking service for outbound calls and spoof the outbound CallerID on those other trunks using your LocalPhone DID.

Enjoying the Best of All Worlds with LocalPhone

If you have an iPhone or Android smartphone in addition to a PBX, you can take advantage of LocalPhone’s ability to send incoming calls to multiple destinations. Just make sure your PBX isn’t routing the incoming calls to a destination that is automatically answered, e.g. an IVR. On your Android phone, download the VitalPBX Communicator from the Google Play Store and configure a SIP connection using your LocalPhone SIP credentials. Incoming calls from your LocalPhone DIDs and Internet Phone Number now will be sent to both destinations.

If you have followed one of our previous tutorials that document making SIP URI calls from either a PBX or a SIP client such as LinPhone on your smartphone, then you can take advantage of LocalPhone’s incoming SIP URI feature.3 Just dial 9999999@localphone.com where 9999999 is any LocalPhone SIP ID. You also can add Custom Extensions in Incredible PBX much like the Lenny extension using a Dial string of SIP/9999999@localphone.com to reach worldwide LocalPhone destinations from any PBX extension at no cost. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, December 9, 2019


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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


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  1. Rates are based on the lowest pay as you go per-minute price to call a landline or a mobile. Skype is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. []
  2. LocalPhone advises that DID fulfillment can take up to 14 days although our orders always have been completed in less than an hour. []
  3. LocalPhone offers call filtering for your Internet Phone number using either a blacklist or whitelist in addition to offering the option of blocking anonymous calls. []

Meet Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS 7


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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.


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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.

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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.

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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:


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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:


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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


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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Black Friday/Cyber Monday & Beyond: Incredible PBX 2020

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We’re pleased to announce our first-ever hardware featuring the new Incredible PBX 2020. This new PBX hardware platform introduces customized versions of Asterisk® 16 and FreePBX® 15 that offer integrated FXO and FXS components together with a line of self-configuring, turnkey SIP phones. In addition, inbound and outbound CNAM delivery as well as SMS messaging are integral components of the platform plus all-new support for Kari’s Law 911 location identification on a per extension basis. For those managing larger deployments, you can opt to brand your own PBXs and phones, or you can deploy any of our three different implementations of FreePBX 15: standard, enhanced, and bleeding edge.

The Black Friday/Cyber Monday Special

Normally, the Incredible PBX 2020 appliance will be offered at $399 and the SIP phones are competitively priced from MSRP $99 to $179 with discounts available to resellers. Beginning on Black Friday until midnight on Cyber Monday, you can purchase the Incredible PBX 2020 appliance bundled with the top-of- the-line $179 CIP270 WiFi phone for $399. Or purchase the Incredible PBX 2020 appliance with no SIP phone for $299. You also can purchase a bundle of all three SIP phones for $299. Delivery of Appliances can be expected to coincide with Santa’s arrival while Incredible PBX-branded phones already are in stock and available.




 
On Black Friday, you can purchase these special offerings HERE. First come, first delivered.

Incredible PBX 2020 Appliance

The new Incredible PBX 2020 appliance is a perfect fit for home and SOHO deployments. The appliance has been successfully tested with 40 users and 10 concurrent calls. Plug in a network cable and add SIP trunking or an analog POTS line using the native FXO port, and you’ll have a turnkey PBX in minutes.

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Technical Specifications:

  • Quad Core Atom Processor
  • 2GB Memory
  • 32GB SSD Storage
  • 2 10/100 NICs
  • HDMI Port
  • Built-in: 1 FXO/1 FXS or 2 FXO Ports
  • Incredible PBX 2020 Preinstalled

Incredible PBX 2020 SIP Phones

All of the new Incredible PBX 2020 SIP Phones support the following features:

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Introducing Incredible PBX 2020

In coming weeks, we will flesh out all of the new features in Incredible PBX 2020. Suffice it to say, all of the Incredible PBX 16-15 feature set remains. What has been added is a superset of FreePBX 15. Topping the list of new features is an all-new design for the module repository which gives us very tight control over selection, versioning, and deployment of FreePBX modules presented in the Module Admin component. And the new endpoint management module, Clearly IP Devices, lets you preconfigure all of your IPBX-series phones and modify their settings on the fly without ever rebooting your phones. The enhanced User Control Panel Dashboard Widgets now let end-users manage their presence, call forwarding, call events, call history, voicemail and SMS messages from the convenience of a browser. A new firewall also is in the works as well as a number of new surprises. Stay tuned!

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Coming Soon: Incredible PBX 2020 SIP Trunking

Later next month, we will introduce a new SIP trunking option that is preconfigured for use with Incredible PBX 2020. As previously noted, these trunks provide inexpensive buckets of minutes with inbound as well as outbound CNAM support. Every DID includes integrated SMS messaging support in FreePBX’s User Control Panel. For larger implementations, Kari’s Law 911 location identification is baked into the platform so emergency services can be directed to the physical location of individual extensions on your PBX without the need to add costly DIDs for every unique location as was required in previous VoIP deployments.

Incredible PBX 2020 Admin/Developer Training

We’re also pleased to announce a four-day bootcamp for Incredible PBX 2020 and FreePBX coming to Charleston or Hilton Head, March 16 through 19, 2020. Seating is limited so block out the dates on your calendar, and we’ll provide signup details in coming weeks.

Originally published: Tuesday, November 26, 2019


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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The SMS Toolkit: Integrating Text Messaging into VitalPBX

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably already know that most folks spend a lot more time texting on their smartphones rather than talking. So it only made sense to develop some useful SMS tools to get the most out of your VitalPBX platform. Today we’re pleased to introduce SMS Toolkit for VitalPBX using SMS-enabled DIDs from Skyetel, VoIP.ms, and Vitelity. Any SMS message sent to an SMS-enabled DID associated with your PBX will be processed by Incredible PBX which will do the heavy lifting and either call you back with the query results or reply to the text message. You can whitelist an IP address in your firewall, retrieve news headlines or a weather forecast, and look up a phone number in your AsteriDex phone book, or place a call through your PBX using the AsteriDex Voice Dialer. You can enable and disable call forwarding from your PBX extension to your smartphone, and a simple SMS command also brings the calling flexibility of DISA to your smartphone. Finally, there are commands to actually help you manage your PBX.

The SMS Toolkit provides two layers of security. First, you must whitelist the phone numbers from which to process queries. Second, for the more vulnerable queries, a PIN is required as well. Here are 15 SMS queries that let you harness the power of Incredible PBX via SMS:

  1. @help – Play a list of supported SMS commands
  2. @news – Retrieve latest news headlines from Yahoo
  3. @weather – Retrieve weather report by zip code
  4. @wolfram – Siri-like query to Wolfram Alpha
  5. @whitelist – Whitelist a new IP address in your firewall
  6. @disa – Use DISA calling from your smartphone with password
  7. @cf on – Enable call forwarding from PBX extension to smartphone
  8. @cf off – Disable call forwarding from PBX extension
  9. @asteridex – Use AsteriDex Voice Dialer to place a call from PBX
  10. @fail2ban+ XXXXX – Restart Fail2Ban with PIN: XXXXX
  11. @fail2ban- XXXXX – Stop Fail2Ban with PIN: XXXXX
  12. @firewall+ XXXXX – Restart FirewallD with PIN: XXXXX
  13. @firewall- XXXXX – Stop FirewallD with PIN: XXXXX
  14. @asterisk+ XXXXX – Restart Asterisk with PIN: XXXXX
  15. @pbxstatus – Returns status of Asterisk, Fail2Ban, and FirewallD

Prerequisites for SMS Toolkit Deployment

To get started, you’ll need a DID from Skyetel, Vitelity, or VoIP.ms that supports SMS messaging. You’ll be hard-pressed to beat our Skyetel special which is summarized at the end of this article, but the choice is all yours. The way this works is you provide a forwarding email address in the Skyetel, Vitelity, or VoIP.ms portal for delivery of incoming SMS messages. These emails will be sent to your PBX where we will use Postfix and our mailcall script to process the messages and deliver the results.

Since Skyetel, Vitelity, and VoIP.ms will be delivering incoming SMS messages by email, it means you’ll also need a dedicated account and fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) for your server, e.g. smsuser@mypbx.mydomain.com. While a dynamic IP address will work if you implement automatic FQDN updating on your PBX, a static IP address for your PBX is obviously preferable and our recommended VitalPBX cloud solution provides that.

Implementing the SMS Toolkit for VitalPBX

Let’s walk through the steps to put all the pieces in place for the SMS Toolkit:

  1. Add a Dedicated Account to Linux for SMS Messaging
  2. Configure VitalPBX for Receipt of Incoming SMS Emails
  3. Configure Postfix for Receipt of Incoming Emails
  4. Obtain and Configure DID with Skyetel, Vitelity, or VoIP.ms
  5. Install and Configure MailCall Components

1. Adding a Dedicated Account to VitalPBX

To simplify the task of sifting through incoming emails, we’ll want to create a new Linux user account that can be dedicated to receipt of SMS email messages. You can use any name you prefer instead of smsuser. The second and third commands will verify that the account has been created with support for incoming mail. Just log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

adduser smsuser --shell=/bin/false --no-create-home --system -U
ls /var/spool/mail/smsuser
mail -u smsuser

 

2. Configuring VitalPBX to Receive Inbound Email

By design, both Postfix and the VitalPBX firewall block incoming email. We’re going to change that but, in doing so, we wish to caution that we don’t want to turn your server into an open mail relay for the spammers of the world. Once we’ve opened up your server to receive email, it’s important to test it to be sure it’s not insecure. Because the SMS Toolkit is intended to be a dedicated application just for you as administrator of your server, it’s equally important not to publicize the FQDN of your server. Once the spammers find your email address, incoming email can be just a big a problem as serving as an open mail relay.

To add a firewall rule in VitalPBX to support incoming SMTP mail traffic, log in to VitalPBX GUI as admin and navigate to Admin:Security:Firewall:Services. Add a new service with the following entries. Then click Save.

  • Name: Email
  • Protocol: TCP
  • Port: 25

Next, click on the Rules tab and add a new service entry for Email with Action: Accept. Then click Save again.

3. Configuring Postfix to Receive Inbound Email

Configuring Postfix to receive incoming email requires a few additions. If you changed the user account (smsuser) above, then do the same in steps #2 and #4 below.

1. Issue the following commands to update Postfix to support incoming email:

cd /etc/postfix
cp -p master.cf master.cf.bak
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/postfix-master.tar.gz
tar zxvf postfix-master.tar.gz
rm -f postfix-master.tar.gz
postconf -e "inet_interfaces = all"

2. Using the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of your server, issue the following commands:

postconf -e "mydestination = your-FQDN, localhost.localdomain, localhost"
echo "smsuser:    smsuser@your-FQDN" >> /etc/aliases
systemctl restart postfix

3. Assuming you don’t mind discarding emails to the root user to avoid malicious spam attacks, enter the following commands. If you prefer to take your chances and preserve root email, omit the first line below:

echo "root:       /dev/null" >> /etc/aliases
echo "*:          /dev/null" >> /etc/aliases
newaliases

4. Test your new mail account by sending an email to smsuser@your-FQDN. Wait a bit and check for email: mail -u smsuser. Then delete the email: rm /var/spool/mail/smsuser/*

4a. Configuring Skyetel DID for SMS Email Relay

Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required.

1. In the VitalPBX GUI, navigate to Admin:Security:Firewall:WHITELIST and Add the IP address of the Skyetel SMTP server: 168.245.13.6.

2. Login to your Skyetel Portal and begin by deciphering your Username and Password for access to the Skyetel SMTP server in Tools:Voicemail Transcription.

3. While still in the Skyetel Portal, navigate to Phone Numbers:Local Numbers and click the Settings icon to the right of each DID you wish to enable for SMS messaging.

  a. Click on the SMS & MMS tab and fill in the template as shown below using the Email address you’ve assigned to VitalPBX for SMS messaging. Do NOT change the Subject and Body entries, and do NOT click SAVE at this time.

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  b. Click on SMTP Settings at the bottom of the template. Fill in the SMTP template as shown below using the Username and Password you deciphered in Step #2 above. For the Sender, enter the email address to deliver SMS messages to your smartphone. For Default Recipient, enter the email address associated with your PBX.

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  c. Finally, click the Save button in the SMTP Settings template and then Save again in the Email template.

  d. Repeat these steps for every DID to enable for delivery of SMS messages to VitalPBX.

4b. Configuring Vitelity DID for SMS Email Relay

With Vitelity DIDs, the first step is to order a DID that supports SMS, most do. Next, you need to decide whether this DID will be used for other purposes, such as serving as a trunk on your PBX for receipt of incoming calls. If you only want to use the DID to support SMS messaging, then there’s little reason to sign up for the unlimited calling plan. Instead, choose the pay-per-minute (PPM) plan for your DID. It costs $1.49 a month. Don’t even both registering the trunk which will save your having to pay for misdialed calls and spam. SMS messages are free.

Once your DID is set up, go to My Numbers -> Local in the Vitelity web portal and choose SMS from the Action pull-down menu of your new DID:

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In the SMS dialog, set up a password for messaging, disable international messages, and enter the email forwarding address for your incoming SMS messages. Save your settings, and you’re good to go.

On the VitalPBX side, don’t forget to whitelist your Vitelity server’s IP address.

4c. Configuring VoIP.ms DID for SMS Email Relay

If you plan to dedicate a DID to SMS messaging, two advantages of the VoIP.ms offering are (1) the price ($0.85/month on the pay by the minute plan with $0.40 setup fee and (2) you can forward incoming SMS messages to another SMS number (such as your smartphone) in addition to an email address if you want to use the DID for traditional SMS messaging while also deploying our SMS Toolkit. As noted above, there’s no charge for SMS messages at this time although VoIP.ms has warned (for years) that they may begin charging a penny a message.

To get started, sign up for a VoIP.ms account and order a DID with SMS support. A cellphone is displayed beside each DID that supports SMS in their ordering page. As with Vitelity, there’s no need to register the trunk on your PBX if you only plan to use the SMS messaging component. Once your DID is provisioned, choose DID Numbers -> Manage DIDs in the VoIP.ms portal. Then edit the DID you just purchased. At the bottom of the form, fill in the SMS section as shown below:

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On the VitalPBX side, don’t forget to whitelist your VoIP.ms POP’s IP address.

5. Installing and Configuring MailCall with VitalPBX

This version of MailCall was specifically designed for Incredible PBX for VitalPBX. Many of the MailCall features will not work until they are first configured on your server, e.g. Voice Dialing, Wolfram Alpha, and Voice SMS Messaging. All of the setups are covered in this VitalPBX tutorial.

After logging into your server as root, issue the following commands to install MailCall:

cd /
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/MailCall-VitalPBX.tar.gz
tar zxvf MailCall-VitalPBX.tar.gz
rm -f MailCall-VitalPBX.tar.gz
chown -R asterisk:asterisk /var/lib/asterisk
chown -R asterisk:asterisk /etc/asterisk

 

For a number of the queries, a 5-digit PIN is required for obvious reasons. This needs to be set in two places: (1) in two chunks of dialplan code (/tmp/sms-dialplan.txt) to be added and (2) at the top of the mailcall script itself (/root/mailcall). Just search for XXXXX and replace the five X’s with a 5-digit secure PIN in all three places. While editing the mailcall script, you’ll also need to whitelist the 10-digit or 11-digit phone numbers from which to accept calls in the AUTHORIZED field. Just separate each number with a space. Then issue the remainder of the commands below:

nano -w /tmp/sms-dialplan.txt
nano -w /root/mailcall
cat /tmp/sms-dialplan.txt >> /etc/asterisk/ombutel/extensions__80-custom.conf
echo "asterisk ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/iptables" >> /etc/sudoers
echo "*/2 * * * * root /root/mailcall > /dev/null 2>&1" >> /etc/crontab
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"

 

As a security precaution, you can only use SMS Toolkit to forward and unforward calls to your cellphone from a PBX extension designated for your use. You can associate more than one cellphone with a given extension, but you can’t associate multiple extensions with a single cellphone. To set up the association between your cellphone and an extension on your PBX, issue the following command while logged in as root where 8431234567 is your cell phone number and 701 is the associated extension:

asterisk -rx "database put CELL 8431234567 701"

 

Sending an SMS message of @CF ON to your DID from 8431234567 will automatically forward extension 701 calls to your cell. Sending @CF OFF will disable forwarding to extension 701.

Finally, a few words about the SMS @whitelist command. It can be used in two ways. If you just text whitelist, then you will get a call back that first prompts for your PIN. You then will be prompted for the IP address to whitelist. Using your cellphone, enter the IP address using * for periods, e.g. 1*2*3*4 becomes 1.2.3.4. The alternative whitelist option doesn’t require a callback. Just send a text message with @whitelist PIN ip-address using periods, not *, e.g. @WHITELIST 98765 1.2.3.4 would whitelist 1.2.3.4 if your PIN was correctly entered as 98765 and matches the entry in /root/mailcall.

Email Addresses for SMS Smartphone Delivery

United States:

  • AT&T – number@txt.att.net
  • Verizon – number@vtext.com
  • Sprint – number@messaging.sprintpcs.com
  • T-Mobile – number@tmomail.net
  • Mint Mobile – number@tmomail.net
  • Virgin Mobile – number@vmobl.com
  • Tracfone – number@mmst5.tracfone.com
  • Ting – number@message.ting.com
  • Boost Mobile – number@myboostmobile.com
  • U.S. Cellular – number@email.uscc.net
  • Metro PCS – number@mymetropcs.com

Canada:

  • Rogers Wireless: number@pcs.rogers.com
  • Fido: number@fido.ca
  • Telus: number@msg.telus.com
  • Bell Mobility: number@txt.bell.ca
  • Kudo Mobile: number@msg.koodomobile.com
  • MTS: number@text.mtsmobility.com
  • President’s Choice: number@txt.bell.ca
  • Sasktel: number@sms.sasktel.com
  • Solo: number@txt.bell.ca
  • Virgin: number@vmobile.ca

Managing the AsteriDex SQLite3 Database

We’ve alluded to the AsteriDex database in a couple of VitalPBX articles but never mentioned how to access it. Using a browser, point it to http://server-ip/asteridex4. You can add, edit, display, and delete entries from there. Before you can make changes in the database, issue the following command after logging into your server as root:

chown asterisk:apache /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin

Published: Monday, November 18, 2018


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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Skyetel SMS Smorgasbord for Incredible PBX with VitalPBX


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Just in time for Thanksgiving, we’ve got a great treat for those of you that have taken advantage of the Nerd Vittles special offer from Skyetel which got you a $10 credit to kick the tires and up to $500 of half-price service on their quadruple-redundant VoIP platform. Effective 10/1/2023, $25/month minimum spend required. Today we’re adding not one, but three, SMS messaging utilities to the VitalPBX UC platform. In addition to a command line utility to send SMS messages, we’re also introducing SMS Message Blasting which lets you send an SMS message to as many recipients as you would like. It’s perfect for sports team and community group messaging. To round out the trifecta, we’ve updated our SMS Dictator utility by integrating Skyetel messaging with IBM’s powerful voice recognition software.1 Simply dial S-M-S (767) from any extension on your PBX and dictate an SMS message to send to a recipient of your choice. Gone are the days of wrestling with Google’s ever-changing voice recognition platform.

To get started, you’ll need to have an IBM Watson account with an APIkey for their Speech-to-Text (STT) engine. Next, you will need a Skyetel SMS-enabled DID. Before we install today’s SMS scripts, it should be noted that SMS messages must be sent from the PBX registered as the Skyetel Endpoint Group for the SMS-enabled DID specified in the Skyetel SMS scripts. So let’s begin with the configuration steps to put all the pieces in place.

Getting Started with IBM Watson STT Service

We’ve created a separate tutorial to walk you through obtaining and configuring your IBM Watson credentials. Start there.

Now let’s get IBM’s Speech to Text service activated. Log back in to the IBM Cloud. Click on the (upper left) Menu icon and select Dashboard. Click on the Speech to Text app. Choose a Region to deploy in, choose your Organization from the pull-down menu, and select STT as your Space. Choose the Standard Pricing Plan or LITE Plan. Then click Create. When Speech to Text Portal opens, click the Service Credentials tab. In the Actions column, click View Credentials and copy down your STT APIkey. Then logout of IBM Watson.

Getting Started with Skyetel Messaging

If you haven’t already signed up for a Skyetel account, read our tutorial and take advantage of the $10 coupon for free service. Sign up for a DID and activate the SMS feature for your number. Create an Endpoint Group with the public IP address of your PBX. Then edit your phone number and link it to the Endpoint Group of your server. If you want to forward incoming SMS messages to either an email address or to your smartphone’s messaging service, configure it under the SMS & MMS tab for each of your phone numbers. Finally, click on the settings icon beside your account name in the upper right corner of the Skyetel portal and then click the API Keys tab. Click the Create button and copy down your SID and SECRET for Skyetel’s API service. This secret is not retrievable once you close the window so put the credentials in a safe place for subsequent use. Once you’re happy with the Skyetel service, fund your account with up to $250 and open a ticket with Skyetel. They’ll match your deposit and also let you port any DIDs you’d like at no cost for 60 days. For now, logout of the Skyetel portal.

Installing the SMS Components on Your PBX

There are three separate applications which we will install in VitalPBX: (1) a stand-alone utility that lets you send SMS messages from the Linux CLI by entering a recipients 11-digit phone number and an SMS message surrounded by quotes, (2) an SMS message blasting utility that lets you send a previously prepared SMS message to a group of recipients whose 11-digit SMS numbers have been entered into a text file, and (3) the SMS Dictator application which lets you pick up any phone on your PBX and dial S-M-S (767) to dictate a message and send it to a recipient whose number you’ve keyed in from your phone. For those not residing in North America, the number of phone number digits can easily be changed in all of the scripts. After we install the three applications, we’ll edit each of the scripts to insert your IBM STT and Skyetel API credentials. Then you’re ready to start messaging.

First, let’s install the stand-alone and message blasting SMS utilities. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /root
mkdir sms-skyetel
cd sms-skyetel
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/smsblast-skyetel.tgz
tar zxvf smsblast-skyetel.tgz
rm -f smsblast-skyetel.tgz

Next, let’s install the SMS Dictator application while still logged into your server:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sms-767-vitalpbx.tgz
tar zxvf sms-767-vitalpbx.tgz
rm -f sms-767-vitalpbx.tgz
./install-sms-dictator.sh

Configuring the Skyetel SMS Components

The last step of the SMS Dictator install script will prompt you to edit smsgen.sh. Leave apikey as your API_USERNAME and insert your actual IBM STT APIkey as API_PASSWORD in the fields provided. Insert your Skyetel SID, SECRET, and 11-digit DID in the fields provided. Then save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then ENTER.

Next, change directories to /root/sms-skyetel and edit BOTH sms-skyetel and smsblast and insert your Skyetel credentials and DID in the fields provided at the top of both files.

Finally, when you’re ready to use the message blasting application (smsblast), first insert your SMS message in the smsmsg.txt file. Then insert the list of SMS numbers in smslist.txt.

Installing Festival TTS with VitalPBX

If you have not already installed the Festival TTS engine, you’ll need it to use SMS Dictator. Here’s how to install it:

yum -y install festival
echo "[general]" > /etc/asterisk/festival.conf
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
festival_server &
systemctl restart asterisk
echo "/usr/bin/festival_server &" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Testing the Skyetel SMS Components

To try out the SMS Dictator application, dial S-M-S (767) from a phone connected to your PBX. When prompted, enter the 11-digit number of the SMS recipient. When prompted, dictate the message to be sent and press #.

To try out the stand-alone SMS application, navigate to /root/sms-skyetel and issue the following command using the 11-digit number of the SMS recipient followed by a space and an SMS message to be sent surrounded by quotes: ./sms-skyetel 18005551212 "Howdy."

To try out the message blasting SMS application, navigate to /root/sms-skyetel. Enter the message to be sent in smsmsg.txt and enter the list of SMS numbers in smslist.txt. Kick off the message blast by entering the command: ./smsblast.

Originally published: Monday, November 11, 2019


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


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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  1. Skyetel outbound SMS messages are billed at 1¢/message plus a monthly SMS surcharge of 10¢ per SMS-enabled DID. With IBM’s STT service, users have a choice of the LITE tier providing 100 minutes a month of free transcription or the STANDARD tier providing unlimited message transcription at a cost of 2¢/minute. []

Adding CallerID Names to VitalPBX Inbound & Outbound Calls

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In the early days of Asterisk®, it was not unlike the Wild West. Extension passwords of 1234 were pretty safe, and "anything goes" was the only rule when it came to scraping other folks’ web sites for data that you needed. And the master scraper of them all, Google, even had a phone: function (until they didn’t) that let you look up almost anyone’s name or telephone number. Ma Bell pretty much had a monopoly on CallerID Name (CNAM) data for phone numbers which is probably the reason the Google feature suddenly disappeared. Since the telecom industry universally discarded CNAM data when routing calls to destinations, it was up to the DID provider to look up the associated names out of their proprietary databases before connecting the call. Ma Bell called it a feature. It was more like a revenue generator.

For VoIP users, there were no CNAM services to speak of. Thus was born our CallerID Trifecta and later CallerID Superfecta projects more than a decade ago. Superfecta was later elevated to the stratosphere by some of the early FreePBX® pioneers including Lorne Gaetz and Andrew Nagy. The real beauty of CallerID Superfecta was the ability to search a cache for a CNAM match before scouring and scraping the web, a process which took a lot more time.

Much has changed in the last 10 years. One of the early lessons in CNAM lookups obtained by scraping web sites was that most of the site owners didn’t appreciate their newfound popularity. As a result, they continually modified their sites to discourage scraping, and this in turn regularly broke CallerID Superfecta. The other major change is that there now are multiple CNAM services for VoIP users. Almost all VoIP providers also include a CNAM lookup option, and there are dirt-cheap standalone services such as OpenCNAM and BulkCNAM.

In introducing CallerID Superfecta to the VitalPBX community, we wanted to take advantage of what we’ve learned as well as the new CNAM landscape. There still are limitations. All of the CNAM lookup services don’t mind charging you to return a CNAM result of Los Angeles, CA which you could have deciphered by simply examining the area code of the incoming call. And, if your girlfriend calls you twenty times a day, the CNAM services are more than happy to charge you for the same CNAM dip twenty times. And at least one VoIP provider charges for CNAM lookups whether you want them or not. That adds another half a cent to the cost of every incoming call. Most providers charge between $.002 (new BulkCNAM rate) and $.005 per dip1 so the charges can add up particularly with a lot of calls of short duration.

We previously mentioned using VitalPBX’s native OpenCNAM functionality to add CallerID Names to incoming calls. But there are three possible concerns with this approach. First, there’s the frequently calling girlfriend issue. Depending upon how much you like your girlfriend, that may or may not be acceptable. A second issue is the CNAM dips that only return the city and state of the call. For frequent callers, you obviously would like actual names associated with these callers. And a third issue is the absence of CNAM data in your CDR logs and on your SIP phone for outbound calls.

In considering a modern CallerID Superfecta design, we’ve concluded that you really only need three components. First, you need to examine whether an actual name was passed with the incoming call. Second, you need to check whether your local database already has a CNAM entry for the caller. And, third, if those two sources don’t bear fruit, you need a lookup from a stand-alone CNAM provider. We believe the prudent design for the local component is to consolidate all available CNAM information into a single local CNAM database with import tools from other servers for apps such as the Asterisk Phonebook, AsteriDex, and Google Contacts. The local Asterisk Phonebook included in AstDB’s SQLite3 database is perfectly suited to serve as a local CNAM repository.

Legal Disclaimer: Most CNAM providers have restrictions regarding caching of CNAM data. The courts consistently have ruled that phonebook data is not copyrightable. And every PBX caches CNAM data. After all, that’s what CDR logs are all about. Consult with your own attorney if you have concerns, or simply stop reading here. 🙂

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Now that VitalPBX has included unlimited Custom Contexts at no cost, our tasks today are easy. The plan of attack goes like this. When an incoming call hits your PBX, we’ll check whether a CallerID name accompanied the call. Next, we’ll check the Asterisk Phonebook to see if we have a name associated with that phone number. If there’s no CNAM entry after checking both sources, then we’ll perform an OpenCNAM lookup using your credentials. For outgoing calls, we’ll check the Asterisk Phonebook for a CNAM match on the number being called and, if there is no match, we’ll perform an OpenCNAM lookup using your credentials. You have the option of using either, both, or neither of these CNAM scripts.

Before we get started, it’s worth noting that finding a "hook" for outbound calls was not a simple task with VitalPBX. The trick was to find a subroutine that could be replaced without damaging the native functionality of the PBX. We finally found a spot, but we were limited to just two lines of code. The solution was to use one of those lines to execute a separate subroutine which had no restrictions on size. So let’s get started.

As with FreePBX, a config file is used to manage custom contexts. With VitalPBX, extensions__80-custom.conf in /etc/asterisk/ombutel is the file you need. If it doesn’t exist, simply create it. This file has two parts which again are similar to the FreePBX design. The [cos-all-custom](+) context is used for extension code in exactly the same way that the [from-internal-custom] context is used in FreePBX. In addition to extension dialplan code, you also can embed additional contexts just as you could with FreePBX. If you’ve installed Incredible PBX for VitalPBX, then you already have a number of extension components in the [cos-all-custom](+) context. So we’ll be adding some additional contexts at the bottom of the file. If you don’t already have an extensions__80-custom.conf file, create it and add [cos-all-custom](+) as the first line in the file. All of today’s code is licensed for your use pursuant to the terms of the GPLv2 license available here.

Adding CallerID Superfecta for Incoming Calls

Log into your server as root and navigate to /etc/asterisk/ombutel. Edit extensions__80-custom.conf and cut-and-paste the following code to the bottom of the file. Be sure to insert your actual OpenCNAM credentials in the SID and TOKEN entries near the top of the code replacing xxxx and yyyy.

;# // BEGIN CallerID Superfecta
[superfecta]
exten => s,1,NoOp(Executing CID Superfecta)

; insert OpenCNAM credentials below
  same => n,Set(SID=xxxx)
  same => n,Set(TOKEN=yyyy)

  same => n,NoOp(CID Number: ${CALL_SOURCE})
  same => n,Set(CID_NAME=${CALLERID(name)})
  same => n,NoOp(AstDB lookup underway)
  same => n,Set(CID_NAME2=${DB(cidname/${CALL_SOURCE})})
  same => n,GotoIf($["foo${CID_NAME2}" = "foo"]?runOpenCNAM:skipOpenCNAM)
  same => n(runOpenCNAM),NoOp(OpenCNAM lookup underway)
  same => n,Set(DB(cidname/${CALL_SOURCE})=${CID_NAME})
  same => n,Set(CID_NAME3=${SHELL(curl https://${SID}:${TOKEN}@api.opencnam.com/v2/phone/${CALL_SOURCE}?format=pbx)})
; for BulkCNAM, comment out line above and uncomment line below after inserting your APIkey
; same => n,Set(CID_NAME3=${SHELL(curl -X GET "https://cnam.bulkCNAM.com/?id=APIkey&did=${CALL_SOURCE}")})
  same => n,GotoIf($["foo${CID_NAME3}" = "foo"]?skipBOTH
  same => n,Set(DB(cidname/${CALL_SOURCE})=${CID_NAME3})
  same => n,Set(CALLERID(name)=${CID_NAME3})
  same => n,Goto(skipBOTH)
  same => n(skipOpenCNAM),Set(CALLERID(name)=${CID_NAME2})
  same => n(skipBOTH),Set(ICALL=yes)
  same => n,Answer

;  same => n,Wait(2)
;; requires addition of nv-GenericWelcome.ulaw in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom
;  same => n,Background(custom/nv-GenericWelcome&silence/1&continue-in-english&press-7,nm)
;  same => n,WaitExten(.)
;; exten => 7,1,Goto(cos-all,701,1)
;; exten => 7,1,Goto(cos-all-trunk,8436060555,1)
;; exten => 7,1,Goto(newcontext,s,1)
;  exten => 7,1,Goto(incrediblepbx,s,1)
;  same => n,Return()
; exten => t,1,Hangup
;  same => n,Return()
; exten => i,1,Hangup
;  same => n,Return()

; same => n,Goto(cos-all,701,1)
; same => n,Goto(cos-all-trunk,8436060555,1)
; same => n,Goto(newcontext,s,1)
; same => n,ExecIf($["${DID}" = "8436060555"]?Goto(incrediblepbx,s,1))
  same => n,Goto(incrediblepbx,s,1)
  same => n(return),Return()
;# // END CallerID Superfecta

Replacing OpenCNAM with BulkCNAM for Queries

With the recent price drop, you may prefer to use BulkVS.com for your CNAM queries. You’ll need to obtain your APIkey from their portal in API:API Credentials. Then locate the Set(CID_NAME3… line in the script above and replace it with the following line using your actual APIkey:

same => n,Set(CID_NAME3=${SHELL(curl -X GET "https://cnam.bulkCNAM.com/?id=APIkey&did=${CALL_SOURCE}")})

Choosing a Destination for Incoming Calls

We want to spend a minute on the last several lines of the Superfecta dialplan code:

; same => n,Goto(cos-all,701,1)
; same => n,Goto(cos-all-trunk,8436060555,1)
; same => n,Goto(newcontext,s,1)
  same => n,ExecIf($["${DID}" = "8436060555"]?Goto(cos-all,701,1))
  same => n,Goto(incrediblepbx,s,1)

 
These five lines demonstrate how to redirect incoming calls to five different destinations: an extension, an external phone number, another custom context, a DID-specific routing, or the Incredible PBX Demo IVR. As shown, the calls would be routed to the default Demo IVR unless the DID matches 8436060555 in which case the call would be routed to extension 701. You can modify the destination scenario simply by uncommenting a different line in the dialplan examples. Keep in mind that a Goto command permanently redirects calls to that destination outside the Custom Context so the first uncommented Goto line will always take precedence. Also note that you can have multiple ExecIf lines preceding a Goto line to route calls to different destinations depending upon the DID of the incoming call. Stated another way, multiple ExecIf commands can be followed by a Goto command that serves as the default destination for any non-matching DIDs. You could also redirect by CallerID number.

Blocking Telemarketers with CallerID Superfecta

As election season heats up in the United States, be advised that your favorite legislators have exempted themselves from the robocall rules so dinnertime will get more interesting in coming months. One simple solution is to prompt the caller to enter a number before actually connecting the call. This kills most robocalls. We’ve included the code to do this in CallerID Superfecta. Just uncomment the code so that it looks like the following after choosing a call destination as documented in the previous section:

  same => n,Wait(2)
; requires addition of nv-GenericWelcome.ulaw in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom
  same => n,Background(custom/nv-GenericWelcome&silence/1&continue-in-english&press-7,nm)
  same => n,WaitExten(.)
; exten => 7,1,Goto(cos-all,701,1)
; exten => 7,1,Goto(cos-all-trunk,8436060555,1)
; exten => 7,1,Goto(newcontext,s,1)
  exten => 7,1,Goto(incrediblepbx,s,1)
  same => n,Return()
 exten => t,1,Hangup
  same => n,Return()
 exten => i,1,Hangup
  same => n,Return()

 
Before this will work, you’ll need to download the nv-GenericWelcome.ulaw recording:

cd /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/nv-GenericWelcome.ulaw

Adding CallerID Superfecta for Outgoing Calls

If CNAM data for outgoing calls is also desired for your CDR logs, here’s the dialplan code to cut-and-paste into the bottom of the Custom Contexts file. Insert your OpenCNAM credentials in the code replacing xxxx and yyyy just as you did in the previous section:

[cos-all-custom]
exten => _.,1,NoOp(*** Custom Outbound CNAM Code ***))
    same => n,GoSub(cnam-out,s,1)

[cnam-out]
exten => s,1,NoOp(*** Outbound CNAM context for Incredible PBX ***)
  same => n,Set(SID=xxxx)
  same => n,Set(TOKEN=yyyy)
  same => n,NoOp(Calling: ${EXTENSION})
  same => n,Set(CID_NUM=${EXTENSION})
  same => n,NoOp(AstDB lookup underway)
  same => n,Set(CID_NAME=${DB(cidname/${CID_NUM})})
  same => n,GotoIf($["foo${CID_NAME}" = "foo"]?runOpenCNAM:skipOpenCNAM)
  same => n(runOpenCNAM),NoOp(OpenCNAM lookup underway)
  same => n,Set(CID_NAME=${SHELL(curl https://${SID}:${TOKEN}@api.opencnam.com/v2/phone/${CID_NUM}?format=pbx)})
; for BulkCNAM, comment out line above and uncomment line below after inserting your APIkey
;  same => n,Set(CID_NAME=${SHELL(curl -X GET "https://cnam.bulkCNAM.com/?id=APIkey&did=${CID_NUM}")})
  same => n,Set(DB(cidname/${CID_NUM})=${CID_NAME})
  same => n(skipOpenCNAM),Set(CDR(customer_code)=${CID_NAME})
  same => n,Set(ICALL=yes)
  same => n,NoOp(*** Outbound CNAM context ends here ***)
  same => n,Return()

Activating CallerID Superfecta with VitalPBX

As with any dialplan changes, you first must reload the dialplan: asterisk -rx "dialplan reload". Next, we need to create a Custom Context within the VitalPBX GUI and point any desired Inbound Routes to that custom context. Using a web browser, log in to the VitalPBX GUI as admin. Navigate to PBX:Applications:Custom Contexts and create a new custom context for CallerID Superfecta:

Description: CID Superfecta
Context: superfecta
Extension: s
Priority: 1
Destination: Terminate Call -> Hangup

Next, identify the Trunks that you want to use with CallerID Superfecta and create an Inbound Route for those trunks pointing to CallerID Superfecta as the Destination for those calls.

If you want different destinations within CallerID Superfecta context for different trunks, then you’ll need to use ExecIf commands as shown in the dialplan to identify each trunk and to route the calls to the desired locations. Note that you can have multiple ExecIf commands followed by an uncommented default destination for any incoming calls that do not have a DID match.

Importing Asterisk Phonebook Data from Another PBX

To supplement your local Asterisk Phonebook which will serve as the local CNAM repository for VitalPBX, you can easily import data from other sources. And, as those sources change, you can export the entire database again and repeat the import procedure without worrying about duplicating data in your local Asterisk Phonebook. Imported data always overwrites existing entries which have a match on the phone number. To import an Asterisk Phonebook from another PBX, here are the steps to run on that PBX to create the import script which should be copied and run on the VitalPBX platform: import-asterisk-phonebook.sh

CAUTION: Carefully review the generated import script for anomalies before running it.

cd /var/lib/asterisk
sqlite3 astdb.sqlite3 "select key,value from astdb \\
 where key LIKE '%cidname/%'" > /root/import.sh
cd /root
sed -i 's|/cidname|asterisk -rx "database put cidname "|' import.sh
sed -i 's| "/| |' import.sh
sed -i 's|\\|| "|' import.sh
sed -i 's|$|"|' import.sh
sed -i "s|\"d|'d|" import.sh
sed -i "s|$|'|" import.sh
chmod +x import.sh
mv import.sh import-asterisk-phonebook.sh

Importing AsteriDex Data from Another PBX

Here are the steps to export existing AsteriDex data from another Incredible PBX platform. Once the steps have been completed, copy import-asteridex.sh to VitalPBX, make the script executable, and run it.

mysql -u root -ppassw0rd asteridex -N -s -e 'select "*",`out`,`name` from user1' | \\
 sed 's|\\t|, |g' > tmp.txt
sed -i "s|*,|asterisk -rx 'database put|" tmp.txt
sed -i 's|, | "|' tmp.txt
sed -i 's|$|"|' tmp.txt
sed -i "s|$|'|" tmp.txt
mv tmp.txt import-asteridex.sh

Importing Google Contacts into Asterisk Phonebook

Here are the steps to import existing Google Contacts into the VitalPBX Asterisk Phonebook:

  1. From within Google Contacts, export your contacts into a vcard format file: contacts.vcf
  2. Copy the contacts.vcf file to the /root folder of your PBX
  3. wget http://incrediblepbx.com/googlecontacts-importer.tar.gz
  4. tar zxvf googlecontacts-importer.tar.gz
  5. rm -f googlecontacts-importer.tar.gz
  6. Run the main script: /root/vcard-import.sh
  7. Edit the shell script that is generated: nano -w import-google-contacts.sh
  8. Make any changes to clean up the entries from Google Contacts
  9. chmod +x /root/import-google-contacts.sh
  10. Run the script to import your Google Contacts: /root/import-google-contacts.sh

Managing the Asterisk Phonebook with VitalPBX

To add or replace entries in the Asterisk Phonebook from the Linux CLI, here’s the syntax:

asterisk -rx 'database put cidname 8005551212 "Directory Assistance"' 

To remove an entry from the Asterisk Phonebook, the syntax looks like this:

asterisk -rx "database del cidname 8005551212"

To display all entries in your Asterisk Phonebook, issue the following command:

asterisk -rx "database show cidname"

 
Originally published: Monday, November 4, 2019


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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  1. BulkCNAM previously charged $.005 per CNAM dip but recently sent out an email indicating they were dropping the rate to $.002. Our CNAM charges continued to be billed at $.005 with the daily charges being rounded up to the whole penny. So… you may want to check your CNAM charges for a bit to verify that you are being billed at the new rate. If not, open a ticket and they will correct it. []

Meet Incredible PBX 16 with VitalPBX for VirtualBox


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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® 16 with VitalPBX 2.3.8.

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 .ova image from SourceForge, double-click on the downloaded image, check the initialize MAC address box, and boom. Instant PBX! In less than a minute, your PBX will be ready to use. Just sign up for an account with our Platinum provider, Skyetel, and you can start making free calls. Of course, the Incredible PBX feature set is included and VitalPBX is preconfigured to introduce you to a truly revolutionary communications platform. Speech-to-text, voice recognition, and a Siri-like telephony interface are as close as your SIP phone.

Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

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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.

Installing Incredible PBX 16 with VitalPBX 2.3.8

To begin, download the Incredible PBX 16 .ova image (1.1 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 and then click Import. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new Incredible PBX 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 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 16 with VitalPBX 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. 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 immediately by typing: passwd. Make note of the IP address of your PBX. Then point your favorite browser to the IP address. Update your admin password for web access when prompted. Register your PBX with the VitalPBX folks, and you’re ready to go. You’ll need this admin password each time you access the web GUI to manage your PBX.

Should you ever forget your admin password, log into your server as root and issue the following command to reset it. The next time you access the GUI with a browser, you’ll be prompted to create a new admin password.

mysql ombutel -e 'update ombu_settings set value = "yes" where name = "reset_pwd"'

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. Typing date will tell you whether your VM is affected. If it’s a problem, manually set the date and time and then update the hardware clock. Here’s how assuming 08130709 is the month, day, and correct time of your server:

date 08130709
clock -w

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BUG FIXES: Only two bugs to report and that’s an inaccurate display of available disk space in the pbxstatus utility (shown above) and a permissions issue that prevented writing data to AsteriDex. Here are the fixes:

sed -i 's| /"|/centos"|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
chown asterisk:apache /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 16

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.

Incredible PBX already is configured to connect with Skyetel. However, for security, your virtual machine should be running behind a router or firewall. That means you will have to redirect the Skyetel SIP traffic to the private IP address of your PBX. In your router, reserve the assigned DHCP private LAN address of your PBX so that it will not change. Then map incoming SIP and RTP traffic (TCP/UDP 5060-5080 and UDP 10000-20000) to the private LAN address of your PBX.

Configuring Incredible PBX 16 for VirtualBox

There are 10 Quick Steps to Customize Incredible PBX for your environment. Here’s how.

1. In the web GUI, navigate to PBX:Extensions:Extensions. Click the Extensions Options bar and choose 701. Reset your extension 701 Password and enter your Email Address. In the Voicemail tab, you can either leave the default voicemail password as 701 which means you’ll be prompted to set a new one the first time you access 701 voicemail, OR you can set one while you’re here. Click Save and then Reload Dialplan when you’re finished.

2. Before your PBX can receive calls, you’ll need at least one Inbound Route. This tells the PBX how to route calls from one or more phone numbers (DIDs) that you own to a destination on your PBX, e.g. an extension, a ring group, an IVR, or custom context. We’ve preconfigured a Default route which directs all incoming calls to the Demo IVR. To change it, navigate to PBX:External:Inbound Routes and choose the Default route from the Options bar. If you’d prefer that incoming calls be routed to extension 701, simply change the Inbound Destination. Then SAVE and Reload Dialplan.

3. Outbound email functionality is essential on your PBX. The easiest solution is to configure PostFix as an SMTP Relay using a Gmail account. You can do this easily from within the VitalPBX GUI. Navigate to Admin:System Settings:Email Settings and click the External Mail Server tab. Be sure that Gmail is selected and enter your Gmail name and password in the fields provided. Save your settings and send yourself an email using the field provided.

4. 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. 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.

5. If you only wish to receive recorded voicemails by email, you can skip this step. Once you have obtained IBM TTS and STT passwords, here’s how to set up Voicemail Transcription with Email Message Delivery:

  a. After logging into your VitalPBX server as root using SSH/Putty:

cd /tmp
mkdir sendmail
cd sendmail
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/sendmailibm-vitalpbx.tar.gz
tar zxvf sendmailibm-vitalpbx.tar.gz
rm -f sendmailibm-vitalpbx.tar.gz
mv usr/sbin/sendmailibm /usr/sbin
cd /etc/asterisk/ombutel
echo "[general](+)" > voicemail__60-1-transcript.conf 
echo "; format=wav|wav49|gsm" >> voicemail__60-1-transcript.conf
echo "mailcmd=/usr/sbin/sendmailibm" >> voicemail__60-1-transcript.conf
chown apache:apache voicemail__60-1-transcript.conf
rm -rf /tmp/sendmail

 
  b. Restart Asterisk core services: asterisk -rx "core reload"

  c. Edit /usr/sbin/sendmailibm and insert your IBM Watson STT APIkey on line 23. Change the language on line 31 if you don’t want en-US. Then save the file.

  d. Log back into the VitalPBX GUI and configure the extensions desired for email delivery of voicemail. For each extension in PBX:Extensions:General, enter an Email Address for delivery of voicemails. In PBX:Extensions:Voicemail, verify the VM settings from step #20.

6. Associating CallerID Names (CNAM) with inbound calls for display on SIP phones and in the CDR logs is an often-requested PBX feature. There are a few ways to do it. First, for less than a penny a call, you can activate the feature with your DIDs in the Skyetel Dashboard. Or, for about half the cost, you can acquire an OpenCNAM account and activate it in VitalPBX by navigating to PBX:Incoming Calls:CID Lookup. Choose OpenCNAM as the Source and enter your credentials. Then SAVE your settings and reload the dialplan. Then, for each of your Inbound Routes, add OpenCNAM as the CID Lookup source and Update your configuration.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Before you do anything else, navigate to Admin:Admin:Backup & Restore, configure and run a Full Backup, and then download the file and keep it in a safe place. Be advised that Backup/Restore doesn’t restore Add-Ons, /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin, custom contexts (extensions__80*.conf) in /etc/asterisk/ombutel, custom MySQL databases (mysqldump -u root yourDB > yourDB.sql), custom and lenny sound directories in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds, phpMyAdmin, /usr/local/sbin, and /etc/crontab.

10. 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.

Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX

We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices. We’ll start with some free ones 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.

For Windows, iOS, and Android platforms, we recommend the free VitalPBX Communicator.

For the Mac platform, we recommend the free Telephone app available in the App Store.

Managing the AsteriDex SQLite3 Database

We’ve alluded to the AsteriDex database in a couple of VitalPBX articles but never mentioned how to access it. Using a browser, point it to http://server-ip/asteridex4. You can add, edit, display, and delete entries from there. Before you can make changes in the database, issue the following command after logging into your server as root:

chown asterisk:apache /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin

Taking Incredible PBX for a Test Drive

You can take Incredible PBX for VitalPBX on a test drive in two ways. You can call our server, and then you can try things out on your own server and compare the results. Call our IVR by dialing 1-843-606-0555. For our international friends, you can use the following SIP URI for a free call: 10159591015959@atlanta.voip.ms. For tips on setting up your own secure, hybrid SIP URI with VitalPBX, see our original tutorial. The FreePBX® setup is virtually identical except for the location of the custom SIP setting for match_auth_username=yes. On a VitalPBX server, you will enter it here: Settings:Technology Settings:SIP Settings:CUSTOM.

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

  • 0. Chat with Operator — connects to extension 701
  • 1. AsteriDex Voice Dialer (412) – say "Delta Airlines" or "American Airlines" to connect
  • 2. Conferencing (2663) – log in using 1234 as the conference PIN
  • 3. Wolfram Alpha Almanac (4747) – say "What planes are flying overhead now?"
  • 4. Lenny (53669) – The Telemarketer’s Worst Nightmare
  • 5. Today’s News Headlines (951) — courtesy of Yahoo! News
  • 6. Weather by ZIP Code (947) – enter any 5-digit ZIP code for today’s weather
  • 7. Today in History (86329) — courtesy of OnThisDay.com
  • 8. Call Extension 701 — on your local PBX
  • 9. DISA Voice Dialer (3172) — say any 10-digit number to be connected
  • *. Current TIME and Date (8463) — courtesy of VitalPBX

CAUTION: We have intentionally disabled outbound calls using Option #9 and redirected callers to Lenny. The reason is that an unscrupulous caller could easily run up your phone bill by entering a number with expensive destination charges. If you wish to enable the feature, despite the risks, you can edit extensions__80-1-incrediblepbx.conf and make the change.

You can call your own IVR in a few ways. From an internal VitalPBX phone, dial D-E-M-O (2663) to be connected. Or simply dial the number of the DID you routed to the Incredible PBX Custom Context. Local users can also dial the individual feature codes shown in parentheses above. Be sure that you heed AND test the CAUTION documented above.

Originally published: Monday, October 28, 2019


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


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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



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