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Newbie’s SIP Navigation Guide for Asterisk: Is It Safe?

Monday, September 9, 2013 / 1 Comment on Newbie’s SIP Navigation Guide for Asterisk: Is It Safe?

It’s Back to School Time at Nerd Vittles today with a wrap-up of our series exploring the symbiotic relationship between SIP and Asterisk® including the most important consideration of all: SIP Security 101, a quick-and-dirty look at the security implications of using SIP with Asterisk. If you read nothing else before you begin your VoIP adventure, move today’s article to the top of your list. It might save you a personal fortune! Think of it as winning the lottery without even buying a ticket. Then we’ll summarize some safe approaches to using SIP with Asterisk. And finish up with a novel way to implement free SIP calling using almost any telephone: POTS phone, cellphone, or any SIP phone.

Asterisk Boot Camp: SIP Security 101

By default, most Asterisk systems including those relying upon FreePBX® are configured to deny anonymous SIP calls. If your server has a fully-qualified domain name, it means SIP calls to 201@myserver.com will fail. Since SIP URI calls are free from anywhere in the world, that’s a big deal. The million dollar question is why not just enable anonymous SIP calling on your Asterisk server and call it a day. Then anybody can call any extension on your PBX. That’s half of the answer actually: "Then anybody can call any extension on your PBX." If that were the only exposure by opening up SIP to anonymous callers, many of us could probably live with that. After all, that’s how POTS phones worked for almost 100 years. The difference, of course, is anonymous SIP calls are free and often undetectable regardless of where the calling party happens to actually be. Unlike HTTP requests which preclude users from spoofing the IP address, SIP requests have no such limitation. That means a SIP packet can knock on your door masquerading as a SIP packet initiated from your own server.

Unfortunately, when you expose UDP port 5060 and your Asterisk server to any and all SIP traffic sent your way from the Internet, it means any kind of SIP packet can be sent to your server for processing. That includes login requests to extensions and trunks as well as SIP packets with all sorts of vile code embedded in the SIP headers.

SIP can be used for DDoS attacks from inside or outside of the network, and it is the SBC or other border controller device’s job to handle those types of issues. Common attacks include SIP registration floods, endpoint spoofing, and ENUM attacks.

Without boring you with the details, suffice it to say that SIP vulnerabilities have been discovered regularly in all flavors of Asterisk… as recently as a few weeks ago. And, Asterisk 12 is just around the corner with an entirely new approach to SIP. So, before you open your server to anonymous SIP attacks, ask yourself whether you (and your wallet) believe that we’ve seen the last of the SIP vulnerabilities. Keep in mind that, if an attacker gains access to your server, everything is vulnerable including not only your internal extension credentials but also your account names and passwords with all of your providers. Once they have those, they don’t need access to your server any longer. They can run up phone bills on your nickel using direct connections to your providers.

Believe it or not, there was actually a SIP exploit several years ago where the bad guys embedded some code in a SIP packet that crashed the server when anyone happened to look at the SIP entry in their call logs or CDR reports using a browser. And, before the crash, it relayed some of your most prized Asterisk secrets to the attacker. Remember, many Asterisk passwords are stored in plain text on your server. If you don’t believe it, try these commands after logging into your server and switching to the asterisk user (the user account that runs Asterisk and your Apache web server):¹

su asterisk cat /etc/asterisk/manager.conf asterisk -rx "database show" mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd asterisk -e "SELECT keyword,data FROM sip"

If that last one doesn’t scare the crap out of you, then Let Me Google That For You. The simple answer would have been to cleanse SIP headers before writing the contents to the logs. But the "purists" won that battle maintaining that such action would bastardize the call logs by failing to document everything in exactly the way it was received.

So much for security!

As long as we have very secure passwords for trunks and extensions, doesn’t Fail2Ban block hacking attacks after several unsuccessful login attempts? Unfortunately, that depends on the performance of your server and the one being used by the attacker. Remember, neither Asterisk nor the Linux kernel, scans SIP traffic for malware. Fail2Ban operates on the data after the fact by scanning entries in your server logs for matching patterns which you define. And these entries are written to the logs only after Asterisk or your web server has processed the packets. If it turns out the attacker is using a gazillion-horsepower server in the cloud, then your poor little server never gets enough processing time with Linux to actually scan the Asterisk log for failed login attempts. What that means is the attacker can execute thousands, if not tens of thousands, of SIP attempts before Fail2Ban ever springs into action even when you’ve set the threshold for blocking an IP address to as few as three failed login attempts.

We want to stress that this isn’t a diatribe against the developers with regard to security. The point is some of the fundamental design choices made with regard to Asterisk and FreePBX do not lend themselves to safe deployment on a public-facing server without additional layers of security. In the case of PBX in a Flash™, it’s the reason we have implemented Apache-level security on the FreePBX web assets in addition to an IPtables firewall and Fail2Ban. For history lovers, keep in mind that, when Asterisk@Home and trixbox® were in their heyday, none of these safeguards were provided.

We’re going to postpone discussion of SIP encryption and SRTP because of its complexity. Suffice it to say, it’s just coming into its own with Asterisk 11, and it raises new problems of its own, e.g. finding compatible phones. You can try it out using our PBX in a Flash WebRTC Virtual Machine. And here is today’s must-read article on the subject.

What’s the bottom line with SIP exposure of your Asterisk server to the Internet? The short answer is DON’T especially if you’re new to the VoIP and Asterisk world. You’re simply asking for a $100,000 phone bill. Ma Bell & Friends don’t really care who makes calls on your nickel. And, remember, keeping your server behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure does not affect your ability to make or receive calls using registered providers. That includes SIP, IAX2, Google Voice, and PSTN calls. It also doesn’t affect your ability to make free outbound SIP URI calls to anywhere in the world even with no provider registrations.

Safely Integrating SIP URIs into Asterisk

The long answer is there is a relatively safe way to implement SIP access to your server from the Internet. First, you can use registered trunks with reputable providers to provide SIP connectivity to your server. This includes PSTN calls to DIDs as well as SIP URI calls in many cases. Let the providers worry about SIP attacks while your server sits safely behind a hardware-based firewall with NO Internet port exposure! There are better tools than Asterisk to avoid SIP disasters and protect against malicious SIP attacks. You can protect yourself by keeping a minimal amount of money in your provider accounts with no automatic replenishment from a credit card. Second, for those that need to connect remote phones to your Asterisk server, you can use Firewall WhiteLists with IPtables to restrict access to only the good guys. Travelin’ Man 3 sets up WhiteLists for PBX in a Flash servers in a couple of minutes.

What you can’t do is rely upon BlackLists of IP addresses to keep the bad guys out. If you’ve ever played Whac-A-Mole, you can appreciate the difficulty of using BlackLists to secure your server. The bad guys can change their identity by simply using different IP addresses or by using the IP address of a compromised PC such as the one sitting in your grandma’s kitchen. In addition, the bad guys have become experts in inserting important (safe) IP addresses in BlackLists which, of course, is extremely problematic if one of those IP addresses happens to be one of your SIP providers.

The silver lining of Asterisk is the ability to make and receive free calls to and from anywhere in the world using SIP URIs. They look like email addresses, but SIP URIs actually connect calls via SIP between SIP servers and endpoints regardless of where they may be on the Internet. In the "old days," advertising a SIP URI for inbound call access to your server meant exposing Asterisk to anonymous SIP traffic. Not any more! Simply sign up for a (pre-paid) account on VoIP.ms or a FREE account at either sip2sip.info or Anveo.com, follow one of our tutorials to register your account, and you’ll automatically have a free SIP URI for your Asterisk server. No Internet port exposure of your Asterisk server is ever required!

Instead of using some-account-number@atlanta.voip.ms or some-account-number@sip2sip.info as your SIP URI, most folks will prefer a SIP URI that matches your existing domain, if you happen to have one. This Nerd Vittles article will walk you through the process of converting your VoIP.ms or Sip2Sip URI into something more manageable: yourname@yourdomain.com. And, thanks to RentPBX, everyone is more than welcome to use the PBX in a Flash cloaking servers on the east and west coast to manage the SIP URI translation magic. If you happen to be (or would like to become) a PBX in a Flash Forum Guru, there’s another option. We’ll host your vanity SIP URI @pbxinaflash.com using your forum name. Just drop us a note on the forum for details. We’re always looking for subject matter experts on the forum. You don’t have to be an expert in everything, just one topic. If you qualify, please let us know and WELCOME!

Dialing SIP URI Calls with iNUM Using Any Telephone

We’ve saved the best for last again. The only problem with SIP URIs is how to dial them. Most phones don’t have a full keyboard. While you can certainly create a few Speed Dial (Custom) Extensions in FreePBX using sip/joe@schmo.com as the SIP URI dial string for the extension, this isn’t feasible on a bigger scale. What makes more sense is to actually use a phone number to connect the call. We previously have documented the iNum solution that’s available through a number of providers including VoIP.ms and LocalPhone. These calls used to be free with Google Voice until Google changed their mind. Now they’re 3¢ a minute. But they’re still free calls with most providers. The only real drawback is the length of the phone number. 883510009901997 is a little hard to remember, even to call Lenny. And, with RentPBX, you need a prefix of 011 to add insult to injury. But, hey, the calls are free to anywhere.

There’s a better way that actually uses your SIP URI to make the call. It’s John Todd’s brainchild, FreeNUM with ISN. As the image shows, ISN numbers are easy to remember and easy to dial. Instead of an @ symbol for email, you use an * symbol for you know what. And you still get Lenny! The trick to ISN dialing is that we pass a number such as 1234*1061 to a DNS server that knows how to translate the numeric sequence into a SIP URI that looks like this: 1234@pbxinaflash.com. It takes the number after the asterisk and resolves it to a fully-qualified domain name which is preconfigured at freenum.org. And the result is inter-domain numeric SIP addressing using ordinary telephone instruments.

The Asterisk setup using FreePBX is simple. The FreeNUM trunk should look like this:

The Outbound Route should look like this:

The dialplan context to tack on the end of /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf looks like this:

[freenum] exten => _X.,1,Set(TIMEOUT(absolute)=10800) exten => _X.,2,NoOp(Number to Call: ${EXTEN}) exten => _X.,3,Set(isnresult=${ENUMLOOKUP(${EXTEN},sip,,1,freenum.org)}) exten => _X.,4,GotoIf($["${isnresult}"=""]?6:5) exten => _X.,5,Dial(SIP/${isnresult},40,r) exten => _X.,6,Background(ss-noservice) exten => _X.,7,Congestion exten => _X.,8,Hangup exten => h,1,Hangup exten => i,1,Hangup exten => T,1,Hangup

For those using Incredible PBX™, the good news is you already have it. Just pick up an extension on your system and dial 1234*1061 to give Lenny a piece of your mind. It works exactly like this SIP URI: sip/1234*1061@freenum.org. For everyone else, believe it or not, we’ve already written about this back when some of you still were in diapers. So read the article for all the details and ISN registration instructions. You will note that in more recent versions of Incredible PBX (including what we’ve shown above), the ** prefix for ISN calls has been eliminated. Now you can dial ISN calls just as described in the FreeNUM literature. We’ve also migrated our ISN domain from sip.pbxinaflash.com to pbxinaflash.com to simplify DNS administration. For PBX in a Flash Forum Gurus, we’ll be happy to set you up with your own free ISN number in the pbxinaflash.com domain as well.

Dialing SIP URI Calls with IPKall Using Any Telephone

There’s yet another option. With an IPKall DID from one of several Seattle area codes, you can interconnect your SIP URI with every PSTN phone in the world. And it’s free. Just make at least one inbound call a month, and the phone number is yours to keep. Here’s the easy way to do it. Just sign up for a free DID at www.ipkall.com. After choosing an area code for your free number, you’ll be prompted for the following information.

Here’s what you’d enter using your free Sip2Sip URI:

Phone Number: 323XXXXXXX
SIP Proxy: sip2sip.info
Email Address: your-email-address
Password: some-password-to-get-back-into-your-account

Here’s what you’d enter using your free Anveo SIP URI:

Phone Number: 1555ACCOUNTNUMBER
SIP Proxy: sip.anveo.com:5010
Email Address: your-email-address
Password: some-password-to-get-back-into-your-account

Once you’ve completed the form, submit it and wait for your new phone number to be delivered in your email. You should get it within a couple minutes so check your spam folder if you don’t see it. Congratulations! You’ve done everything you need to do for anyone to call you using either your SIP URI or your new DID from IPkall.

It’s worth noting that IPKall recycles DIDs that aren’t used for 30 days. If you use Incredible PBX, the easiest way to assure you don’t lose your number is to set up a weekly recurring Telephone Reminder that calls your IPkall number.

But How Do I Make VoIP Calls to Plain Old Telephones?

We’ve spent a lot of time on free SIP solutions for inbound calls, but inevitably you’re going to need a way to call Plain Old Telephones whether they be customers or friends and family. To make outbound calls or terminations in VoIP parlance, you’re going to need an account with a VoIP provider. If you’re in the United States, you still can get one or more free Google Voice accounts. These accounts let you make unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. Both PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX come preconfigured to support Google Voice calling. The scuttlebutt is this may be the last year of the free ride so it’s probably a good idea to try some other alternatives. It’s a good idea anyway because Google has made an art form of "improving" things and breaking VoIP calling periodically. Here’s our "Best of the Best" list of pay-by-the-minute VoIP providers for US48 calls. Lower cost providers are available to call some destinations, but the vendors below provide flat-rate per minute pricing to all US48 destinations. Trunks to support most of these providers also come preconfigured in Incredible PBX. With most of these providers, you set up an account and deposit a small pot of money. When you make calls, the cost of the call is debited from your account. When you run out of money, you can’t make any more calls. For the sake of redundancy, having multiple providers is a very good idea. It costs you nothing to have multiple providers until you actually make calls. Enjoy!

$.005 – LocalPhone* (mobile $.007)
$.007 – DIDlogic (toll-free $.005)
$.009 – SIP.US
$.010 – Flowroute (toll-free $.000)
$.010 – Anveo.com
$.011 – VoIP.ms*
$.014 – Vitelity
$.015 – Les.net
$.020 – CallCentric*

* Free iNUM DID and free worldwide iNUM calling. Tutorial here.

Don’t forget to List Yourself in Directory Assistance so everyone can find you by dialing 411. And add your new number to the Do Not Call Registry to block telemarketing calls. Or just call 888-382-1222 from your new number.

Deals of the Week. There’s still an amazing deal on the street, but you’d better hurry. A new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster.

Originally published: Monday, September 9, 2013

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

We are pleased to once again be able to offer Nerd Vittles’ readers a 20% discount on registration to attend this year’s 10th Anniversary AstriCon in Atlanta. Here’s the Nerd Vittles Discount Code: AC13NERD.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

On the Raspberry Pi platform, substitute "raspberry" for "passw0rd" in the MySQL example. [↩]

Just 3 Steps to Paradise: It’s Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8

Saturday, June 25, 2011 / 18 Comments on Just 3 Steps to Paradise: It’s Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8

UPDATE: Incredible PBX 2.0 has just been released. Here's the article.

Hard to believe it's been over a year since we introduced The Incredible PBX. That makes today really special. And we're especially pleased to introduce a major facelift for the Incredible web site and, more importantly, an awesome new edition of Incredible PBX. Seems only fitting to release it on 5-9, a day synonymous with the level of perfection we're always shooting for. Time will tell. With the recent release of CentOS 5.6 came a new PBX in a Flash 1.7.5.6, and a much more stable Asterisk® 1.8.4.1.¹ We've retweaked Incredible PBX to take advantage of the refinements and added some new features like faxing, SMS messaging, and MLB scores & schedules. Under the covers, you'll find Kennonsoft's incredible new PBX in a Flash UI with HTML5 and CSS3 support for the latest Firefox, Chrome, and IE8 browsers. Later this week, we expect one more iteration of the UI to conquer native Internet Explorer 9.²

What began as a kludgey, dual-call, dual-provider Google Voice implementation to take advantage of Google's free PSTN calling in the U.S. and Canada with Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 is now a zippy-quick, Gtalk-based calling platform that rivals the best SIP-to-SIP calls on the planet and provides virtually instantaneous PSTN connections to almost anybody, anywhere. Trust us! Except for the price which is still free, you'll never know you weren't connected via Ma Bell's overpriced long-distance lines and neither will the Little Mrs. And, yes, our recommended $50 Nortel SIP videophone is plug-and-play.

Just download the latest PBX in a Flash ISO, burn to then boot from the PIAF CD, choose the Purple Edition to load Asterisk 1.8 and FreePBX 2.8, and then install the new Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8. In about an hour, you'll have a turnkey PBX with a local phone number and free calling in the U.S. and Canada via your own Google Voice account plus dozens and dozens of terrific Asterisk applications to keep your head spinning for months.

Thanks to its Zero Internet Footprint™ design, The Incredible PBX remains the most secure Asterisk-based PBX around. What this means is The Incredible PBX™ has been engineered to sit safely behind a NAT-based, hardware firewall with minimal port exposure to your actual server. And you won't find a more full-featured Personal Branch Exchange™ at any price.

Did we mention that all of this telephone goodness is still absolutely FREE!

The Incredible PBX Inventory. For those that have never heard of The Incredible PBX, here's a feature list of components you get in addition to the base install of PBX in a Flash the latest CentOS 5.x, Asterisk 1.8, FreePBX 2.8, and Apache, SendMail, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, IPtables Linux firewall, Fail2Ban, and WebMin. Cepstral TTS, Fax, Hamachi VPN, and Mondo Backups are just one command away and may be installed using some of the PBX in a Flash-provided scripts.

Amazon S3 Cloud Computing
AsteriDex
Asternic CDR Reports
Baseball Scores & Schedules
CallerID Superfecta (FreePBX Module adds Names to CID Numbers)
SIP Color Videophone Support
CallWho for Asterisk
Cepstral TTS for 32-bit, Asterisk 1.8 3 (/root/nv/install-cepstral)
Preconfigured Email That Works with SendMail
PIAF Endpoint Manager
ENUMPLUS (Use FreePBX to configure)
Extensions (16 preconfigured with random passwords)
FAX with HylaFax & AvantFax (/root/incrediblefax.sh)
FAX on Demand Server (Dial F-O-D)
Festival Server and Festival TTS for Asterisk (festival --server &)
Flite TTS for Asterisk
FONmail
FreePBX Backups
Google Voice (preconfigured)
Free Hamachi VPN (install-hamachi)
Hotel-Style Wakeup Calls (FreePBX Module)
Incredible Backups... and Restores
ISN: FreeNum SIP Calling from Any Phone
MeetMe Conference Bridge (just dial C-O-N-F)
Mondo Full System Backups (install-diskbackup)
Incremental Daily Backups (install-dailybackup)
Munin Reports (install-munin)
NewsClips from Yahoo
ODBC Database Support
New PBX in a Flash Registry (show-registry)
PogoPlug Cloud Computing
Reminders by Phone and Web
SAMBA Windows Networking (setup-samba)
SIP URI Outbound Calling (call any SIP URI worldwide for free)
Free Skype Inbound & Outbound Calling (for personal use)
SMS Messaging with Google Voice
Stealth AutoAttendant
TeleYapper
TFTP Server (setup-tftp)
Tide Reports with xTide
Trunk Lister Script (/root/nv/trunks.sh)
Trunks (Vitelity, Gtalk, SIPgate, IPkall, VoIP.ms, and ENUM)
Twitter Interface (Make Free Calls and Send SMS Messages)
Weather by Airport Code
Weather by ZIP Code
Worldwide Weather

Prerequisites. Here's what we recommend to get started properly:

Broadband Internet connection
$269 Dual-Core Atom PC⁴ on which to run The Incredible PBX
dLink Router/Firewall. Low Cost: $35 WBR-2310 Best: DGL-4500
Dedicated Google Voice account (not your main Gmail account!)

Installing The Incredible PBX. The installation process is simple and straight-forward. We're down to 3 Easy Steps to Free Calling, and The Incredible PBX will be ready to receive and make free U.S./Canada calls immediately:

1. Install PBX in a Flash Purple Edition
2. Download & run The Incredible PBX 1.8 installer
3. Configure a softphone or SIP telephone

Installing PBX in a Flash. Here's a quick tutorial to get PBX in a Flash installed. To use Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8, just install the latest 32-bit version of PBX in a Flash. Unlike other Asterisk aggregations, PBX in a Flash utilizes a two-step install process. The ISO only installs the CentOS 5.6 operating system. Once CentOS is installed, the server reboots and downloads a payload file that includes Asterisk, FreePBX, and many other VoIP and Linux utilities including all of the new Google Voice components. Just choose the new Purple Payload to get the latest Asterisk 1.8 release and all of the Google Voice goodies!

You can download the 32-bit PIAF from SourceForge or one of our download mirrors. Burn the ISO to a CD. Then boot from the installation CD and press the Enter key to begin.

WARNING: This install will completely erase, repartition, and reformat EVERY DISK (including USB flash drives) connected to your system so disable any disk you wish to preserve AND remove any USB flash drives! Press Ctrl-C to cancel the install.

At the keyboard prompt, tab to OK and press Enter. At the time zone prompt, tab once, highlight your time zone, tab to OK and press Enter. At the password prompt, make up a VERY secure root password. Type it twice. Tab to OK, press Enter. Get a cup of coffee. Come back in about 5 minutes. When the system has installed CentOS, it will reboot. Remove the CD promptly. After the reboot, choose PIAF-Purple option. Have a 15-minute cup of coffee. After installation is complete, the machine will reboot a second time. You now have a PBX in a Flash base install. On a stand-alone machine, it takes about 30 minutes. On a virtual machine, it takes about half that time. Write down the IP address of your new PIAF server. You'll need it to configure your hardware-based firewall in a minute.

NOTE: For previous users of PBX in a Flash, be aware that this new version automatically runs update-programs, update-fixes, and passwd-master for you. So your system is secure out of the box!

Configuring Google Voice. You'll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support The Incredible PBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So why take the chance. Keep this account a secret!

We've tested this extensively using an existing Gmail account, and inbound calling is just not reliable. The reason seems to be that Google always chooses Gmail chat as the inbound call destination if there are multiple registrations from the same IP address. So, be reasonable. Do it our way! Set up a dedicated Gmail and Google Voice account, and use it exclusively with The Incredible PBX. Google Voice no longer is by invitation only so, if you're in the U.S. or have a friend that is, head over to the Google Voice site and register. If you're living on another continent, see MisterQ's posting for some tips on getting set up.

You must choose a telephone number (aka DID) for your new account, or Google Voice calling will not work... in either direction. Google used to permit outbound Gtalk calls using a fake CallerID, but that obviously led to abuse so it's over! You also have to tie your Google Voice account to at least one working phone number as part of the initial setup process. Your cellphone number will work just fine. Don't skip this step either. Just enter the provided 2-digit confirmation code when you tell Google to place the test call to the phone number you entered. Once the number is registered, you can disable it if you'd like in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. But...

IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That's the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. If you don't see this option, you may need to call up Gmail and enable Google Chat there first. Then go back to the Google Voice Settings.

While you're still in Google Voice Settings, click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:

Call Screening - OFF
Call Presentation - OFF
Caller ID (In) - Display Caller's Number
Caller ID (Out) - Don't Change Anything
Do Not Disturb - OFF
Call Options (Enable Recording) - OFF
Global Spam Filtering - ON

Click Save Changes once you adjust your settings. Under the Voicemail tab, plug in your email address so you get notified of new voicemails. Down the road, receipt of a Google Voice voicemail will be a big hint that something has come unglued on your PBX.

Incredible PBX Installation. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands to download and run The Incredible PBX installer:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx18.x
chmod +x incrediblepbx18.x
./incrediblepbx18.x

When The Incredible PBX install begins, you'll be prompted for the following:

Google Voice Account Name
Google Voice Password
Gmail Notification Address
FreePBX maint Password

The Google Voice Account Name is the Gmail address for your new dedicated account, e.g. joeschmo@gmail.com. Don't forget @gmail.com! The Google Voice Password is the password for this dedicated account. The Gmail Notification Address is the email address where you wish to receive alerts when incoming and outgoing Google Voice calls are placed using The Incredible PBX. And your FreePBX maint Password is the password you'll use to access FreePBX. It gets set automatically as part of the The Incredible PBX install. By the way, none of this confidential information ever leaves your machine... just in case you were wondering. 🙄

Now have another 15-minute cup of coffee, and consider a modest donation to Nerd Vittles... for all of our hard work. 😉 You'll find a link at the top of the page. While you're waiting just make sure that you've heeded our advice and installed your server behind a hardware-based firewall. No ports need to be opened on your firewall to support Incredible PBX so leave it that way!

Here's a short video demonstration of the original Incredible PBX installer process. It still works just about the same way except there's no longer a second step to get things working.

Incredible Fax Installation. If you want the added convenience of having your Incredible PBX double as a free fax machine, run /root/incrediblefax.sh shell script when the Incredible PBX install completes. Plug in your email address for delivery of incoming faxes and enter your home area code when prompted. For every other prompt, just press the Enter key. For complete documentation, see last week's Nerd Vittles article. We should note that updated versions of HylaFax and AvantFax now have been incorporated into the installer thanks to gvtricks on the PIAF Forums, and Google Voice now seems to be much more reliable for delivery of faxes... if you happen to like FREE. 😉

Our experience suggests that using a single trunk for both voice and fax delivery is hit and miss so you may wish to consider adding an additional trunk just to support faxing. You'll find the templates for adding a second Google Voice trunk in the /tmp directory, and complete instructions are available on the PIAF Forums. We've also provided preconfigured trunk settings for both Vitelity and VoIP.ms if you'd like to try those options as well. Just plug in your credentials and configure an inbound route to map incoming faxes to the Fax Custom Destination. If you want to add support for a second Google Voice trunk, we've included dialplan2.txt and jabber2.conf in /tmp to get you started with the tutorial above.

One final word of caution is in order regardless of your choice of providers: Do NOT use special characters in any provider passwords, or nothing will work!

Logging in to FreePBX. Using a web browser, you access the FreePBX GUI by pointing your browser to the IP address of your Incredible PBX. Click on the Admin tab and choose FreePBX. When prompted for a username, it's maint. When prompted for the password, it's whatever you set up as your maint password when you installed Incredible PBX. If you forget it, you can always reset it by logging into your server as root and running passwd-master.

Extension Password Discovery. If you're too lazy to look up your extension 701 password using the FreePBX GUI, you can log into your server as root and issue the following command to obtain the password for extension 701 which we'll need to configure your softphone or color videophone in the next step:

mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd -e"select id,data from asterisk.sip where id='701' and keyword='secret'"

The result will look something like the following where 701 is the extension and 18016 is the randomly-generated extension password exclusively for your Incredible PBX:

+-----+-------+
id data
+-----+-------+
701 18016
+-----+-------+

Configuring a SIP Phone. There are hundreds of terrific SIP telephones and softphones for Asterisk-based systems. Once you get things humming along, you'll want a real SIP telephone such as the $50 Nortel color videophone we've recommended above. You'll also find lots of additional recommendations on Nerd Vittles and in the PBX in a Flash Forum. If you're like us, we want to make damn sure this stuff works before you shell out any money. So, for today, let's download a terrific (free) softphone to get you started. We recommend X-Lite because there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. So download your favorite from this link. Install and run X-Lite on your Desktop. At the top of the phone, click on the Down Arrow and choose SIP Account Settings, Add. Enter the following information using your actual password for extension 701 and the actual IP address of your Incredible PBX server instead of 192.168.0.251. Click OK when finished. Your softphone should now show: Available.

Incredible PBX Test Flight. The proof is in the pudding as they say. So let's try two simple tests. First, let's place an outbound call. Using the softphone, dial your 10-digit cellphone number. Google Voice should transparently connect you. Answer the call and make sure you can send and receive voice on both phones. Second, from another phone, call the Google Voice number that you've dedicated to The Incredible PBX. Your softphone should begin ringing shortly. Answer the call, press 1 to accept the call, and then make sure you can send and receive voice on both phones. Hang up. If everything is working, congratulations!

Here's a brief video demonstration showing how to set up a softphone to use with your Incredible PBX, and it also walks you through several of the dozens of Asterisk applications included in your system.

Solving One-Way Audio Problems. If you experience one-way audio on some of your phone calls, you may need to adjust the settings in /etc/asterisk/sip_custom.conf. Just uncomment the first two lines by removing the semicolons. Then replace 173.15.238.123 with your public IP address, and replace 192.168.0.0 with the subnet address of your private network. There are similar settings in gtalk.conf that can be activated although we've never had to use them. In fact, we've never had to use any of these settings. After making these changes, save the file(s) and restart Asterisk with the command: amportal restart.

Learn First. Explore Second. Even though the installation process has been completed, we strongly recommend you do some reading before you begin your VoIP adventure. VoIP PBX systems have become a favorite target of the hackers and crackers around the world and, unless you have an unlimited bank account, you need to take some time learning where the minefields are in today's VoIP world. Start by reading our Primer on Asterisk Security. We've secured all of your passwords except your root password and your passwd-master password. We're assuming you've put very secure passwords on those accounts as if your phone bill depended upon it. It does! Also read our PBX in a Flash and VPN in a Flash knols. If you're still not asleep, there's loads of additional documentation on the PBX in a Flash documentation web site.

Adding Multiple Google Voice Trunks. Thanks to rentpbx on our forums, adding support for multiple Google Voice trunks is now a five-minute operation. Once you have your initial setup running smoothly, hop on over to the forums and check out this Incredible solution. You'll also find sample templates in the /tmp directory: dialplan2.txt and jabber2.conf.

Choosing a VoIP Provider for Redundancy. Nothing beats free when it comes to long distance calls. But nothing lasts forever. And, in the VoIP World, redundancy is dirt cheap. So we strongly recommend you set up another account with Vitelity using our special link below. This gives your PBX a secondary way to communicate with every telephone in the world, and it also gets you a second real phone number for your new system... so that people can call you. Here's how it works. You pay Vitelity a deposit for phone service. They then will bill you $3.99 a month for your new phone number. This $3.99 also covers the cost of unlimited inbound calls (two at a time) delivered to your PBX for the month. For outbound calls, you pay by the minute and the cost is determined by where you're calling. If you're in the U.S., outbound calls to anywhere in the U.S. are a little over a penny a minute. If you change your mind about Vitelity and want a refund of the balance in your account, all you have to do is ask. The trunks for Vitelity already are preconfigured with The Incredible PBX. Just insert your credentials using FreePBX. Then add the Vitelity trunk as the third destination for your default outbound route. That's it. Congratulations! You now have a totally redundant phone system.

Using ENUMPlus. Another terrific money-saving tool is ENUM. Your system comes with ENUMPlus installed. The advantage of ENUM is that numbers registered with any of the ENUM services such as e164.org can be called via SIP for free. You can read all about it in this Nerd Vittles' article. To activate ENUMPlus, you'll need to register and obtain an API Key at enumplus.org. It's free! Sign up, log in, and click on the Account tab to get your API key. Once you have your key, copy it to your clipboard and open FreePBX with your browser. Then choose SetUp, ENUMPlus and paste in your API Key. Save your entry, and you're all set. After entering your key, all outbound calls will be checked for a free ENUM calling path first before using other outbound trunks.

Stealth AutoAttendant. When incoming calls arrive, the caller is greeted with a welcoming message from Allison which says something like "Thanks for calling. Please hold a moment while I locate someone to take your call." To the caller, it's merely a greeting. To those "in the know," it's actually an AutoAttendant (aka IVR system) that gives you the opportunity to press a button during the message to trigger the running of some application on your Incredible PBX. As configured, the only option that works is 0 which fires up the Nerd Vittles Apps IVR. It's quite easy to add additional features such as voicemail retrieval or DISA for outbound calling. Just edit the MainIVR option in FreePBX under Setup, IVR. Keep in mind that anyone (anywhere in the world) can choose these options. So be extremely careful not to expose your system to security vulnerabilities by making certain that any options you add have very secure passwords! It's your phone bill. 😉

Configuring Email. You're going to want to be notified when updates are available for FreePBX, and you may also want notifications when new voicemails arrive. Everything already is set up for you except actually entering your email notification address. Using a web browser, open the FreePBX GUI by pointing your browser to the IP address of your Incredible PBX. Then click Administration and choose FreePBX. To set your email address for FreePBX updates, go to Setup, General Settings and scroll to the bottom of the screen. To configure emails to notify you of incoming voicemails, go to Setup, Extensions, 701 and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Then follow your nose. Be sure to reload FreePBX when prompted after saving your changes.

A Word About Security. Security matters to us, and it should matter to you. Not only is the safety of your system at stake but also your wallet and the safety of other folks' systems. Our only means of contacting you with security updates is through the RSS Feed that we maintain for the PBX in a Flash project. This feed is prominently displayed in the web GUI which you can access with any browser pointed to the IP address of your server. Check It Daily! Or add our RSS Feed to your favorite RSS Reader. We also recommend you follow @NerdUno on Twitter. We'll keep you entertained and provide immediate notification of security problems that we hear about. Be safe!

Enabling Google Voicemail. Some have requested a way to retain Google's voicemail system for unanswered calls in lieu of using Asterisk voicemail. The advantage is that Google offers a free transcription service for voicemail messages. To activate this, you'll need to edit the [googlein] context in extensions_custom.conf in /etc/asterisk. Just modify the last four lines in the context so that they look like this and then restart Asterisk: amportal restart

;exten => s,n(regcall),Answer
;exten => s,n,SendDTMF(1)
exten => s,n(regcall),Set(DIAL_OPTIONS=${DIAL_OPTIONS}aD(:1))
exten => s,n,Goto(from-trunk,gv-incoming,1)

Kicking the Tires. OK. That's enough tutorial for today. Let's play. Using your new softphone, begin your adventure by dialing these extensions:

D-E-M-O - Incredible PBX Demo (running on your PBX)
1234*1061 - Nerd Vittles Demo via ISN FreeNum connection to NV
17476009082*1089 - Nerd Vittles Demo via ISN to Google/Gizmo5
Z-I-P - Enter a five digit zip code for any U.S. weather report
6-1-1 - Enter a 3-character airport code for any U.S. weather report
5-1-1 - Get the latest news and sports headlines from Yahoo News
T-I-D-E - Get today's tides and lunar schedule for any U.S. port
F-A-X - Send a fax to an email address of your choice
4-1-2 - 3-character phonebook lookup/dialer with AsteriDex
M-A-I-L - Record a message and deliver it to any email address
C-O-N-F - Set up a MeetMe Conference on the fly
1-2-3 - Schedule regular/recurring reminder (PW: 12345678)
2-2-2 - ODBC/Timeclock Lookup Demo (Empl No: 12345)
2-2-3 - ODBC/AsteriDex Lookup Demo (Code: AME)
Dial *68 - Schedule a hotel-style wakeup call from any extension
1061*1061 - PIAF Support Conference Bridge (Conf#: 1061)
882*1061 - VoIP Users Conference every Friday at Noon (EST)

PBX in a Flash SQLite Registry. Last, but not least, we want to introduce you to the new PBX in a Flash Registry which uses SQLite, a zero-configuration SQL-compatible database engine. After logging into your server as root, just type show-registry for a listing of all of the applications, versions, and install dates of everything on your new server. Choosing the A option will generate registry.txt in the /root folder while the other options will let you review the applications by category on the screen. For example, the G option displays all of The Incredible PBX add-ons that have been installed. Here's the complete list of options:

A - Write the contents of the registry to registry.txt
B - PBX in a Flash install details
C - Extra programs install details
D - Update-fixes status and details
E - RPM install details
F - FreePBX modules install details
G - Incredible PBX install details
Q - Quit this program

And here's a sample from an install we recently completed.

Click above. Enter your name and phone number. Press Connect to begin the call.

Special Thanks. It's hard to know where to start in expressing our gratitude for all of the participants that made today's incredibly simple-to-use product possible. Please bear with us. To Mark Spencer, Malcolm Davenport, and the rest of the Asterisk development team, thanks for a much improved Asterisk. To Philippe Sultan and his co-developers, thank you for finally making Jabber jabber with Asterisk. To Leif Madsen, our special thanks for your early pioneering work with Gtalk and Jabber which got this ball rolling. To Philippe Lindheimer & Co., thanks for FreePBX 2.8 which really makes Asterisk shine. To Lefteris Zafiris, thank you for making Flite work with Asterisk 1.8 thereby preserving all of the Nerd Vittles text-to-speech applications. To Darren Sessions, thanks for whipping app_swift into shape and restoring Cepstral and commercial TTS applications to the land of the living with Asterisk 1.8. And to our pal, Tom King, we couldn't have done it without you. You rolled up your sleeves and really made CentOS 5.6 and Asterisk 1.8 sit up and bark. No one will quite understand what an endeavor that was until they try it themselves. You've made it look so easy. And, finally, to our dozens of beta testers, THANK YOU! We've implemented almost all of your suggestions.

Additional Goodies. Be sure to log into your server as root and look through the scripts added in the /root and /root/nv folders. You'll find all sorts of goodies to keep you busy. There's an all-new incrediblefax.sh script that painlessly installs and configures HylaFax and AvantFax for state-of-the-art faxing. The 32-bit install-cepstral script does just what it says. With Allison's Cepstral voice, you'll have the best TTS implementation for Asterisk available. ipscan is a little shell script that will tell you every working IP device on your LAN. trunks.sh tells you all of the Asterisk trunks configured on your system. purgeCIDcache.sh will clean out the CallerID cache in the Asterisk database. convert2gsm.sh shows you how to convert a .wav file to .gsm. munin.pbx will install Munin on your system while awstats.pbx installs AWstats. s3cmd.faq tells you how to quickly activate the Amazon S3 Cloud Computing service. All the other scripts and apps in /root/nv already have been installed for you so don't install them again.

If you've heeded our advice and purchased a PogoPlug, you can link to your home-grown cloud as well. Just add your credentials to /root/pogo-start.sh. Then run the script to enable the PogoPlug Cloud on your server. All of your cloud resources are instantly accessible in /mnt/pogoplug. It's perfect for off-site backups and is included as one of the backup options in the PBX in a Flash backup utilities.

Don't forget to List Yourself in Directory Assistance so everyone can find you by dialing 411. And add your new number to the Do Not Call Registry to block telemarketing calls. Or just call 888-382-1222 from your new number. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, May 9, 2011

VoIP Virtualization with Incredible PBX: OpenVZ and Cloud Solutions

Safely Interconnecting Asterisk Servers for Free Calling

Adding Skype to The Incredible PBX

Adding Incredible Fax to The Incredible PBX

Adding Incredible Backup... and Restore to The Incredible PBX

Adding Remotes, Preserving Security with The Incredible PBX

Remote Phone Meets Travelin' Man with The Incredible PBX

Continue reading Part II.

Continue reading Part III.

Continue reading Part IV.

Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you're bound to have questions. Blog comments are a terrible place to handle 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 Forums. It's the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it's all free! We maintain a thread with the latest Patches and Bug Fixes for Incredible PBX. Please have a look. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of ordinary users just like you. So you won't have to wait long for an answer to your questions.

Changes in PBX in a Flash Distribution. In light of the events outlined in our recent Nerd Vittles article and the issues with Asterisk 1.8.4, the PIAF Dev Team has made some changes in our distribution methodology. As many of you know, PBX in a Flash is the only distribution that compiles Asterisk from source code during the install. This has provided us enormous flexibility to distribute new releases with the latest Asterisk code. Unfortunately, Asterisk 1.8 is still a work in progress to put it charitably. We also feel some responsibility to insulate our users from show-stopping Asterisk releases. Going forward, the plan is to reserve the PIAF-Purple default install for the most stable version of Asterisk 1.8. As of June 1, Asterisk 1.8.4.1 is the new PIAF-Purple default install. Other versions of Asterisk 1.8 (newer and older) will be available through a new configuration utility which now is incorporated into the PIAF 1.7.5.6.2 ISO.

Here's how it works. Begin the install of a new PIAF system in the usual way by booting from your USB flash drive and pressing Enter to load the most current version of CentOS 5.6. When the CentOS install finishes, your system will reboot. Accept the license agreement, and choose the PIAF-Purple option to load the latest stable version of Asterisk 1.8. Or exit to the Linux CLI if you want a different version. Log into CentOS as root. Then issue a command like this: piafdl -p beta_1841 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4.1), piafdl -p 184 (loads Asterisk 1.8.4), piafdl -p 1833 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.3), or piafdl -p 1832 (loads Asterisk 1.8.3.2). If there should ever be an outage on one of the PBX in a Flash mirrors, you can optionally choose a different mirror for the payload download by adding piafdl -c for the .com site, piafdl -d for the .org site, or piafdl -e for the .net site. Then add the payload switch, e.g. piafdl -c -p beta_1841.

Bottom Line: If you use the piafdl utility to choose a particular version of Asterisk 1.8, you are making a conscious decision to accept the consequences of your particular choice. We would have preferred implementation of a testing methodology at Digium® before distribution of new Asterisk releases; however, that doesn't appear to be in the cards. So, as new Asterisk 1.8 releases hit the street, they will be made available through the piafdl utility until such time as our PIAF Pioneers independently establish their reliability.

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
Or Try the New, Free PBX in a Flash Conference Bridge.

whos.amung.us If you're wondering what your fellow man is reading on Nerd Vittles these days, wonder no more. Visit our new whos.amung.us statistical web site and check out what's happening. It's a terrific resource both for us and for you.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest...

Unless you happen to own a Cisco 79XX phone. See comment below for details. [↩]
If you're using IE9, you'll need to run it in IE8 browser mode for the time being. We're working on it. 🙂 [↩]
For 64-bit systems with Asterisk 1.8, use the Cepstral install procedures outlined in this Nerd Vittles article. [↩]
If you use the recommended Acer Aspire Revo, be advised that it does NOT include a CD/DVD drive. You will need an external USB drive to load the software. Some of these work with CentOS, and some don't. Most HP and Sony drives work; however, we strongly recommend you purchase an external DVD drive from a merchant that will accept returns, e.g. Best Buy, WalMart, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples. You also can run The Incredible PBX on a virtual machine such as the free Proxmox server. Another less costly (but untested) option might be this Shuttle from NewEgg: $185 with free shipping. Use Promo Code: EMCYTZT220 [↩]

5 Steps to Paradise: It’s Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8

Friday, December 10, 2010 / 91 Comments on 5 Steps to Paradise: It’s Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8

Hard to believe it's been almost six months since we introduced The Incredible PBX, but that makes today even more special. With the release of Asterisk® 1.8, the PBX in a Flash Development Team headed up by Tom King burned the midnight oil to introduce the latest PBX in a Flash Purple Edition with Asterisk 1.8 in less than 24 hours.

News Flash: Incredible PBX 4.0 is now available with FreePBX 2.10 support!

Coming January 19: Incredible PBX 11 & Incredible Fax for Asterisk 11 and FreePBX 2.11

So we had all the tools necessary to reengineer, design and build the all-new Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8. What used to be a somewhat kludgey, dual-call, dual-provider Google Voice implementation to take advantage of Google's free PSTN calling in the U.S. and Canada with Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 is now a zippy-quick, Gtalk-based calling platform that rivals the best SIP-to-SIP calls on the planet and provides virtually instantaneous PSTN connections to almost anybody, anywhere. Trust us! Except for the price which is now free, you'll never know you weren't connected via Ma Bell's overpriced long-distance lines and neither will the Little Mrs. And, yes, our recommended ~~$50~~ Nortel SIP videophone is plug-and-play on extensions 701 and 702.

Just download the latest PBX in a Flash ISO, burn to then boot from the PIAF CD, choose the Purple Edition to load Asterisk 1.8 and FreePBX 2.8, and then install the new Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8. In about an hour, you'll have a turnkey PBX with a local phone number and free calling in the U.S. and Canada via your own Google Voice account plus dozens and dozens of terrific Asterisk applications to keep your head spinning for months.

Thanks to its Zero Internet Footprint™ design, The Incredible PBX remains the most secure Asterisk-based PBX around. What this means is The Incredible PBX™ has been engineered to sit safely behind a NAT-based, hardware firewall with minimal port exposure to your actual server. And you won't find a more full-featured Personal Branch Exchange™ at any price.

Did we mention that all of this telephone goodness is still absolutely FREE!

The Incredible PBX Inventory. For those that have never heard of The Incredible PBX, here's a feature list of components you get in addition to the base install of PBX in a Flash the latest CentOS 5.x, Asterisk 1.8, FreePBX 2.8, and Apache, SendMail, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, IPtables Linux firewall, Fail2Ban, and WebMin. Cepstral TTS, Hamachi VPN, and Mondo Backups are just one command away and may be installed using some of the PBX in a Flash-provided scripts.

Amazon S3 Cloud Computing
AsteriDex
Baseball Scores & Schedules
CallerID Superfecta (FreePBX Module adds Names to CID Numbers)
SIP Color Videophone Support
CallWho for Asterisk
Cepstral TTS for 32-bit, Asterisk 1.8 1 (/root/nv/install-cepstral)
Preconfigured Email That Works with SendMail
ENUMPLUS (Use FreePBX to configure)
Extensions (16 preconfigured with random passwords)
FAX with HylaFax & AvantFax (/root/incrediblefax.sh)
Festival Server and Festival TTS for Asterisk (festival --server &)
Flite TTS for Asterisk
FONmail
FreePBX Backups
Gizmo5 (Free Calls to Gizmo5 users worldwide: 1747xxxxxxx*1089)
Google Voice (preconfigured)
Free Hamachi VPN (install-hamachi)
Hotel-Style Wakeup Calls (FreePBX Module)
ISN: FreeNum SIP Calling from Any Phone
MeetMe Conference Bridge (just dial C-O-N-F)
Mondo Full System Backups (install-diskbackup)
Incremental Daily Backups (install-dailybackup)
Munin Reports (install-munin)
NewsClips from Yahoo
ODBC Database Support
New PBX in a Flash Registry (show-registry)
PogoPlug Cloud Computing
Reminders by Phone and Web
SAMBA Windows Networking (setup-samba)
SIP URI Outbound Calling (call any SIP URI worldwide for free)
Free Skype Inbound & Outbound Calling (for personal use)
Stealth AutoAttendant
TeleYapper
TFTP Server (setup-tftp)
Tide Reports with xTide
Trunk Lister Script (/root/nv/trunks.sh)
Trunks (Vitelity, Gtalk, SIPgate, IPkall, and ENUM)
Twitter Interface (Make Free Calls and Send SMS Messages)
Weather by Airport Code
Weather by ZIP Code
Worldwide Weather

Prerequisites. Here's what we recommend to get started properly:

Broadband Internet connection
$250 Dual-Core Atom PC² on which to run The Incredible PBX
dLink Router/Firewall. Low Cost: $35 WBR-2310 Best: DGL-4500
Dedicated Google Voice account (not your main Gmail account!)

Installing The Incredible PBX. The installation process is simple and straight-forward. Here are the 5 Easy Steps to Free Calling, and The Incredible PBX will be ready to receive and make free U.S./Canada calls immediately:

1. Install PBX in a Flash Purple Edition
2. Download & run The Incredible PBX 1.8 installer
3. Run passwd-master on your PIAF server
4. Map UDP 5222 on firewall to PIAF server
5. Configure a softphone or SIP telephone

Installing PBX in a Flash. Here's a quick tutorial to get PBX in a Flash installed. To use Incredible PBX for Asterisk 1.8, you must install the latest 32-bit version of PBX in a Flash.³ Unlike other Asterisk aggregations, PBX in a Flash utilizes a two-step install process. The ISO only installs the CentOS operating system. That hasn't changed. But, once CentOS is installed, the server reboots and downloads a payload file that includes Asterisk, FreePBX, and many other VoIP and Linux utilities including all of the new Google Voice components. Just choose the new Purple Payload to get the latest Asterisk 1.8 release and all of the Google Voice goodies!

You can download the 32-bit PIAF from SourceForge or one of our download mirrors. Burn the ISO to a CD. Then boot from the installation CD and press the Enter key to begin.

WARNING: This install will completely erase, repartition, and reformat EVERY DISK (including USB flash drives) connected to your system so disable any disk you wish to preserve! Press Ctrl-C to cancel the install.

On some systems you may get a notice that CentOS can't find the kickstart file. Just tab to OK and press Enter. Don't change the name or location of the kickstart file! This will get you going. Think of it as a CentOS 'feature'. 🙂 If your system still won't boot, then you have an incompatible drive controller.

At the keyboard prompt, tab to OK and press Enter. At the time zone prompt, tab once, highlight your time zone, tab to OK and press Enter. At the password prompt, make up a VERY secure root password. Type it twice. Tab to OK, press Enter. Get a cup of coffee. Come back in about 5 minutes. When the system has installed CentOS, it will reboot. Remove the CD promptly. After the reboot, choose PIAF-Purple option. Have a 15-minute cup of coffee. After installation is complete, the machine will reboot a second time. You now have a PBX in a Flash base install. On a stand-alone machine, it takes about 30 minutes. On a virtual machine, it takes about half that time. Write down the IP address of your new PIAF server. You'll need it to configure your hardware-based firewall in a minute.

NOTE: For previous users of PBX in a Flash, be aware that this new version automatically runs update-programs and update-fixes for you. You still should set your FreePBX passwords by running passwd-master after The Incredible PBX installer finishes!

Configuring Google Voice. You'll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support The Incredible PBX. The more obscure the username (with some embedded numbers), the better off you will be. This will keep folks from bombarding you with unsolicited Gtalk chat messages, and who knows what nefarious scheme will be discovered using Google messaging six months from now. So why take the chance. Keep this account a secret!

We've tested this extensively using an existing Gmail account, and inbound calling is just not reliable. The reason seems to be that Google always chooses Gmail chat as the inbound call destination if there are multiple registrations from the same IP address. So, be reasonable. Do it our way! Set up a dedicated Gmail and Google Voice account, and use it exclusively with The Incredible PBX. Google Voice no longer is by invitation only so, if you're in the U.S. or have a friend that is, head over to the Google Voice site and register. If you're living on another continent, see MisterQ's posting for some tips on getting set up.

You must choose a telephone number (aka DID) for your new account, or Google Voice calling will not work... in either direction. Google used to permit outbound Gtalk calls using a fake CallerID, but that obviously led to abuse so it's over! You also have to tie your Google Voice account to at least one working phone number as part of the initial setup process. Your cellphone number will work just fine. Don't skip this step either. Just enter the provided 2-digit confirmation code when you tell Google to place the test call to the phone number you entered. Once the number is registered, you can disable it if you'd like in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. But...

IMPORTANT: Be sure to enable the Google Chat option as one of your phone destinations in Settings, Voice Setting, Phones. That's the destination we need for The Incredible PBX to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. If you don't see this option, you may need to call up Gmail and enable Google Chat there first. Then go back to the Google Voice Settings.

While you're still in Google Voice Settings, click on the Calls tab. Make sure your settings match these:

Call Screening - OFF
Call Presentation - OFF
Caller ID (In) - Display Caller's Number
Caller ID (Out) - Don't Change Anything
Do Not Disturb - OFF

Click Save Changes once you adjust your settings. Under the Voicemail tab, plug in your email address so you get notified of new voicemails. Down the road, receipt of a Google Voice voicemail will be a big hint that something has come unglued on your PBX.

Running The Incredible PBX Installer. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands to download and run The Incredible PBX installer:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx18.x
chmod +x incrediblepbx18.x
./incrediblepbx18.x
passwd-master

If you've installed the previous version of The Incredible PBX, you'll recall that there was a two-step install process after configuring another trunk with either SIPgate or IPkall. That's now a thing of the past. All you need to do after The Incredible PBX script completes is run passwd-master to set up your master password for FreePBX.

When The Incredible PBX install begins, you'll be prompted for the following:

Google Voice Account Name
Google Voice Password
Gmail Notification Address
FreePBX maint Password

The Google Voice Account Name is the Gmail address for your new dedicated account, e.g. joeschmo@gmail.com. Don't forget @gmail.com! The Google Voice Password is the password for this dedicated account. The Gmail Notification Address is the email address where you wish to receive alerts when incoming and outgoing Google Voice calls are placed using The Incredible PBX. And your FreePBX maint Password is the password you'll use to access FreePBX. You'll actually set it by running passwd-master after The Incredible PBX completes. We need this password to properly configure the CallerID Superfecta for you. By the way, none of this confidential information ever leaves your machine... just in case you were wondering. 🙄

Now have another 15-minute cup of coffee, and consider a modest donation to Nerd Vittles... for all of our hard work. 😉 You'll find a link at the top of the page. While you're waiting (and so you don't forget), go ahead and configure your hardware-based firewall to support Google Voice. See the next section for what's required. Without completing this firewall configuration step, no calls will work! When the installer finishes, READ THE SCREEN just for grins.

Here's a short video demonstration of the original Incredible PBX installer process. It still works just about the same way except there's no longer a second step to get things working.

One final word of caution is in order regardless of your choice of providers: Do NOT use special characters in any provider passwords, or nothing will work!

Firewall Configuration. We hope you've taken our advice and installed a hardware-based firewall in front of The Incredible PBX. It's your phone bill. You'll need to make one adjustment on the firewall. Map UDP 5222 traffic to the internal IP address of The Incredible PBX. This is the port that Google Voice uses for phone calls and Google chat. You can decipher the IP address of your server by logging into the server as root and typing status.