freepbx – Page 7 – Nerd Vittles

Deal of the Year: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $59.99

Monday, May 9, 2022 / 1 Comment on Deal of the Year: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $59.99

One year and counting… If you still have some Google Voice numbers lying around or if you’d like to join the party a little late, now is your second chance. Amazon now is selling the OBi2182 phones to U.S. residents with native Google Voice as well as WiFi, Bluetooth, HD Voice, speakerphone, and a power adapter currently selling for $69.99. Hold, transfer, and conferencing support are included in the phone. Here’s our Amazon referral link to keep the lights on.

We were big fans of OBiHai once upon a time. But then they sold out to Polycom. And they subsequently sold out to Plantronics. And support went from bad to worse along the way. But things appear to have stabilized so this offering may just be one of the best deals on the planet. Not only do you get unlimited free calling throughout the U.S., Canada, and Ukraine but you also get some of the best pricing ever on most international calls. While we no longer have any dealings with ObiHai, Polycom, or Plantronics, we know many of our followers were left high and dry when Google pulled the plug on Google Voice for Asterisk®. Here’s a tip.

Adding one or more of these phones makes a perfect supplement to your Asterisk platform making it easy to add free calling to your home or home office PBX. And it’s not too late to order a Google Voice number if you’re new to the game. Configuring a SIP or PJsip connection as well as Bluetooth connectivity to your cellphone is just as simple as adding Google Voice trunks using the OBiTalk web interface shown below. Trunk setups take less than a minute apiece. The phone supports 12 lines. And WiFi calls are crystal-clear thanks to HD Voice.

Grab an OBi2182 while you still can! An Admin Guide to the OBi2182 is available here.

Originally published: Monday, May 9, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Interconnecting Asterisk Servers with PJsip and OpenVPN

Monday, May 2, 2022 / 2 Comments on Interconnecting Asterisk Servers with PJsip and OpenVPN

It’s been several years since we discussed interconnecting Asterisk® servers so today we want to do a version refresh using PJsip Trunking. We also want to show you how easy it is to secure the communications path by setting up the trunks using OpenVPN connections. When we’re finished, you’ll have a FREE way to call between sites using FreePBX® Outbound Routes. Because Incredible PBX comes preconfigured with all the components you’ll need, we’ll use that platform to further simplify the deployment. We’ll be interconnecting two Asterisk servers today, but you can use the same methodology to connect numerous sites.

Deploying OpenVPN with Asterisk Servers

To begin, you’ll want to get all of the sites configured with a virtual private network using OpenVPN. Our tutorial will walk you through the process. Keep in mind that all current releases of Incredible PBX are preconfigured to let you drop in your OpenVPN client credentials by naming them incrediblepbx.ovpn and copying the file into the /etc directory. Rebooting your server will bring up the virtual private network with a 10.8.0.x IP address.

Configuring PJsip Trunks on Your Asterisk Servers

If you remember yesteryear’s knuckle drill configuring SIP or IAX trunks for Asterisk connectivity, you’re in for a pleasant surprise using PJsip trunking with FreePBX. Using the GUI, create a new PJsip trunk for every site to which you want to establish a connection. A similar PJsip trunk must be created on the other site as well. If you’re just interconnecting two servers, then using the City locations for the Trunk Names will suffice. But, if there are more than two servers, specify unique names for each end of every PJsip connection, e.g.

NewYork1 <-> London1
NewYork2 <-> Washington1
NewYork3 <-> Miami1
London2 <-> Washington2
London3 <-> Miami2
Washington3 <-> Miami3

For today, we’ll interconnect a server in New York and London, but we’ll plan for the future and use London1 for the Trunk Name on the New York server and NewYork1 for the Trunk Name on the London server.

Let’s begin by configuring the London1 trunk on the New York server. After entering the London1 Trunk Name in the General tab, click on the pjsip Settings tab. In the General tab, leave the defaults in the first four fields. Then change the Registration field to None. For the SIP Server field, enter the OpenVPN IP address of the London server, e.g. 10.8.0.2. Because we’re using Incredible PBX, the PJsip port is 5061 so enter that in the SIP Server Port field. If you’re using a different flavor of FreePBX, enter the appropriate port number for PJsip on your platform. Next, click on the Advanced tab and enter the London server’s OpenVPN address in the Match (Permit) field, e.g. 10.8.0.2. In the Codecs tab, make note of the enabled codecs and make certain that the entries match on all of your servers. Click the Submit button to save your settings and then reload your dialplan.

Now let’s configure the NewYork1 trunk on the London server. After entering the NewYork1 Trunk Name in the General tab, click on the pjsip Settings tab. In the General tab, leave the defaults in the first four fields. Then change the Registration field to None. For the SIP Server field, enter the OpenVPN IP address of the New York server, e.g. 10.8.0.1. Because we’re using Incredible PBX, the PJsip port is 5061 so enter that in the SIP Server Port field. If you’re using a different flavor of FreePBX, enter the appropriate port number for PJsip on your platform. Next, click on the Advanced tab and enter the New York server’s OpenVPN address in the Match (Permit) field, e.g. 10.8.0.1. In the Codecs tab, make certain that the entries match those on your New York server. Click the Submit button to save your settings and then reload your dialplan. Here’s how it looks in the FreePBX GUI:

Use Outbound Routes to Interconnect Extensions

To keep things simple, let’s assume both your New York and London servers have extensions 701-705. To call an extension on the other server, we will simply dial 9 and then the 3-digit extension, e.g. dialing 9701 on the New York server will ring 701 on the London server and dialing 9701 on the London server will ring 701 on the New York server.

Create an Outbound Route on the New York server called London specifying London1 for the Trunk Sequence in the Route Settings tab. In the Dial Patterns tab, enter 9 in the Prefix field and XXX for the Match Pattern. Click Submit to save your settings and then reload dialplan.

Create an Outbound Route on the London server called New York specifying NewYork1 for the Trunk Sequence in the Route Settings tab. In the Dial Patterns tab, enter 9 in the Prefix field and XXX for the Match Pattern. Click Submit to save your settings and then reload dialplan.

If you’re interconnecting more than two sites, then you probably will want to designate a specific Prefix for every City so that users can travel between sites and use the same methodology to reach the same extensions from every location.

You can test things out using softphones by registering 701 to an extension in New York and another to the 701 extension in London. Now you can place secure and FREE calls between the sites by dialing 9701 from each softphone. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, May 2, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Migrating Incredible PBX 2022 to a PUBLIC-Facing Cloud PBX

Monday, April 25, 2022 / 3 Comments on Migrating Incredible PBX 2022 to a PUBLIC-Facing Cloud PBX

Today we want to show you how to reconfigure Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky 8 into a PUBLIC-facing Cloud PBX. What that means is authorized users can connect a SIP phone to the PBX regardless of where the user might be located without worries about an ever-changing dynamic IP address and the requirement to whitelist the new IP address. A PUBLIC-facing PBX also provides free SIP URI connectivity to users of your PBX by anyone from anywhere in the world. In other words, it’s similar to the way you could connect to any Ma Bell telephone in the world simply by knowing the number to dial. The difference, of course, is SIP URI connectivity is free while there were often staggering long distance charges for remote connectivity in the Ma Bell days. Fifty years ago it was not uncommon for a college boy to spend $200 a month calling his college sweetheart less than 200 miles away in the same state. Ask me how I know.

Why is this such a big deal? The short answer is security and your phone bill. You don’t want bad guys on the other side of the globe attempting to register a SIP phone to your PBX so that they can use your trunks to make free phone calls on your nickel. You also don’t want anybody and everybody calling your users by simply guessing the IP address of your PBX. As with Incredible PBX 2021 PUBLIC for Debian, today’s design combines several security mechanisms to make a PUBLIC-facing PBX safe and secure. First, we will block all SIP connectivity to your PBX by IP address. Second, we will identify 30,000+ known SIP bad guys and block their access to your PBX entirely. Third, we will only permit SSH access to your PBX using public key authentication instead of traditional username/password authentication. Fourth, we will only permit web access to the Incredible PBX portal from whitelisted IP addresses and OpenVPN private addresses. We haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, but today’s methodology reduces the risk considerably since your PBX cannot be ping’d, and all IP address access is blocked at the Linux kernel level.

Prerequisites. To put all these safeguards in place, you’ll need a cloud-based Incredible PBX 2022 KVM platform running Rocky 8. Install the latest Incredible PBX 2022 platform using our tutorial. Next, you’ll need these items:

Public IP Address of your server
Obscure FQDN linked to this public IP address
Random SSH port with registered public keys for SSH access
List of SIP extensions to enable for SIP URI access
IP Addresses to WhiteList for Access to the Web GUI

1. Deciphering Public IP Address of Your PBX

After logging into your PBX as root, you can execute pbxstatus to decipher the public IP address of the PBX. Or issue the command: wget -q -O - ipinfo.io/ip

2. Obtaining an FQDN for Your PBX

Security through obscurity provides a critical layer of protection for your server so choose an FQDN carefully. sip.yourname.com provides little protection while f246g.yourname.com pretty much assures that nobody is going to guess your domain name. This is particularly important with SIP registrations because registered extensions on your PBX can obviously make phone calls that cost you money. If you don’t have your own domain, you can always obtain a free hostname from a service such as NoIP.com.

3. Securing SSH Access to Your PBX

Whatever you do, don’t leave SSH access via port 22 exposed on your PBX. In the time it took to create a new PBX on CloudAtCost, there were over 400 attempted logins to the default SSH port of the new server. The simplest (but least secure) method to avoid these script kiddie attacks is to change the port number for SSH access to your server. We suggest using the year you were born as the port number because it’s easy to remember. Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and uncomment the Port line replacing 22 with the port number you chose. Then restart SSH: systemctl restart sshd.

The preferable solution to secure SSH is to create and use SSH keys for access and set PasswordAuthentication no on the last line of /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Digital Ocean has an excellent tutorial to walk you through the setup process.

4. Choosing Extensions for SIP URI Public Access

With today’s PUBLIC design, exposing an extension for PUBLIC access means anyone in the world that knows the FQDN of your server and the extension number can do two things using any SIP client: (1) they can call you and (2) they can attempt to register to that extension and make calls on your trunks AND your nickel. So only expose extensions for public access if there is a need to connect or call from remote locations. For extensions you decide to expose, make certain that the passwords for these extensions are extremely secure, lengthy, and use numbers with both UPPER and lower case letters. Never use default extension passwords!

5. Whitelisting IP Addresses for Public Web Access

Without enumerating IP addresses for public web access, you won’t be able to connect to the web GUI of your PBX from any IP address. Down the road, if you wish to authroize additional IP addresses, you can use /root/add-ip to add them via SSH.

Deploying Incredible PBX PUBLIC Firewall

To get started, log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

cd /tmp
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/newpublic.tar.gz
tar zxvf newpublic.tar.gz
rm -f newpublic.tar.gz

Next, edit /tmp/iptables.base and change the highlighted entries:

Change port 22 in the dport entry to the SSH port number you chose in Step 3, above.

Change 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4., and 1.1.1.1 to actual public IP addresses of desktop machines you wish to use to access the web GUI of your PBX. If you don’t need three entries, comment out the other entries with # at the beginning of each line.

Replace your-servers-IP-address with the actual IP address of your PBX from Step 1, above.

Save the file.

On the Rocky 8 platform, issue the following commands:

cd /etc/sysconfig
cp /tmp/iptables.base .
mv iptables iptables.orig
cp iptables.base iptables

Using Incredible PBX PUBLIC with Asterisk

The first line of defense with this PUBLIC implementation is your FQDN. Second is the IPtables firewall setup above. And third is the Asterisk® extensions configuration in extensions_override_freepbx.conf. Here’s how to configure it. Edit /tmp/extensions_override_freepbx.base and change the highlighted entries:

If there are phone numbers assigned to your PBX that you want processed according to your Inbound Routing rules, duplicate the first highlighted line above and, for each trunk, replace 8881234567 with your actual DID numbers.

In exten => _.,1 line, replace your-servers-IP-address with the actual IP address of your PBX from Step 1, above.

In exten => _.,10 line, replace your-servers-FQDN with the actual FQDN assigned to your PBX from Step 2, above.

Scroll down in the file to the following section:

Comment out undesired default extensions. Place a semicolon at the beginning of the lines.

For any extensions you wish to add, insert a new line in the following format replacing both 7000 entries with the desired extension number:

exten => 7000,13,Dial(local/7000@from-internal)

Save the file and then execute the following commands to complete the PUBLIC setup:

cd /etc/asterisk
cp /tmp/extensions_override_freepbx.base .
mv extensions_override_freepbx.conf extensions_override_freepbx.orig
cp extensions_override_freepbx.base extensions_override_freepbx.conf
fwconsole restart
asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
iptables-restart
sed -i 's|-A INPUT|-I INPUT|' /root/add-ip
sed -i 's|-A INPUT|-I INPUT|' /root/add-fqdn

Adding IPSET Incredible PBX 2022 Protection

We’re not the biggest fans of blacklists because the bad guys spend a lot of time trying to corrupt them by inserting valid IP addresses of sites such as DNS servers in the lists to wreak havoc. Having said that, there are two blacklists that are carefully monitored on a daily basis, and both provide additional protection for your PBX by weeding out access by 30,000+ potential bad guys. The oldest of these is VoIP Blacklist. And the new kid on the block is APIBAN from LOD.com and Fred Posner. We’ve simplified the setup process for use with Incredible PBX 2022. To get started, obtain an APIBAN API key here. Then issue the following commands to put all the pieces in place on your server:


cd /usr/local/sbin
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx-ipsets8.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx-ipsets8.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblepbx-ipsets8.tar.gz

Next, edit /usr/local/sbin/apiban-init and insert your APIkey.

Finally, issue the following command to reload the firewall: iptables-restart

Verifying Firewall Setup of Incredible PBX

Let’s make certain that everything got installed correctly. Begin by issuing this command: iptables -nL

Scroll toward the top of the list, and you should see two entries for the voipbl and apiban ipsets indicating that entries in those lists will be dropped by the firewall.

Next, verify that the voipbl and apiban ipsets are populated. The first two commands below will list all of the blocked IP addresses. And the next two commands will provide a count of the dropped IP addresses.

ipset list voipbl
ipset list apiban
ipset list voipbl | wc -l
ipset list apiban | wc -l

Finally, you can refresh the ipsets with the following two commands:

voipbl-init
apiban-init

Rebooting or restarting the firewall with iptables-restart also refreshes the ipset listings.

Calling an Incredible PBX PUBLIC Extension

Any extensions that you have whitelisted in the blue section above can be called from anywhere using any SIP client. Simply enter the SIP URI for the extension in the following format: SIP/extension@your-servers-FQDN

CAUTION: If a caller attempts to call any extension on your PUBLIC server from an extension on another Asterisk server to which the caller is registered, the call will fail if there is a matching extension number on the PUBLIC server and the two servers are not registered to each other. So remember to use unique extension numbers on your PUBLIC server if you expect callers from other Asterisk servers.

Registering Incredible PBX PUBLIC Extension

If you wish to login to a whitelisted extension using a SIP client, enter the extension and password of the extension. For the server address, enter the FQDN of your server. If it’s a PJsip extension, add :5061 to the end of the FQDN.

Originally published: Monday, April 25, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

5 Minute Wonder: Incredible PBX 2022 in Cloud for $25/Yr.

Monday, March 28, 2022 / 5 Comments on 5 Minute Wonder: Incredible PBX 2022 in Cloud for $25/Yr.

We’ve been building turnkey Incredible PBX® servers for virtual machine platforms for many years. Because the servers are built from images, typical install times have been 5 minutes or less with Proxmox, VirtualBox, and VMware ESXi. But the missing piece has been a similar image install on a true cloud-based platform. This limitation was primarily due to the fact that we don’t own or control the available cloud platforms which typically limit image installs to operating systems such as CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, and Windows. However, CrownCloud was good enough to add our Incredible PBX 2021 Debian image and the Incredible PBX 2020 CentOS 7 image to their portfolio. And, today, we have more good news. CrownCloud has now added the Incredible PBX 2022 image for Rocky 8 as well.

These 5-minute turnkey installs of Incredible PBX 2020 for CentOS 7, Incredible PBX 2021 for Debian 10, and now Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky 8 are being offered at the jaw-dropping price of $25 a year. The monthly cost is cheaper than a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and you’ll have a fully-functioning, production-ready KVM platform including a free snapshot with 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD storage, and 1TB of monthly bandwidth in your choice of server locations including Los Angeles and Atlanta in the United States as well as Germany and the Netherlands in Europe. And, unlike all of the other Asterisk® aggregations, Incredible PBX still provides a source code-based platform that can be tailored to meet any special requirements your organization may need.

We don’t make a nickel on these offerings so consider this our special thanks to all of our loyal fans.

Here are the links to sign up for the service and take advantage of these Incredible PBX deals:

Los Angeles: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=382
Atlanta: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=487
Germany: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=399
Netherlands: https://crowncloud.net/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=400

When you sign up for the service, choose any traditional OS for the base install. Once it’s on line, go into CrownPanel and choose Reinstall. Then select Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky from the Application Images pulldown as your new install. In less than 5 minutes, your server will be ready for you to login. Be sure to use SSH and NOT the VNC utility included in CrownPanel. This will assure that your desktop machine’s IP address gets whitelisted in the Incredible PBX firewall. Otherwise, you won’t be able to SSH into your server from your desktop. Once you login, the Incredible PBX configurator will prompt you to set passwords for root login, admin login to FreePBX, and admin login credentials for Apache to access AsteriDex and Reminders. Add a trunk provider (Skyetel is preconfigured and enabled by default) and a softphone or Incredible PBX SIP phone, and your PBX is fully operational. Check out the CrownCloud Wiki.

Planning Ahead for That Rainy Day

One of our favorite features of Crown Cloud is the free snapshot (a.k.a. backup) at no additional charge. We recommend you take snapshots regularly as you make major changes in your server’s configuration. In this way, if something comes unglued, you can easily restore the snapshot and never miss a beat. You’ll find the Remote Snapshot option in your CrownPanel menu.

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX

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

Skyetel does not require SIP registrations to make connections to your PBX. Instead, Skyetel can use 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:

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. Everything is already in place on the Incredible PBX 2022 side of the house so you can start making and receiving calls immediately.

Configuring ClearlyIP SIP Trunking

For the tightest integration with FreePBX, no SIP provider holds a candle to Incredible PBX SIP Trunking with ClearlyIP. The reason is fairly obvious. The ClearlyIP folks were the original developers of FreePBX. In addition to all of the traditional SIP trunking services, you also get CNAM support and state-of-the-art E911 service which can be deployed in full compliance with Kari’s Law and the Ray Baum Act. If you’re a system integrator and don’t know about your financial liability for failure to comply with the new rules, it’s time to do some reading.

Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX

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 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 Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX

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 SIP Phone for Incredible PBX 2022

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 is 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. We obviously recommend the Incredible PBX IP phones from ClearlyIP which are the most versatile.

If you’ve been keeping up with recent Nerd Vittles developments, then you already know that we have just introduced a new Cellular Phone which connects directly to your PBX and serves as a perfect remote extension and traveling companion. You can read all about it here.

Software devices such as the YateClient softphone are another option for desktop machines. 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 VoIP-Info.org Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

We recommend YateClient for Windows which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by running /root/show-passwords. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. In the YateClient, fill in the blanks using the IP address of your Server plus :5061 for the PJsip 701 extension, 701 for your Username, and whatever Password was assigned to the extension when you installed Incredible PBX. Click OK to save your entries.

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

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

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

For smartphone solutions, visit the Incredible PBX Wiki for our softphone recommendations.

Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX

In order to receive voicemails by email delivery, outbound mail functionality from your server obviously is required. We strongly recommend configuring 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.

Configuring a Gmail account with Incredible PBX 2022 is as simple as entering your Gmail credentials. Just run this script: /root/enable-gmail-smarthost-for-sendmail.

Here are the steps using a Gmail account with Incredible PBX 2020:

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

Even though these servers are hosted in the cloud, we still recommend using a SmartHost to minimize email delivery problems.

Test outbound mail using this command with your actual email address:

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

On some implementations, you may notice in the FreePBX GUI that the mail queue has failed. Here's the fix:

chmod 777 /var/spool/mqueue
service sendmail restart

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

Be advised that Google has hinted that the Gmail Smarthost landscape may be changing. See our recent article for a simple SmartHost alternative.

Incredible PBX 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 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 702-705. 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 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. 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.

ssh-regen.sh allows you to reset the SSH keys for your server for added security.

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.

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

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

Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

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

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

Free voicemail transcription with email delivery. Tutorial available here.

Setting Up a VPN for Your PBX: OpenVPN or NeoRouter

Originally published: Monday, March 28, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Deploying a Non-Google SMTP RelayHost with Asterisk

Thursday, March 17, 2022 / 7 Comments on Deploying a Non-Google SMTP RelayHost with Asterisk

This will not be the sexiest column you read this year, but it may be the most important. You need a reliable way for your VoIP-based PBX to deliver emails to you and your users when incoming voicemails arrive and when your server has problems. At least for Incredible PBX® platforms, we thought we had this solved with our Gmail Smarthost solution. But, alas, Google continues to move the goal posts and has announced that it will discontinue support for so-called "Less Secure Apps" on May 30, 2022. After watching Google blow up one of their apps after another over the years, you’d think we’d learn. But the ease of use and (free) pricing of Google offerings continues to entice until… another one bites the dust.

Why Do You Need a RelayHost? Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block downstream mail servers from sending email to reduce spam. If you have a PBX sitting behind a Comcast cable modem and you don’t have a business account, that would be you.

What Is a RelayHost? A RelayHost is an intermediate mail provider that provides last mile delivery of your server’s outbound email without your having to worry about the intricacies of setting up and properly configuring an SMTP gateway. Instead, your server pushes your outbound email messages to the smarthost using your credentials and leaves the rest of the delivery task to the RelayHost.

Choosing a RelayHost. Lucky for all of us, there are many RelayHost providers from which to choose. Most offer a free tier with 100 or more daily emails. For most PBXs, that is more than ample without spending a dime. If your server pushes out more than 100 emails a day, then there are commercial tiers of service available from these same providers. Here are some of the favorites recommended by our users: Twilio’s SendGrid, Mailjet, SendInBlue, and our own free MXroute offering. We would prefer you use our service as a last resort if you can’t get any of the other free offerings to work. We’ll show you how to set up Twilio’s SendGrid as a RelayHost to get you started.

Configuring a RelayHost with Incredible PBX. There’s good news and bad news. While all of these solutions offer a free tier, the setup process with some of these services can be a bear. We’ve attempted to take the pain out of this by walking you through the setup steps. For openers, configuring SendMail as an SMTP Smarthost is not for mere mortals so we’ll first migrate your PBX to Postfix to simplify the setup procedure. Here is a quick list of the tasks:

Migrate Your PBX from SendMail to Postfix
Obtain an Account with SmartHost Provider
Configure Postfix Email Relay Using SmartHost Provider
Test Outbound Mail

Migrating Incredible PBX 2022 to Postfix. Our new Incredible PBX 2022 build for Rocky 8 comes with both SendMail and Postfix preinstalled. So it’s simple to switch gears. Here are the commands:

systemctl stop sendmail
systemctl disable sendmail
systemctl start postfix
systemctl enable postfix
sed -i 's|-c sendmail|-c postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
sed -i 's|SendMail| Postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
systemctl status postfix

Migrating Incredible PBX 2021 to Postfix. By default, Incredible PBX 2021 servers do not include Postfix. So here are the steps to install Postfix and remove SendMail. These steps also apply to all releases of Incredible PBX on the Raspbian platform.

apt-get update
apt-get install postfix sasl2-bin -y
# choose No Configuration option when prompted in:
# dpkg-reconfigure postfix
systemctl stop sendmail
systemctl disable sendmail
systemctl start postfix
systemctl enable postfix
sed -i 's|-c sendmail|-c postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
echo "incrediblepbx.com" > /etc/mailname
sed -i 's|SendMail| Postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
systemctl status postfix

Creating a Free SendGrid Account. Begin by navigating to the SendGrid Start for Free link. Enter your Email Address and a 16-character password of your choice. Accept the Terms of Service and click Create Account. Fill in the Personal Information and click Get Started. Create a Single Sender Identity. Confirm receipt of the verification email. You can skip enabling Two-Factor Authentication if desired. Next, open the Email API tab and click Integration Guide. Choose SMTP Relay and create an APIKEY. Copy the generated APIKEY to a safe place. It cannot be deciphered again!

Now edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add the following entries to the bottom of the file:

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
header_size_limit = 4096000
relayhost = [smtp.sendgrid.net]:587

Then create /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd and enter the following, replacing YOUR-APIKEY with your actual key from above:

[smtp.sendgrid.net]:587 apikey:YOUR-APIKEY

Complete the setup by issuing the following commands:

chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
systemctl restart postfix
systemctl status postfix

IMPORTANT NOTE: With SendGrid, the email address you entered for your Single Sender Identity must match the FROM: address on every outbound email message sent from your server. We’ll need to adjust the FROM: address in FreePBX before any voicemail emails can be successfully sent. Also, if you send emails from the command line, the syntax must be as shown here with your sender@yourdomain.com matching what was entered as your Sender Identity email address.

echo "test" | mail -r sender@yourdomain.com -s testmessage recipient@somedomain.com

At least with Gmail recipients, they may also see the following with messages from your PBX until they click Looks Safe:

Finally, be sure to adjust the FROM address for outbound voicemail messages in the FreePBX GUI. Login as admin and enter your Sender Identity Email Address in the Server Email field in Settings -> Voicemail Admin -> Settings -> Email Config.

You can check for errors by reviewing the Postfix mail log: tail /var/log/mail.log.

UPDATE: Setup scripts for Debian 10 and Rocky 8 can be downloaded here.

Originally published: Thursday, March 17, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

One-Minute Wonder: It’s Incredible PBX 2022 for VirtualBox

Monday, March 7, 2022 / 3 Comments on One-Minute Wonder: It’s Incredible PBX 2022 for VirtualBox

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 can use almost any desktop computer you already own to bring up the VirtualBox® edition of Incredible PBX® 2022.

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 2022 image from SourceForge, double-click on the downloaded image, check the initialize MAC address box, and boom. In less than a minute, your PBX is ready to use with the very latest Rocky 8 platform and Asterisk® 18 build plus all of the FreePBX® 15 GPL modules. There are no hidden fees or crippleware to hinder your use of Incredible PBX for as long as you like. If you set up an account with our Platinum provider, Skyetel, you can start making calls in minutes. Of course, the Incredible PBX feature set is included as well which brings you nearly three dozen applications for Asterisk® that will revolutionize your communications platform. Speech-to-text, voice recognition, and a Siri-like telephony interface are as close as your SIP phone.

Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

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

NOTE: The Incredible PBX 2022 VM requires a VirtualBox 6.x platform. Adjust screen size in View -> Virtual Screen.

Installing the Incredible PBX 2022 Image

To begin, download the Incredible PBX 2022 image (3.5 GB) onto your desktop.

Next, double-click on the Incredible PBX .ova image on your desktop. Be sure to check the box to initialize the MAC address of the image if you’re using an older version of VirtualBox. Then click Import. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new Incredible PBX 2022 virtual machine in the VM List of the VirtualBox Manager Window. Let’s make a couple of one-time adjustments to the Incredible PBX configuration to account for possible differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

(1) Click once on the Incredible PBX virtual machine in the VM List. Then (2) click the Settings button. In System tab, verify Hardware Clock in UTC Time is checked. 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 2022.

Running Incredible PBX 2022 in VirtualBox

Once you’ve imported and configured the Incredible PBX 2022 Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight the Incredible PBX 2022 virtual machine in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The standard Linux boot procedure will begin and, within a few seconds, you’ll get the familiar Linux login prompt. During the bootstrap procedure, you’ll see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and your virtual machine. Remember, you still have full access to your desktop computer. Incredible PBX is merely running as a task in a VM window. Always gracefully halt Incredible PBX just as you would on any computer.

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

Setting the Date and Time with VirtualBox

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

date 08130709
clock -w

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2022

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 2022:

Name: MyPBX
Priority: 1
IP Address: PBX-Public-IP-Address
Port: 5061
Protocol: UDP
Description: my.incrediblepbx.com

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

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

If VirtualBox is sitting behind a router or firewall on a private LAN, you’ll need to forward ports UDP 5060, 5061, and 10000-20000 in your router to the private LAN address of your Incredible PBX server. Also edit your extensions in the GUI and set NAT=YES in the Advanced tab of every extension. In Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings, click the Detect Network Settings button and then Submit your changes and reload the Asterisk dialplan when prompted.

Finally, login to the FreePBX web GUI as admin using the password you assigned when you set up the virtual machine. Navigate to Connectivity -> Trunks and edit the Skyetel-pjSIP trunk. Change the Disable Trunk setting from Yes to No. Then click Submit and reload your dialplan when prompted. That’s it.

Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2022

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. For more details about VoIP.ms, see this Nerd Vittles tutorial.

Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX 2022

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. We have built aninstall script to set up a SmartHost using Gmail. Simply run it and insert your Gmail username and password or App Password.

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/enable-gmail-smarthost-rocky8.tar.gz
tar zxvf enable-gmail-smarthost-rocky8.tar.gz
rm -f enable-gmail-smarthost-rocky8.tar.gz
./enable-gmail-smarthost-for-sendmail

Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2022

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 the Incredible PBX SIP phone. 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 in the Incredible PBX Wiki when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony.

We recommend YateClient for Windows which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You can find them by navigating to Applicaations -> Extensions -> 701 in the FreePBX GUI.

Configuring Incredible PBX 2022 for VirtualBox

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

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

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

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

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

Using AsteriDex with Incredible PBX

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

Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

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

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

Taking Incredible PBX 2022 for a Test Drive

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

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

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

We Missed You During February

If you missed us last month, we missed you, too. We took a brief timeout to get some new eyeballs. Ah, the miracles of modern medicine. As the old song says, "I Can See Clearly Now." It’s been 35 years since I saw the world without the need for glasses. It’s good to be back.

Originally published: Monday, March 7, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

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. [↩]

Introducing Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky 8 Linux

Monday, January 17, 2022 / 20 Comments on Introducing Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky 8 Linux

As we celebrate the 17th birthday of Nerd Vittles this week, it seemed only fitting to introduce a new version of Incredible PBX 2022 which will carry telephony forward until the end of this decade. For history buffs, you may recall that CentOS used to be a perfect clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux… until it wasn’t when RedHat decided to morph CentOS into a development sandbox known as CentOS Stream. And then along came Gregory Kurtzer, the original developer of CentOS, to work his magic once again with the Rocky 8 reincarnation. Until Rocky 8 rose from the ashes, we had all but decided to end our CentOS distribution and focus on Debian, Raspbian, and Ubuntu. But the appeal of a new operating system with an end of life slated for May 2029 was hard to resist. So here we are.

Our roadmap for Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky 8 goes like this. Today we are introducing this beta featuring Asterisk® 16 and the GPL modules from FreePBX® 15. Once we get the kinks out of this release, we will add two additional versions, one featuring Asterisk 18 and FreePBX 15 plus a second one featuring Asterisk 19 and FreePBX 16. The PHP platform to support all three versions is already in place. It supports both PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.4 running concurrently. We needed PHP 5.6 to preserve the legacy AvantFax application which provides free faxing.

CAUTION: Because of frequent changes to the Rocky 8 platform, we no longer recommend it for production use with Incredible PBX.

We hope you’ll download and install Rocky 8 as well as Incredible PBX 2022 and help us move this platform forward. Begin by downloading and installing Rocky 8 Minimal. If you prefer AlmaLinux, download and install their minimal image from here. If you prefer a cloud-based platform, consider our Platinum sponsor, Vultr. They host both Rocky 8 and AlmaLinux 8 images in addition to other operating systems so platform setup takes only a minute.

Once you have your platform up and running, login as root and issue the following commands to kick off the Incredible PBX 2022 install:

cd /root
yum -y install wget
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2022.16.15-4.sh
chmod +x IncrediblePBX2022.16.15-4.sh
./IncrediblePBX2022.16.15-4.sh

Once the Phase I install finishes, your server will reboot. Log back in as root and run the installer a second time:

cd /root
./IncrediblePBX2022.16.15-4.sh

1/31/2022 UPDATE: We’ve now released the second iteration of Incredible PBX 2022 for Rocky8 and AlmaLinux8 featuring Asterisk 18 and the FreePBX GPL modules. You can install this version as an alternative to the Asterisk 16 release if you would prefer:

cd /root
yum -y install wget
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2022.18.15-1.sh
chmod +x IncrediblePBX2022.18.15-1.sh
./IncrediblePBX2022.18.15-1.sh

Once the Phase I install finishes, your server will reboot. Log back in as root and run the new installer a second time:

cd /root
./IncrediblePBX2022.18.15-1.sh

If you chose to install AlmaLinux 8, issue the following command once you’ve logged in to the Linux CLI as root:

sed -i 's|Rocky 8|AlmaLinux 8|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus

As with all Incredible PBX builds, a preconfigured Linux firewall is included which blocks all access except from whitelisted IP addresses. To activate it, simply press the ENTER key when the install completes. To load the latest updates to the platform using the Automatic Update Utility, simply log out of your server and log back in as root. You’re now ready to explore the Incredible PBX feature set using the tutorials available on the Incredible PBX Wiki.

Audio Issues with Incredible PBX

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 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 as root 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.

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"

Originally published: Monday, January 17, 2022 Updated: Monday, December 12, 2022

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Santa’s Surprise: Free Faxing Returns for FreePBX 16

Saturday, December 25, 2021 / 2 Comments on Santa’s Surprise: Free Faxing Returns for FreePBX 16

As most of you know, free faxing with HylaFax, AvantFax, and IAXmodem has been an integral component of Incredible PBX since its introduction. That changed with the Incredible PBX 2022 Beta release last week because of the FreePBX® 16 prerequisite of a PHP 7.4 platform. That prompted us to become a student again and explore the possibility of deploying two simultaneously available versions of PHP. AvantFax is the web GUI for sending and receiving free faxes. It is no longer under active development and depends upon PHP 5.6 to function. Thus, we were faced with the Hobson’s Choice of deploying PHP 7.4 for FreePBX 16 or PHP 5.6 for AvantFax. We chose the lesser of two evils in the initial release of Incredible PBX 2022 by choosing to support FreePBX 16. Today we finally have good news.

We’ve managed to restore the full functionality of Incredible PBX including free faxing by reconfiguring PHP 7.4 and PHP 5.6 to run simultaneously. Incredible PBX 2022 now can be deployed with Asterisk® 19, FreePBX 16, and AvantFax happily coexisting. To get this working, you’ll need a Debian 10 platform running Incredible PBX 2021. Once you have it up and running, here are the steps to add the latest Incredible PBX 2022 Beta including faxing.

1. Install Incredible PBX 2021 on Debian 10 platform
2. Run /root/incrediblefax2021-debian10.sh to install free faxing
3. Set the Apache and FreePBX admin passwords:
/root/apache-pw-change /root/admin-pw-change
4. Reboot
5. Verify that pbxstatus shows everything working
6. Obtain FQDN linked to your server’s public IP address
7. Verify access to Incredible PBX using this FQDN
(NOTE: Do this NOW before proceeding or step 11 will fail)
8. Install Incredible PBX 2022 Beta
9. Reboot
10. Verify that pbxstatus shows everything working
11. Run install-dual-php script to activate dual PHP stack:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/install-dual-php
chmod +x install-dual-php
./install-dual-php

Now you should be able to login to FreePBX using your server’s public IP address.
And you should be able to login to AvantFax using the FQDN you created (step 6).
At the first login prompt for AvantFax, it’s asking for your Apache admin credentials (step 3).
Then you’ll be prompted for your AvantFax admin credentials. Default is admin:password

We hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas!

Originally published: Saturday, December 25, 2021

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Tag Archives: freepbx

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Deploying OpenVPN with Asterisk Servers

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1. Deciphering Public IP Address of Your PBX

2. Obtaining an FQDN for Your PBX

3. Securing SSH Access to Your PBX

4. Choosing Extensions for SIP URI Public Access

5. Whitelisting IP Addresses for Public Web Access

Deploying Incredible PBX PUBLIC Firewall

Using Incredible PBX PUBLIC with Asterisk

Adding IPSET Incredible PBX 2022 Protection

Verifying Firewall Setup of Incredible PBX

Calling an Incredible PBX PUBLIC Extension

Registering Incredible PBX PUBLIC Extension

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Planning Ahead for That Rainy Day

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX

Configuring ClearlyIP SIP Trunking

Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX

Configuring Anveo Direct for Incredible PBX

Configuring a SIP Phone for Incredible PBX 2022

Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX

Incredible PBX Administration

Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

Where To Go From Here

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Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

Installing the Incredible PBX 2022 Image

Running Incredible PBX 2022 in VirtualBox

Setting the Date and Time with VirtualBox

Configuring Skyetel for Incredible PBX 2022

Configuring VoIP.ms for Incredible PBX 2022

Configuring SendMail with Incredible PBX 2022

Configuring a Softphone for Incredible PBX 2022

Configuring Incredible PBX 2022 for VirtualBox

Using AsteriDex with Incredible PBX

Keeping FreePBX 15 Modules Current

Taking Incredible PBX 2022 for a Test Drive

We Missed You During February

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Audio Issues with Incredible PBX

Incredible PBX Administration

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