gvoice – Page 12 – Nerd Vittles

Gotcha-Free PBX: GIT-R-Done with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (CentOS)

Monday, April 20, 2015 / 4 Comments on Gotcha-Free PBX: GIT-R-Done with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (CentOS)

[iframe-popup id="4″]
For the die-hard developers out there, we are pleased to introduce a new version of Incredible PBX™ for Asterisk-GUI that uses GIT repos to build both Asterisk® and Asterisk-GUI with the same feature set of applications as our previous releases. You still get a Gotcha-Free PBX with pure and honest open source GPL code. No patent, trademark, or copyright minefields to trip you up. But this time around you’ll have an Asterisk platform that can be updated in seconds by running a simple upgrade script: upgrade-asterisk-to-current. Special thanks to Matt Jordan & Co. for the new GIT implementation. And our extra special thanks to Denver sports cartoonist, Drew Litton, for letting us share his GIT-R-DONE creation as well.

This time around you’ll need a 64-bit CentOS 6.5/6.6 base platform. When you complete the 30-minute install procedure, you’ll have the very latest version of Asterisk 11 and Asterisk-GUI. Both are compiled from source on your hardware platform to maximize performance. The end result is the VoIP Trifecta… better, cheaper, and faster.

Since the early Windows® days, we haven’t been big fans of GUI-only interfaces. Let’s face it. Some things can be configured more efficiently with less chance for error using other tools. Incredible PBX takes advantage of this hybrid technology by offering the best of all worlds. Administrators can use a GUI where it makes sense and use a text editor or simple web form where it doesn’t. There’s no MySQL middleware to obfuscate your Asterisk settings. So you can configure 8 VoIP trunks from 8 great providers in under 5 minutes. And there’s so much more…

Target Audience: Home or SOHO/SBO in need of a turnkey, Gotcha-Free PBX Development Platform

Default Configuration: Asterisk 11 with enhanced Asterisk-GUI, Kennonsoft GUI, and NANPA dialplan

Platform: 64-bit CentOS 6.5/6.6 running on Dedicated Server, Cloud-Based Server, or Virtual Machine

Minimum Memory: 512MB

Recommended Disk: 20GB+

Default Trunks: Google Voice, CallCentric, DIDlogic, Future-Nine, IPcomms, Les.net, Vitelity, VoIP.ms¹

Feature Set: Fax, SMS messaging, VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, Email, IVR, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, OpenCNAM CallerID lookups, DISA, Call Forwarding, CSV CDRs

Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, Asterisk Upgrader, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, Plug-and-Play Trunk Configurator, WebMin, External IP Setup, Firewall WhiteList Tools

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (GIT Edition)

Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI:

Choose a Hardware Platform – Dedicated PC, Cloud, or Virtual Machine

Install Linux – 64-bit CentOS 6.5 or Scientific Linux Minimal ISO

Download and Install Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Connect a Softphone to Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

1. Choose a Platform for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI works equally well on dedicated hardware or a virtual machine. Just be sure you’ve met the minimum requirements outlined above and that you have a sufficiently robust Internet connection to support 100Kb of download and upload bandwidth for each simultaneous call you wish to handle with your new PBX.

For Dedicated Hardware, we recommend an Atom-based PC of recent vintage with at least a 30GB drive and 4GB of RAM. That will take care of an office with 10-20 extensions and a half dozen or more simultaneous calls if you have the Internet bandwidth to support it.

For Cloud-Based Implementations, this time around we recommend Digital Ocean because the GIT edition is designed to be a development platform with bleeding edge Asterisk 11 code.

For Virtual Machine Installs, we recommend Oracle’s VirtualBox platform which runs atop almost any operating system including Windows, Macs, Linux, and Solaris. Here’s a link to our original VirtualBox tutorial to get you started. We suggest allocating 1GB of RAM and at least a 20GB disk image to your virtual machine for best performance.

2. Install a Linux Flavor for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

To be clear, we plan to support many Linux flavors other than RedHat. But Rome wasn’t built in a day so hang in there. We’re flippin’ burgers as fast as we can. For today, you’ll need a 64-bit version of CentOS or Scientific Linux 6.5/6.6. On some platforms, you install 6.5. After the initial update and upgrade steps, you’ll end up with 6.6. There are many flavors of CentOS and Scientific Linux. For Incredible PBX, a minimal install is all you need.

With dedicated hardware, begin by downloading the 64-bit CentOS 6.6 minimal ISO. Boot your server with the ISO, and begin the install. Here are the simplest installation steps:

Choose Language and Click Continue
Click: Install Destination (do not change anything!)
Click: Done
Click: Network & Hostname
Click: ON
Click: Done
Click: Begin Installation
Click: Root Password: password, password, Click Done twice
Wait for Minimal Software Install and Setup to finish
Click: Reboot

With most cloud-based providers, you simply choose the CentOS 6.5 platform in creating your initial image. 512MB of RAM is plenty so long as you have a swap file. Within a minute or two, you’re ready to boot up the server.

For VirtualBox, download the Scientific Linux 6.6 minimal install .ova image from SourceForge. Then double-click on the image to load it into VirtualBox. Enable Audio and configure Network with Bridge Adapter in Settings. Then start the virtual machine. Default password for root is password.

With VirtualBox, you can skip this step. For everyone else, log into your server as root and issue the following commands to put the basic pieces in place and to reconfigure your Ethernet port as eth0. On some platforms, some of the commands may generate errors. Don’t worry about it! Just make a note of your IP address so you can log back in with SSH from a desktop computer to begin the Incredible PBX install.

For CentOS/Scientific Linux 6.5 minimal install:

setenforce 0
yum -y upgrade
yum -y install net-tools nano wget
ifconfig
sed -i 's|quiet|quiet net.ifnames=0 biosdevdame=0|' /etc/default/grub
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/update-kernel-devel
chmod +x update-kernel-devel
./update-kernel-devel
reboot

For CentOS/Scientific Linux 6.6 minimal install:

setenforce 0
yum -y upgrade
yum -y install net-tools nano wget
ifconfig
reboot

3. Install GIT-R-Done Edition of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

cd /root
yum -y install wget
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx11gui-git.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx11gui-git.tar.gz
#./create-swapfile-DO  #add this step for Digital Ocean droplets
rm -f incrediblepbx11gui-git.tar.gz
sed -i 's|pbxinaflash.com|incrediblepbx.com|' IncrediblePBX11-GUI-git.sh
./IncrediblePBX11-GUI-git.sh
./IncrediblePBX11-GUI-git.sh

4. Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

Administrators have been trying to stomp out faxing for at least two decades. Here’s a hint. It ain’t gonna happen. So go with the flow and add Gotcha-Free Faxing to your server. It’ll be there when you need it. And sooner or later, you’ll need it. This install script is simple enough for any monkey to complete. Run the script and enter the email address for delivery of your faxes. Then, if you’re in the U.S. or Canada, press the Enter key to accept every default entry during the HylaFax and AvantFax installation steps. For other countries, read the prompts and answer accordingly. When the installation finishes, reboot your server to bring faxing on line. Be sure to change your AvantFax admin password. By default, it is password. You can use the script included in the /root folder: avantfax-pw-change. REMINDER: Don’t forget to reboot your server!

cd /root
./incrediblefax11-GUI.sh
./avantfax-pw-change
reboot

Troubleshooting: If your IAXmodems don’t display with a green IDLE notation in the AvantFax GUI, you may need to restart them once more. After a second reboot, all should be well. The restart command is /root/iaxmodem-restart.

5. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IPtables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to connected LANs, your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for our web applications. And, of course, Asterisk-GUI has its own security methodology using Asterisk’s manager.conf. Finally, we randomize extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial install process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

Even with all of these layers of security, here are 10 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

First, log into your server as root with your root password and do the following:

Make your root password very secure: passwd
Set your correct time zone: ./timezone-setup
Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
Make a copy of your other passwords: cat passwords.FAQ
Make a copy of your Knock codes: cat knock.FAQ
Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

Second, log into your server as admin using a web browser pointed to your server’s IP address:

Click USERS tab in Incredible PBX GUI
Click Asterisk-GUI Administration
Log in as user: admin with password: password
Immediately change your admin password and login again

Log in to Asterisk-GUI again with your new password. Expand the options available in the GUI:

Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options

Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes an automatic update utility which downloads important updates whenever you log into your server as root. We recommend you log in once a week to keep your server current. Now would be a good time to log out and back into your server at the Linux command line to bring your server up to current specs.

6. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Now for the fun part. If this is your first VoIP adventure, be advised that this ain’t your grandma’s phone system. You need not and should not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to telephone providers. In order to connect to Plain Old Telephones, you still need at least one provider. But there is nothing wrong with having several. And a provider that handles an outbound call (termination) need not be the same one that handles an incoming call (origination) and provides your phone number (DID). We cannot recommend Vitelity highly enough, and it’s not just because they have financially supported our projects for almost a decade. They’re as good as VoIP providers get, and we use lots of them. If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S., you’d be crazy not to set up a Google Voice account. It’s free as are all phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining preconfigured providers included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI are equally good, and we’ve used and continue to use almost all of them. So pick a few and sign up. You only pay for the calls you make with each provider so you have little to lose by choosing several. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations on VoIP providers if you want additional information.

With the preconfigured trunks in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI, all you need are your credentials for each provider and the FQDN of their server. Log into Asterisk-GUI Administration as admin using a browser. From the System Status screen, click Incredible PBX Apps. Click on each provider you have chosen and fill in the blanks with your credentials. When you’ve saved all of your settings, log into your server as root via SSH and type: service asterisk restart or asterisk-restart. You can also issue the command in the Asterisk-GUI by choosing the Asterisk CLI tab² in the left column. Doesn’t get any simpler!

Update: It should be noted that Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI also supports Anveo Direct trunks; however, they are configured differently because of the way Anveo handles the calls. You’ll need the PIN provided by Anveo to set up your trunk, and Anveo supports CallerID spoofing so you can enter any CallerID number for the trunk that you are authorized to use. You’ll find the Anveo Direct setup link in the Incredible PBX Apps tab. To route an outgoing call through Anveo trunk, dial 2 + any desired 10-digit number.

Here is the complete list of dialing prefixes and the trunks to which they are associated:

1 – Google Voice
2 – Anveo Direct
3 – Future Nine
4 – CallCentric
5 – DIDlogic
6 – IPcomms
7 – Les.net
8 – Vitelity
9 – VoIP.ms

For free iNUM calling worldwide, the following dialing prefixes are supported in conjunction with the last seven digits of any destination iNUM DID. Free iNUM DIDs for your own PBX are available from both of these providers as well.

0XXXXXXX – CallCentric
90XXXXXXX – VoIP.ms

Finally, in addition to the native Asterisk motif implementation of Google Voice (covered below) which uses insecure authentication with Google Voice, we also support the new Simonics SIP gateway to Google Voice using OAUTH authentication. Just click this link for the installation script and tutorial.

7. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

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

We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 6002 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 6002 password. Choose Users -> 6002 and write down your SIP/IAX Password. You can also find it in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 6002 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. Click OK to save your entries.

Once you are registered to extension 6002, 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:

7001 - IVR Demo 123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News *61 - Time of Day TODAY - Today in History

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

Configuring Google Voice

If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support 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 keep this account a secret!

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 have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

Once you’ve created your Gmail and Google Voice accounts, go to Google Voice Settings and 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’ve adjusted 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.

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!

Now you’re ready to configure your Google Voice account in Incredible PBX. You can do it from within Asterisk-GUI by choosing Google Voice within the Incredible PBX Apps tab. Once you entered your credentials, don’t forget to restart Asterisk, or Google Voice calls will fail. If you still have trouble placing or receiving calls, try these tips.

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

We know what some of you are thinking. "What does a fast food worker really know about VoIP and Gotcha-Free PBXs?? Before I waste a bunch of time on this, show me the beef!" Fair enough. Sit by your phone and click the Call Me icon below. Type in a fake name and your real phone number. Click the Connect button, answer your phone when it rings, and press 1. You’ll be connected to the Incredible PBX IVR for Asterisk-GUI. Pick an option from the menu of choices and take the Incredible PBX apps for a spin on our dime… actually it’s Google’s dime. Everything you see and hear is part of what you get with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI including the ability to set up your own click-to-dial web interface exactly like this one. The demo just happens to be running on our Mac desktop instead of yours. So… what are you waiting for? Click away and try Incredible PBX for yourself. And, by the way, nobody besides the NSA and Google will be monitoring your call. 😉

Nerd Vittles Demo IVR Options
1 – Call by Name (say “Delta Airlines” or “American Airlines” to try it out)
2 – MeetMe Conference (password is 1234)
3 – Wolfram Alpha (say “What planes are overhead?”)
4 – Lenny (The Telemarketer’s Worst Nightmare)
5 – Today’s News Headlines
6 – Weather Forecast (say the city and state, province, or country)
7 – Today in History
8 – Speak to a Real Person (or maybe just voicemail if we’re out)

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Asterisk-GUI

We’ll have more to say about the Incredible PBX applications next week. In the meantime, you have some homework. You need to learn all about Asterisk-GUI and how to make the best use of its powerful feature set. Here’s one word of warning. We mentioned that Incredible PBX was a hybrid system that combines some customized settings with the standard Asterisk-GUI interface. Before modifying existing settings for the default trunks, extensions, and default routes, take a look at the credentials* files in /etc/asterisk. If you modify any of these trunk entries or the Outgoing or Incoming Call Rules in Asterisk-GUI, you may break the Incredible PBX setup. So steer clear of that minefield until you know what you’re doing. Adding new extensions and additional trunks is perfectly fine and will not break anything.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll point you to some excellent tutorials that already have been written. Start with Chapter 3 of Digium’s Asterisk Appliance™ Administrator Manual. Next, review Chapter 11 of The Asterisk Book (Second Edition). Finally, take a look at a couple of the tutorials that have been written by other companies that incorporated Asterisk-GUI into their hardware products, e.g. Yeastar’s MyPBX SOHO User Manual and Grandstream’s UCM6100 User Manual. Then check back with us next week for Chapter 2.

In the meantime, if you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free.

We also are quickly building a collection of tutorials tailored specifically for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI:

Enjoy your new Gotcha-Free PBX!

Now Available: The Gotcha-Free Incredible PBX Application User’s Guide

Originally published: Monday, April 20, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Vitelity and Google provide financial support to Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX project. [↩]
If, for some reason, the Asterisk CLI tab does not appear on your server, click Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options. [↩]

The Gotcha-Free PBX: Simon Telephonics New SIP Gateway for Google Voice

Monday, April 13, 2015 / 1 Comment on The Gotcha-Free PBX: Simon Telephonics New SIP Gateway for Google Voice

We promised you that free Google Voice calling in the U.S. and Canada would soon be available on every Asterisk® platform whether the platform supported Asterisk Motif or not. And this week we’re covering the second SIP gateway offering for Google Voice. We introduced Bill Simon’s first Google Voice gateway back in June of 2012. This time around the latest iteration features secure OAUTH authentication so there’s no need to divulge your Google Voice credentials. Once you’ve set up your account on the Simonics Google Voice Gateway site,¹ you simply create a standard SIP trunk on your Asterisk server or SIP device of choice, and PRESTO! You get secure authentication to Google Voice without worrying whether Google will drop support for insecure authentication methods such as Asterisk Motif down the road. And you can set all of it up for a one-time setup fee. For Nerd Vittles readers, you get $1 off the current $5.99 fee by using this link. Unlike last week’s GVsip offering, the new Simonics service includes free CallerID name lookups plus the ability to connect multiple devices at multiple sites and communicate between the devices using some clever SIP magic. You also can map incoming calls to any SIP URI rather than just the destination from which you register a Google Voice account. This new gateway is a real winner!

Why do this? There are several reasons aside from the free calls and free phone number. First, Google has warned for years that insecure authentication to Google Voice is going away. It hasn’t yet which is the reason Asterisk Motif logins still work. When Google finally pulls the plug (and they will), your Google Voice days are over using the Asterisk platform. Second, some of the Asterisk aggregations such as Elastix® never supported Google Motif. Hence, free Google Voice calling wasn’t available at all to those using the Elastix platform. That limitation is now a thing of the past. You can create a simple SIP trunk and begin enjoying free Google Voice calling in the U.S. and Canada just like some of the rest of us have been doing for years. Third, Google Voice support was the sole reason that many have stuck with the FreePBX® GUI despite the gotchas. Now you have a choice. Any Incredible PBX™ or Asterisk-GUI™ server now supports Google Voice without your having to worry about constant changes to the Asterisk Motif driver to support refinements at the Google Voice end. Now it’s a pure SIP trunk using pure SIP technology as far as Asterisk is concerned. The only limitation is the one imposed by Google. You need to reside in the United States to use Google Voice even though free calling is available to the U.S. and Canada.

If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

1. Using your favorite browser, log in to the Google Voice account you wish to associate with the Simonics SIP gateway. Be sure that you’ve enabled Google Chat in your Google Voice setup.

2. Using a separate tab of your browser, connect to the Simonics Google Voice Gateway site.

3. Go through the steps to register your Google Voice account with the Simonics Google Voice gateway and obtain your credentials.

4a. For those using FreePBX or Elastix, use another tab of your browser to open the GUI interface and create a new SIP trunk using your new SIP login credentials. Replace 8005551212 with your actual Google Voice number and YOUR-SIP-PW with your actual Simonics SIP password in BOTH the PEER Details and Registration String. Add your Google Voice number to the end of the Registration String like this: GV18005551212:YOUR-SIP-PW@gvgw.simonics.com/8005551212

4b. For those using Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI, simply download and run our One-Click Installer. You’ll need your Simonics SIP account name and password plus a two-digit dialing prefix to use for outbound calls. It’s that simple!

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/simonics-addon.tar.gz
tar zxvf simonics-addon.tar.gz
rm -f simonics-addon.tar.gz
./simonics-addon.sh

Once you’ve finished running the script, your trunk will be up and running. There’s no requirement for steps #5 and #6 with Asterisk-GUI. If desired, jump to Step #7 to set up a SIP URI for your incoming calls.

5. Create an Inbound Route for your incoming calls using the 10-digit number you entered at the end of the Registration String in step #4a.

6. Create an Outbound Route for outgoing calls that should be handled by your Google Voice trunk. The CallerID number will be your Google Voice number. You cannot change it.

7. If you’d prefer to send incoming calls to a designated SIP URI instead of the server that registered with the Simonics gateway, enter the address in the format: pbx@myserver.xyz. For additional details, read our previous article on SIP URIs.

8. Repeat this setup procedure for as many Google Voice accounts as you wish to activate using the steps above. If you’re using Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI, remember to edit the script and change the TRUNK=simonics entry to something like TRUNK=simonics2. Also use a unique two-digit dialing prefix for each trunk. Be sure to logout of your previous Google account before repeating the drill. Enjoy!

Don’t forget to List Yourself in Directory Assistance with your new IPkall PSTN number so everyone can find you by dialing 411. And be sure to add your new number to the Do Not Call Registry to block telemarketing calls.

Originally published: Monday, April 13, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

In addition to substantial technical assistance, Simon Telephonics is also a financial contributor to the Nerd Vittles project. [↩]

The Two Amigos on Cloud 9: Introducing Incredible PBX for Elastix @ RentPBX

Friday, March 27, 2015 / 1 Comment on The Two Amigos on Cloud 9: Introducing Incredible PBX for Elastix @ RentPBX

DEC. 7 NEWS FLASH: The Elastix project has been sold to 3CX. Elastix 4.0 and Elastix MT have been removed from production "due to a legal disagreement with another open source distribution."

We continue the Gotcha-Free PBX adventure today with an open source alternative for which many have been clamoring, another affordable Cloud-based Asterisk® platform with the no-strings-attached Elastix 2.5 GUI. In addition to a $15 a month hosting plan, the icing on the cake is the quick 10-minute automated setup on your choice of a dozen servers throughout the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe. If you can find the Enter key on a keyboard, then you can handle the complexity of the RentPBX setup for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5. When you’re finished, you’ll have a turnkey PBX featuring some terrific open source software. The software is all free, subject only to the terms of the open source licenses.

Target Audience: Home or Office in need of a turnkey, Gotcha-Free Elastix PBX in the Cloud

Default Configuration: Asterisk 11 with enhanced Elastix 2.5 GUI

Platform: CentOS 5.11 running on RentPBX Cloud-Based Server platform

Memory: 400 MB with 415 MB swap

Disk Size: 20 GB

Default Trunks: CallCentric, DIDlogic, Future-Nine, IPcomms, Les.net, Vitelity, VoIP.ms, Gvoice¹

Feature Set: Fax, SMS messaging, NeoRouter/PPTP VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, Email, IVR, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, DISA, Call Forwarding, Tailorable CDRs

Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, WebMin, Admin Password Configurator, ODBC/MySQL Database Configurator, Firewall WhiteList Tools

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 (Cloud Edition)

Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 @ RentPBX.com:

Sign Up for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 in the Cloud

Complete the Install of Incredible PBX with two automatic reboots

Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX

Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX

Connect a Softphone to Incredible PBX

Configure SMTP Mail for Incredible PBX

1. Sign Up for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 in the Cloud at RentPBX.com

Visit RentPBX.com and choose the Elastix build option. Then complete the following steps:

Step #1. Select a location for your cloud-based server.

Step #2. Choose Elastix 2.5 IncrediblePBX Ready option.

Step #3. Specify a hostname for your server.

Step #4. When you begin the payment/checkout phase, enter your coupon code to take advantage of the $15/month discounted rate: NOGOTCHAS. Wait for the confirmation email with your server credentials and dedicated IP address.

2. Complete the Install of Incredible PBX

Nothing tricky here. It’s a 10-minute automated setup. Log into port 20022 of your server as root with your default password using SSH or Putty. Once you’re logged in, RentPBX will go through two setup cycles to complete the install and randomize all of your passwords for Incredible PBX. The first pass addresses some security vulnerabilities in the Elastix 2.5 base install and then prompts for the MySQL root password which must be passw0rd (with a zero). Next, you’re prompted to set up an admin password for the GUI. Make it secure! Then your server will reboot. After 60 seconds, log back in to port 20022 as root with your default password again. Type y to install Incredible PBX. Incredible PBX will first apply the latest upgrades for CentOS and Elastix. Be patient. The list is a long one. After the second reboot, log back into your server on port 20022 as root one final time and let Incredible PBX complete the install and secure your server. You’ll need to enter your MySQL and GUI passwords once again. Be sure to use passw0rd for MySQL! After the third reboot, log back into your server on the standard port 22 as root. Allow Incredible PBX to run its Automatic Update Utility to bring your system current. That’s it. You now have a secure, turnkey Elastix® PBX that’s ready for use.

3. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IPtables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for web applications. And, of course, Elastix 2.5 has its own security methodology. RentPBX randomized extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial setup process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

Even with all of these layers of security, here are 5 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

Log into your server as root with your root password and do the following:

Make your root password very secure: passwd
Set your correct time zone: ./timezone-setup
Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
Make a copy of your other passwords: cat passwords.FAQ
Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

Using a browser, you’re not ready to log into the Elastix 2.5 GUI with your new admin password.

4. Activate Trunks with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

For those migrating from another aggregation including PBX in a Flash, this should be familiar territory for you. Using a browser, log into Elastix 2.5 at the IP address of your server. Before you can actually make or receive calls outside your PBX, you’ll need at least one trunk. In the Elastix 2.5 GUI, click PBX -> Trunks. Once you have your credentials from a provider, choose a provider from the list of preconfigured trunks on the right or create a new one. If you’re using one of the preconfigured options, remember to enable the trunk after adding your desired CallerID and credentials. Then save your settings and reload your Asterisk dialplan. That’s it. You’re ready to go.

5. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Incredible PBX comes preconfigured with two extensions (701 and 702) that let you connect phones to your PBX. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your Elastix 2.5 PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP.

We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. You can find them in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 701 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. Here’s what your entries should look like. 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. Here are a few numbers to get you started:

123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News 222 - ODBC Lookup (try: 12345) DEMO - Allison's IVR Demo TODAY - Today in History

6. Configuring SMTP Mail with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Outbound email support using Postfix is preconfigured with Elastix 2.5. You can test whether it’s actually working by issuing the following command using your destination email address after logging in as root:

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

If you don’t receive the email message within a minute or two and you’ve checked your spam folder, chances are your ISP is blocking downstream SMTP servers in an effort to combat spam. Comcast is one of the usual suspects. To enable outbound email service for delivery of voicemail and other email messages with a provider blocking downstream SMTP servers, you first need to obtain the SMTP domain of your ISP, e.g. smtp.comcrap.net. Next, edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add your SmartHost entry [in brackets] to the line that begins like this: relayhost =. The line should look like this: relayhost = [smtp.comcrap.net]. Save your addition and restart Postfix: service postfix restart. Be sure to try another email test message after completing the SmartHost update. To use Gmail as your mail relay, see this tutorial.

Configuring Google Voice

We have included the Python implementation of gvoice in /root for those that want to experiment by making calls and sending SMS blasts the "old-fashioned" way. While Elastix does not directly support native Asterisk 11 Google Voice functionality, you now can use a SIP gateway to access Google Voice and make free calls in the U.S. and Canada.

SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

Homework Assignment: Mastering Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

We’ve put together a complete tutorial for the applications included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI. Most of it is fully applicable to Elastix 2.5 as well. That should be your next stop. Then you’ll be ready to tackle Elastix 2.5. Google is your friend. Do some exploring, and we’ll post links to great articles on this terrific platform as we discover them. Your suggestions are also welcomed!

In the meantime, if you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free. The same applies to the Elastix forum.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, feast your eyes on the Elastix Add-Ons that are only a button click away:

[gview file="http://nerdvittles.com/wp-content/ElastixAddOns.pdf"]

Originally published: Friday, March 27, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Vitelity, Google, and RentPBX provide financial support to Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX project. [↩]

SOHO Delight: Introducing the Ultimate Asterisk Appliance for Under $30

Saturday, March 14, 2015 / 5 Comments on SOHO Delight: Introducing the Ultimate Asterisk Appliance for Under $30

We continue our journey to identify cost-effective, Gotcha-Free Asterisk® solutions. And, yes, we eat our own dog food! So this week we turn our attention to a real sleeper. It’s an Asterisk appliance with an almost unbelievable price and an even more incredible feature set. With the PBX in a Flash™ and Incredible PBX™ projects, we meet hundreds of thousands of new VoIP enthusiasts each year. But let’s face it. Even software products as simple to use as ours present a formidable challenge to some folks that are new to networking and dealing with complex hardware setups. There’s also the corner grocery store and the mom-and-pop restaurants and the shoe repair store and the tire store and the neighborhood bike shop that shouldn’t have to spend hundreds of dollars each month for basic phone service. And then there are those with a cabin in the mountains or a weekend beach house that just want a plug-and-play communications device that’s available when you need it. So this week’s VoIP solution is dedicated to those on a budget that have no interest in spending months learning the intricacies of VoIP technology. These folks just want basic phone service that works at an affordable price. Bells and whistles are nice but not if they add complexity or cost. And, boy, do we have an incredible find to share with you today. What you’ll need in addition to this Asterisk appliance is electricity and a working Internet connection with a router/firewall. That’s it.

WARNING: We do not recommend EVER connecting the JS-200FX directly to the Internet because of potential security issues with this older version of Asterisk.

We purchased our first JS-200FX Asterisk Appliance from X100P.com for $89.95 with $15 for shipping from the Far East. But others tipped us off that refurbished units (that means they’ve actually been tested and they work) are regularly available for considerably less cost. We’ve added a direct link to the manufacturer for your convenience. Either way, the JS-200FX is a steal. In addition to a router and firewall, the appliance includes two FXS ports to connect plain old telephones, integrated WiFi to connect softphones and SIP devices wirelessly, and best of all turnkey Google Voice support for two lines to make free calls in the United States and Canada. Because the Asterisk-GUI is an integral part of the appliance, setup time is under 5 minutes. And we’ll show you how. As we love to say, if you can handle slice-and-bake cookies, you can do this. So here’s the drill:

Sign up for Google Voice service (do it twice for double the fun!)
Boot and login to JS200-FX after connecting network cable from ETH2 to a computer
Configure Networking and Connect CAT5 from ETH1 to Internet router
Configure Google Voice and Make a Call
Configure Asterisk (optional)
Interconnect Remote Asterisk Server (optional)

1. Getting Started with Google Voice

With the JS200-FX, you can use any SIP provider including our platinum sponsor, Vitelity. See below for a deal you can’t refuse. But, if you live in the United States, you’d be crazy not to also use Google Voice. It’s free! To use Google Voice with the JS200-FX, you’ll need at least one dedicated Google Voice account. Create a Gmail account first. 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. Then visit http://google.com/voice to set up your Google Voice account and phone number. Yes, you can port an existing number into Google Voice!

IMPORTANT: Do NOT under any circumstances take Google’s bait to switch from Google Chat to Hangouts. Click the X (shown above), or you will forever lose the ability to use Google Chat with your Asterisk appliance. Also 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 Asterisk appliance to work its magic! Otherwise, all inbound and outbound calls will fail. Good News! You’re in luck. Google has apparently had a change of heart on discontinuing Google Chat support so it’s enabled by default in all new Google Voice accounts. Once you’ve created a Gmail and Google Voice account, go to Google Voice Settings and 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’ve adjusted your settings. Under the Voicemail tab, plug in your email address so you get new voicemails delivered… and transcribed.

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! If you have trouble placing or receiving calls, try BOTH of these tips.

If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

2. Connecting to JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

Now you’re ready to begin the adventure. Turn the switch on the back of the JS200-FX to ON. Plug in the included CAT5 cable between ETH2 port on the JS200-FX and a desktop computer or notebook. Power on the device and wait about 2 minutes. From your computer, browse to 192.168.10.1 and login to Asterisk-GUI as user admin with password for your password. You’ll be prompted to change your password. Make it secure!

3. Configuring Networking on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

In a nutshell, you’ll be using the ETH1 port on the JS200-FX to connect to your Internet router. We’ll use ETH2 to directly connect to the JS200-FX from a computer when things go haywire. Assuming your router hands out private IP addresses with DHCP, you don’t really need to do much in the way of network configuration on the JS200-FX unless you want to set up a static IP address for the appliance. You’ll find that option under Networking -> WAN -> Connection Type. We typically recommend permanently assigning the IP address that was handed out by your router within the router’s configuration menu. The real trick at this point is deciphering what that IP address will be. You can figure that out by plugging a CAT5 cable between ETH1 and your router now. The address will appear in the WAN entry under Networking -> Status.

Next, we’ll want to configure the Wireless Networking. We recommend setting the device up as an Access Point under Wireless -> Basic Settings. Under the Wireless Security tab, switch to WPA2-PSK security and create an 8-character password to access the device on its WiFi gateway. This gives you a way to connect wirelessly and be assigned an IP address in the range 192.168.10.100-200. If that range duplicates the private LAN subnet of your router, change it to 192.168.0.

Finally, click on Firewall -> Remote Admin and activate remote access to Asterisk-GUI using port 80. Whatever you do, DO NOT MAP ANY PORTS FROM YOUR FIREWALL TO THIS ASTERISK APPLIANCE! It is an older version of Asterisk that probably is not without some security holes. So long as it’s safely ensconced behind a hardware-based firewall, you should have little to worry about especially if you only use Google Voice trunks for outside calling.

4. Configuring Google Voice on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

This is a 5-second task. In the Asterisk-GUI, click Google Voice. Plug in your Google Voice email address and password. If you wish to enable a second Google Voice account, click Enable Line #2 and enter your credentials for the second account. Save your settings and reload the dialplan when prompted. Now plug in a Plain Old Telephone to the TEL1 port on the JS200-FX. To dial out using the first Google Voice account, dial 941 + 1 + the 10-digit number. To retrieve your voicemail, dial 41. For the second Google Voice account, use the 942 prefix and 42 for voicemail.

VoIP 101: Learning the Basics of Asterisk-GUI Management

Everything from here on out is optional reading. But, if you plan to get the most out of your new PBX, you’ve got to master the basics of the lingo so you’ll know how to navigate through and manage the Asterisk-GUI. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll divide calls into three categories: local calls, incoming calls, and outgoing calls. The latter two categories are External calls from or to destinations outside your PBX.

Local Calls. These are Internal Calls between users of your PBX. Users typically are assigned a local phone number, an Extension, on which to receive calls. You connect a telephone to an extension in order to answer and make calls. Traditional analog phones are called POTS phones (a.k.a. Plain Old Telephones). They connect to an FXS port (only!) which is identified by the TEL1 or TEL2 jacks on the JS200-FX. SIP and IAX phones or softphones are digital devices that connect to extensions configured as SIP or IAX extensions/users.

Incoming Calls. As the name implies, these are calls coming into your PBX. You typically rent a phone number (DID) from a Provider. The provider assigns you credentials and registers the DID to a Trunk. On your PBX, you Create and Register a Trunk with credentials matching those assigned by the provider. When a call is placed to your DID, the provider passes the call to your PBX through the registered Trunk. The PBX then identifies both the DID and the CallerID of the incoming call and routes it to a Destination based upon the rules you establish in your Incoming Calling Rules (a.k.a. Inbound Routes). A typical destination would be an Extension or User, a Ring Group or collection of extensions, a Conference Room where multiple callers can converse at the same time, or a Voice Menu (a.k.a. IVR or AutoAttendant).

Outgoing Calls. These are calls destined for Termination on a telephone outside your PBX. It could be across the street or on the other side of the world. Some of these calls are free and some are not. Outgoing calls begin from a Phone connected to an Extension or User. Once a number is dialed, a Dial Plan determines whether the caller is authorized to make the call. If so, the call is passed to the Outgoing Calling Rules (a.k.a. Outbound Routes). These rules determine which Trunk will actually process the call. As with incoming trunks, you sign up for Termination service with a provider that may be the same or different from your DID provider. Outgoing call rules may send calls with a certain Dialing Prefix to a specified Trunk to take advantage of free calling or reduced cost. These calling rules may strip off dialing prefixes and/or add additional digits to the dialed number before it is passed to the Provider for termination on a remote phone.

5. Configuring Asterisk on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

Now that you’ve mastered the basics, there’s so much more you can do. In fact, we could write a book about it. Lucky for us (and for you), others have already done that. To get the most out of this terrific appliance, you’ll need to learn more about Asterisk and the Asterisk-GUI. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of tutorials. Start with the JS200-FX Quick Start Guide (PDF). Then take a careful look at Chapter 3 of Digium’s Asterisk Appliance™ Administrator Manual. Next, review Chapter 11 of The Asterisk Book (Second Edition). Finally, review these tutorials that have been written by other companies that incorporated Asterisk-GUI into their hardware products, e.g. Yeastar’s MyPBX SOHO User Manual and Grandstream’s UCM6100 User Manual.

6. Interconnecting JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance to Remote Asterisk Server

Interconnecting the new Asterisk appliance to a remote Asterisk server to share outbound trunks or to allow free calls to local extensions on the remote server is easy. First, create an IAX trunk on the remote Asterisk server using a very secure password. This setup will give callers on the Asterisk appliance access to the entire dialplan on the remote Asterisk server so be careful. Also make sure the Trunk Name and username are the same.

On the Asterisk appliance, there are 3 steps: create an IAX trunk to make the connection to the remote server, add an outbound route with a dialing prefix to route calls out the new trunk, and enable the new Trunk in your DefaultLocalContext dialplan.

Trunk setup: Trunks -> New IAX Trunk

You’ll need the IP address or FQDN of your remote server. In addition, the username and password must match what you set up (above) on the remote server.

Outbound Route setup: Outgoing Call Rules -> New Calling Rule

In our example, we’re requiring an 8 prefix followed by a 10-digit number to send a call to the remote server for outbound call processing. If you wanted to force a different dialing prefix at the remote server end in order to send calls out through a specific trunk, that prefix should be Prepended in the highlighted field of the outbound route. This setup would not permit calls to local extensions on the remote PBX. To do that, you’d probably want to create an additional outbound route with a Dial Pattern such as _8XXXX! if the extensions on the remote server were all four digits. Don’t forget to also enable that second outbound route in the dialplan setup below!

Dialplan setup: Dial Plans -> Edit DefaultLocalContexts

Just click on the Out_RentPBX checkbox and Save your update. Then reload the Asterisk dialplan, and you’re all set.

Making Free SIP URI Calls Worldwide

One of the hidden beauties of Asterisk is the ability to place SIP URI calls to anyone in the world and talk for free… for as long as you wish. SIP URIs look much like an email address with a name or number, followed by @, followed by an FQDN or IP address, e.g. 2233435945@sip2sip.info. While the SIP URI setup on the JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance is not exactly straightforward, it’s pretty easy once you know some of Asterisk-GUI’s magic tricks. The simplest method is to Create a New Voice Menu which will work like a Speed Dial for the new SIP URI. For example, here’s the setup to add Lenny to your appliance. Name the new voice menu Lenny and assign a number to the new voice menu (53669 spells L-E-N-N-Y). Now add two Actions by clicking Add New Step twice with the entries shown below. Save your Voice Menu. Then Reload the dialplan. Now dial 53669 to speak to Lenny. Or route telemarketers to this extension as part of your dial plan.

Answer
Macro trunkdial-failover-0.3,sip/2233435945@sip2sip.info,,,

If you’re comfortable using an editor, there’s an easier way using the same methodology included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI. We’ll actually add a new [CallingRule_SIP_URI] context in which to save SIP URI speed dials. Then we’ll add that new context to the default dialplan: [DLPN_DefaultLocalContexts]. In the future, you can easily add additional SIP URI speed dials to this context. Just give each one a unique extension number and plug in the SIP URI using the syntax shown below.

In the Asterisk-GUI, click Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options. Then click on the new File Editor tab. In the Config Files pulldown, choose extensions.conf. Click Add Context button and name it: CallingRule_SIP_URI. The new context will be added to the bottom of the file so go there and click on + to edit its contents. Add the following line and click Save:

exten = 53669,1,Dial(SIP/2233435945@sip2sip.info)

Now we need to add the new context to the default dialplan so search through the contexts until you find [DLPN_DefaultLocalContexts]. Click on the + to edit the context. Then add the following line to the end of the existing list and click Save:

include=CallingRule_SIP_URI

Now click Apply Settings button to save your settings to NVRAM and reload the dialplan. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

There’s another advantage to the second approach. Your Call Detail Records now will actually show the speed dial numbers that are called:

Setting Up Incoming SIP URIs for Your PBX

This is only recommended for those that are highly skilled in Asterisk and those that can afford an expensive phone bill. It requires that UDP port 5060 be exposed to the Internet through your firewall. You need to be extremely careful in setting up SIP URIs to avoid unintended consequences such as allowing strangers to place outbound calls through your PBX on your nickel. The steps are straight-forward. First, configure an FQDN for your server and, if your provider uses dynamic IP addresses, set up dynamic DNS refreshes using the facility included in Networking -> Dynamic DNS. Second, use the File Editor to edit the [general] context in sip.conf. Insert your FQDN into the fromdomain and domain variables. Next, insert the following line: allowexternaldomains=no. Then Save the file. Third, edit the [default-public] context in extensions.conf. Insert your desired SIP URIs in this context using the proper syntax. For example, to route a SIP URI for mothership@FQDN.yourdomain.com to extension 6001, the dialplan code would look like this: exten=mothership,1,Goto(default,6001,1). To route the same SIP URI to your first Voice Menu, the code would look like this: exten=mothership,1,Goto(voicemenu-custom-1,s,1). To route the same SIP URI to your first Ring Group, use: exten=mothership,1,Goto(ringroups-custom-1,s,1). To route the incoming SIP URI to an outgoing SIP URI, use: exten=mothership,1,Dial(SIP/somewhere@someFQDN.somedomain.com).

There’s a silver lining to activating an inbound SIP URI. Once it’s properly configured, you can sign up for a free phone number in the Seattle area and map that DID to the SIP URI of your server. All of the incoming calls are free! This gives you some redundancy in the event of a Google Voice outage. Just visit www.ipkall.com to sign up for your free number.

Hardening the JS200-FX Firewall

Particularly if you elect to support incoming SIP URIs, you’ll want to tighten up the SPI Firewall included in the JS200-FX. While we have no simple way to decipher the existing rules, you can add rules of your own to lessen the opportunity for mischief. This is especially important in the SIP arena. Just to be sure you don’t lock yourself out of your own server, we recommend a 4-step process: (1) allowing full access from private LAN subnets, (2) whitelisting the FQDNs and IP addresses from which you will access the JS200-FX, (3) whitelisting the providers that you intend to use as well as the IP addresses of external phone devices, and (4) locking down incoming SIP URI access to a single FQDN for your server. The fourth step keeps random strangers from attempting to gain SIP access by scanning blocks of IP addresses in search of vulnerable servers. It’s a good idea to use an obscure FQDN for your appliance which minimizes the ability of strangers to guess the acceptable SIP URIs, e.g. somefunkyFQDN.somedomain.net would block all incoming SIP URI attempts by either IP address or by guessing any other FQDN. In other words, the FQDN works just like a password. Thus, if you set up a mothership SIP URI (make up your own!), the only incoming SIP URI calls that would be allowed would be those calling mothership@somefunkyFQDN.somedomain.net. Don’t publish the actual SIP URI anywhere!

Also be advised that, if you use FQDNs in the step #2 white list and the dynamic IP address of these FQDNs changes, you will need to manually restart the JS200-FX to enable the new IP address. Currently, there is no ability to check for FQDN changes and automatically restart the appliance.

To create the new firewall rules, choose Firewall -> Custom Rules -> Enable ON. Then enter and SAVE & APPLY the following rules using your actual settings rather than the sample entries below. CAUTION: This data should be entered by accessing the JS200-FX via WiFi at the 192.168.10.1 address, or you may lock yourself out during the update process.

#1 private subnets and loopback - no changes needed in this section
-A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/16 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 172.16.0.0/12 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -j ACCEPT

#2 enter your own IP addresses for WhiteList access below
-A INPUT -s homeFQDN.dyndns.org -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s alternateFQDN.dyndns.org -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -s 129.43.13.220 -j ACCEPT

#3 providers and interconnected servers and phone devices
## atlanta.voip.ms sample entry
-A INPUT -s 174.34.146.162/32 -p udp -m multiport --dports 5060,5061,5062,5063,5064,5065,5066,5067,5068,5069,5080,4569 -j ACCEPT

#4 SIP URI access - enter JS200-FX FQDN in next line and leave the rest
-A INPUT -p udp --dport 5060 -m string --string "REGISTER sip:somefunkyFQDN.somedomain.net" --algo bm -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p udp --dport 5060 -m string --string "REGISTER sip:" --algo bm -j DROP
-A INPUT -p udp --dport 5060 -m string --string "OPTIONS sip:" --algo bm -j DROP
-A INPUT -p udp --dport 5060 -j ACCEPT

Implementing 7-Digit Dialing with Your Favorite Area Code

Once you have at least one Google Voice account set up, here’s another trick to implement 7-digit dialing with your favorite area code. Just add an additional line to the [CallingRule_SIP_URI] context substituting your area code for 843:

exten=_NXXXXXX!,1,Macro(trunkdial-failover-0.3,${GoogleVoice_1}/1843${EXTEN},,GoogleVoice_1,)

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

We know what some of you are thinking. "Do you really know as much about VoIP as Lenny does?? Before wasting 30 bucks on this, show me the beef!" Fair enough. Sit by your phone and click the Call Me icon below. Type in a fake name and your real phone number. Click the Connect button. Answer your phone when it rings. Then press 1. You’ll be connected to the Conferencing System running on the JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance. You can chat with other Nerd Vittles users that have joined before you. So… what are you waiting for? Click away and try the JS200-FX Appliance for yourself.

You can implement this Click-to-Dial technology using your own JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance in about 10 seconds. Once you have configured Google Voice as outlined in Step #1 above, click on the Call Widgets tab under Settings. Click Add a New Call Widget, give it a name, turn off ringing your home or office phone, turn off Call Presentation, and Save Changes. Now simply cut-and-paste the Embed code that’s provided and insert it into a public web page of your choice. Doesn’t get much easier than that, and all your family and friends can call you for free from the convenience of any available telephone in the U.S. or Canada by simply clicking on the Call Me widget on your web site’s home page.

Originally published: Monday, March 16, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

The Two Amigos Ride Again: Introducing Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Tuesday, March 10, 2015 / 1 Comment on The Two Amigos Ride Again: Introducing Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

DEC. 7 NEWS FLASH: The Elastix project has been sold to 3CX. Elastix 4.0 and Elastix MT have been removed from production "due to a legal disagreement with another open source distribution."

We began our Elastix® adventure last week with the Bleeding Edge and our introduction of Incredible PBX for Elastix MT, the promising new multi-tenant edition of Elastix. Unfortunately, for production use, Elastix 3.0 is not quite there yet. So this week we’re introducing Incredible PBX™ for Elastix 2.5, an incredibly stable telephony platform with a loyal following and dozens of add-on components to satisfy almost any requirement. Having not looked at Elastix in more than a year, we were pleasantly surprised to find a very current version of Asterisk® 11 as well as a stable, gotcha-free Elastix fork of FreePBX® 2.11. It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a single command: yum upgrade. If you know how to use FreePBX, then the Elastix GUI will be a walk in the park.

We promised that 2015 would be the year of Gotcha-Free choices for the Asterisk platform, and today we deliver the third VoIP alternative with pure and honest GPL code minus the patent, trademark, and copyright minefields previously covered. Incredible PBX™ for Elastix 2.5 provides virtually the same feature set of applications for Asterisk as our previous releases. Just abide by the clear GPL licensing terms and copy, embellish, and redistribute to your heart’s content.

What Incredible PBX brings to the Elastix 2.5 platform are several dozen (free) applications for Asterisk in addition to a rock-solid firewall with a preconfigured WhiteList of your favorite VoIP providers and private LAN addresses. With the Elastix 2.5 version, you also get a dozen preconfigured trunks and extensions plus a familiar GUI that we’ve all used for the better part of a decade. And it’s all bundled in a graphical user interface that integrates telephony, faxing, instant messaging, email, and calendaring in a single desktop application. We’re glad to be part of the family.

Our deployment strategy remains consistent and straight-forward. Install a 64-bit bit version of Elastix 2.5 on the platform of your choice. Then run the Incredible PBX installer. In 5-10 minutes, you’re ready to roll. The installer first will bring Elastix 2.5 and CentOS up to current specs. Then it will work its magic and add an Incredible PBX tab to the existing Elastix 2.5 UI with all the bells and whistles to which you are accustomed. Text-to-speech applications, speech recognition, DISA, ODBC, SMS messaging, news, weather, conference bridge support, and a voice dialer are enabled out of the box.

A Word of Caution. If you’re new to Incredible PBX, install a clean version of Elastix 2.5 with NO MODIFICATIONS before you begin the Incredible PBX install. All of the existing Elastix 2.5 setup will be modified as part of the Incredible PBX install, and these changes will wipe out any additions you’ve previously made to Elastix. So don’t make any! Once the Incredible PBX install is completed, you can make all the changes you wish in your Elastix configuration. The only major design change we’ve made is to rework the Elastix MySQL database tables into MyISAM format from InnoDB. This facilitates making future backups and restores of your server as well as providing the necessary platform to install current and future Incredible PBX components.

Did We Mention Security? You also get a locked down, preconfigured IPtables Firewall WhiteList with all of the Travelin’ Man 3 tools plus the automatic update service to keep your server up to date and safe. There is a $20 voluntary annual license fee for the update service but, if you’d prefer to buy donuts, be our guest. But understand that voluntary is a two-way street. Running the update service costs us time and money and, when it ceases to be worthy of our time and financial investment, we reserve the right to discontinue the service down the road. The next time you log into your server after installing Incredible PBX, you’ll quickly appreciate why an automatic update service is important. We watch for and fix problems so you don’t have to.

Target Audience: Small or Large Organization in need of a turnkey, Gotcha-Free PBX

Default Configuration: Asterisk 11 with enhanced Elastix 2.5 GUI and Kennonsoft GUI

Platform: CentOS 5.x running on Dedicated Server, Cloud-Based Server, or Virtual Machine

Minimum Memory: 1024 MB

Recommended Disk: 20 GB+

Feature Set: Fax, SMS messaging, NeoRouter/PPTP VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, Email, IVR, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, DISA, Call Forwarding, Tailorable CDRs

Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, WebMin, Admin Password Configurator, ODBC/MySQL Database Configurator, Firewall WhiteList Tools

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5:

Choose a Hardware Platform – Dedicated PC, Cloud Provider, or Virtual Machine

Install Elastix 2.5 – 64-bit CentOS 5 platform

Download and Install Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Activate Trunks with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Connect a Softphone to Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Configuring SMTP Mail with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

1. Choose a Platform for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 works equally well on dedicated hardware, a cloud-based server, or a virtual machine. Just be sure you’ve met the minimum requirements outlined above and that you have a sufficiently robust Internet connection to support 100Kb of download and upload bandwidth for each simultaneous call you wish to handle with your new PBX.

For Dedicated Hardware, we recommend at least an Atom-based PC of recent vintage with at least a 30GB drive and 4GB of RAM. That will take care of an office with 10-20 extensions and a half dozen or more simultaneous calls if you have the Internet bandwidth to support it.

For Cloud-Based Servers, we recommend RentPBX, one of our financial supporters who also happens to size servers properly and restrict usage solely to VoIP. This avoids performance bottlenecks that cause problems with VoIP calls. Yes, we have a coupon code for you to get the $15/month rate: NOGOTCHAS. The new image to support Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 should be available shortly.

For Virtual Machine Installs, we recommend Oracle’s VirtualBox platform which runs atop almost any operating system including Windows, Macs, Linux, and Solaris. Here’s a link to our original VirtualBox tutorial to get you started. We suggest allocating 1GB of RAM and at least a 20GB disk image to your virtual machine for best performance. We actually used VirtualBox to build Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5.

2. Install 64-bit Elastix 2.5 on Your Platform

Begin by downloading the 64-bit Elastix 2.5 ISO. For dedicated hardware, burn the ISO image to a CD/DVD and boot your server with the Elastix 2.5 ISO to begin the install. Here are the simplest installation steps:

Install or Upgrade in Graphical Mode by pressing ENTER
Choose: Install Language
Choose: Keyboard
Choose: Initialize Drive and Erase ALL DATA
Remove: All partitions on selected drive and YES you’re sure
Modify: Partitioning Layout (No is fine)
Configure: eth0 and disable IPv6 Support (unless required)
Choose: Dynamic IP (DHCP) configuration
Choose: Hostname Configuration Automatic
Choose: Time Zone and Disable System Clock Uses UTC
Set: Root Password (Make it Secure!)
Wait for Reboot to Complete
Set MySQL Password to: passw0rd (MANDATORY: with a zero!)
Choose Elastix admin Password: minimum 10 alphanumeric characters with upper & lowercase

For VirtualBox, create an Elastix 2.5 virtual machine of Linux (RedHat 64-bit) type by clicking New. Click Settings button. In System, enable I/O APIC and disable Hardware Clock in UTC Time. In Audio, enable Audio for your sound card. In Network, enable Bridged Adapter for Adapter 1. In Storage, click on Empty in the Storage Tree. Then click on the Disk icon to the right of CD/DVD Drive attributes. Choose the Elastix 2.5 ISO file that you downloaded. Click OK. Then start the virtual machine to begin the installation process. Follow the setup steps above to install Elastix 2.5 in your virtual machine.

3. Download and Install Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

After completing the Elastix 2.5 install, log into your server as root using SSH or Putty from a desktop machine that you will use to manage your server. This is important with the Incredible PBX IPtables Firewall WhiteList so you don’t get locked out of your own server! Then issue the following commands to begin the Incredible PBX install. You’ll actually run the installer twice, once to upgrade CentOS and Elastix and a second time to install Incredible PBX.

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx11elastix25.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx11elastix25.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblepbx11elastix25.tar.gz
./IncrediblePBX11-Elastix25.sh
./IncrediblePBX11-Elastix25.sh

4. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IPtables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to connected LANs, your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for our web applications. And, of course, Elastix 2.5 has its own security methodology. Finally, we randomize extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial install process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

Even with all of these layers of security, here are 6 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

First, log out and back into your server as root with your root password to get the latest updates. Then do the following:

Make your root password very secure: passwd
Set your correct time zone: ./timezone-setup
Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
Set MySQL and Elastix admin PW: ./admin-pw-change (MySQL PW MUST be passw0rd with zero)
Make a copy of your other passwords: cat passwords.FAQ
Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes an automatic update utility which downloads important updates whenever you log into your server as root. We recommend you log in once a week to keep your server current. If you haven’t already done so, NOW would be a good time to log out and back into your server at the Linux command line to bring your server current.

5. Activate Trunks with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

For those migrating from another aggregation including PBX in a Flash, this should be familiar territory for you. Using a browser, log into Elastix 2.5 at the IP address of your server. Before you can actually make or receive calls outside your PBX, you’ll need at least one trunk. In the Elastix 2.5 GUI, click PBX -> Trunks. Once you have your credentials from a provider, choose a provider from the list of preconfigured trunks on the right or create a new one. If you’re using one of the preconfigured options, remember to enable the trunk after adding your desired CallerID and credentials. Then save your settings and reload your Asterisk dialplan. That’s it. You’re ready to go.

6. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Incredible PBX comes preconfigured with two extensions (701 and 702) that let you connect phones to your PBX. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your Elastix 2.5 PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA) which can be a separate board in your computer from a company such as Digium. Or it can be a standalone SIP device such as ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP.

We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 701 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 701 password. You can find them in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 701 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. Here’s what your entries should look like. 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. Here are a few numbers to get you started:

123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News 222 - ODBC Lookup (try: 12345) DEMO - Allison's IVR Demo TODAY - Today in History

6. Configuring SMTP Mail with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Outbound email support using Postfix is preconfigured with Elastix 2.5. You can test whether it’s actually working by issuing the following command using your destination email address after logging in as root:

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

If you don’t receive the email message within a minute or two and you’ve checked your spam folder, chances are your ISP is blocking downstream SMTP servers in an effort to combat spam. Comcast is one of the usual suspects. To enable outbound email service for delivery of voicemail and other email messages with a provider blocking downstream SMTP servers, you first need to obtain the SMTP domain of your ISP, e.g. smtp.comcrap.net. Next, edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add your SmartHost entry [in brackets] to the line that begins like this: relayhost =. The line should look like this: relayhost = [smtp.comcrap.net]. Save your addition and restart Postfix: service postfix restart. Be sure to try another email test message after completing the SmartHost update. To use Gmail as your mail relay, see this tutorial.

Configuring Google Voice

We have included the Python implementation of gvoice in /root for those that want to experiment by making calls and sending SMS blasts the "old-fashioned" way. While Elastix does not directly support native Asterisk 11 Google Voice functionality, you now can use a SIP gateway to access Google Voice and make free calls in the U.S. and Canada.

SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

Homework Assignment: Mastering Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

We’ve put together a complete tutorial for the applications included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI. Most of it is fully applicable to Elastix 2.5 as well. That should be your next stop. Then you’ll be ready to tackle Elastix 2.5. Google is your friend. Do some exploring, and we’ll post links to great articles on this terrific platform as we discover them. Your suggestions are also welcomed!

In the meantime, if you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free. The same applies to the Elastix forum.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, feast your eyes on the Elastix Add-Ons that are only a button click away:

[gview file="http://nerdvittles.com/wp-content/ElastixAddOns.pdf"]

Originally published: Tuesday, March 10, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

The Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud: Introducing Incredible PBX @ RentPBX.com

Monday, February 23, 2015

We continue the Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI adventure today with an open source alternative for which many have been clamoring, an affordable Cloud-based Asterisk® platform with a no-strings-attached graphical user interface. As if the $15 a month hosting plan weren’t enough, the icing on the cake is the quick 2-minute setup on your choice of a dozen servers throughout the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe. If you can find the Enter key on a keyboard, then you can handle the complexity of the RentPBX setup. When you’re finished, you’ll have a turnkey PBX featuring some of the finest open source software on the planet. The software is all free, subject only to the terms of the open source licenses.

Target Audience: Home or SOHO/SBO in need of a turnkey, Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud

Default Configuration: Asterisk 11 with enhanced Asterisk-GUI, Kennonsoft GUI, and NANPA dialplan

Platform: CentOS 6.6 running on RentPBX Cloud-Based Server platform

Memory: 385 MB with 415 MB swap

Disk Size: 20 GB

Default Trunks: Google Voice, CallCentric, DIDlogic, Future-Nine, IPcomms, Les.net, Vitelity, VoIP.ms¹

Feature Set: Fax, SMS messaging, VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, IVR, Email, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, OpenCNAM CallerID lookups, DISA, Call Forwarding, CSV CDRs

Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, Asterisk Upgrader, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, Plug-and-Play Trunk Configurator, WebMin, External IP Setup, Firewall WhiteList Tools

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (Cloud Edition)

Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI @ RentPBX.com:

Sign Up for Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud – Choose server location and await credentials

Complete the Install of Incredible PBX and Incredible Fax

Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Connect a Softphone to Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

1. Sign Up for Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud at RentPBX.com

Visit RentPBX.com and choose the PBX in a Flash builds and complete the following steps:

When you begin the payment and checkout phase, enter your coupon code to take advantage of the $15/month discounted rate: NOGOTCHAS. Wait for the confirmation email with your server credentials and dedicated IP address.

2. Complete the Install of Incredible PBX and Incredible Fax

Nothing tricky here. It’s a 2-minute setup process. Log into your server as root with your default password using SSH or Putty. Once you’re logged in, RentPBX will randomize all of your passwords for Incredible PBX. Next, you’ll be prompted for the email address to use for delivery of your faxes. Once entered, you’ll be prompted for various information to install HylaFax and AvantFax. Just press the Enter key at every prompt. In a couple minutes, your server will reboot to bring Incredible PBX and Incredible Fax on line. Log back into your server as root and let Incredible PBX run its Automatic Update Utility to bring your system current. That’s it. You now have a turnkey Asterisk® PBX that’s ready for configuration.

3. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IPtables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for web applications. And, of course, Asterisk-GUI has its own security methodology using Asterisk’s manager.conf. Finally, RentPBX randomized extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial setup process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

Even with all of these layers of security, here are 10 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

First, log into your server as root with your root password and do the following:

Make your root password very secure: passwd
Set your correct time zone: ./timezone-setup
Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
Make a copy of your other passwords: cat passwords.FAQ
Make a copy of your Knock codes: cat knock.FAQ
Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

Second, log into your server as admin using a web browser pointed to your server’s IP address:

Click USERS tab in Incredible PBX GUI
Click Asterisk-GUI Administration
Log in as user: admin with password: password
Immediately change your admin password

Log in to Asterisk-GUI again with your new password. Expand the options available in the GUI (if required):

Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options

Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes an automatic update utility which downloads important updates whenever you log into your server as root. We recommend you log in once a week to keep your server current.

4. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Now for the fun part. If this is your first VoIP adventure, be advised that this ain’t your grandma’s phone system. You need not and should not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to telephone providers. In order to connect to Plain Old Telephones, you still need at least one provider. But there is nothing wrong with having several. And a provider that handles an outbound call (termination) need not be the same one that handles an incoming call (origination) and provides your phone number (DID). We cannot recommend Vitelity highly enough, and it’s not just because they have financially supported our projects for almost a decade. They’re as good as VoIP providers get, and we use lots of them. If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S., you’d be crazy not to set up a Google Voice account. It’s free as are all phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining preconfigured providers included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI are equally good, and we’ve used and continue to use almost all of them. So pick a few and sign up. You only pay for the calls you make with each provider so you have little to lose by choosing several. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations on VoIP providers if you want additional information.

With the preconfigured trunks in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI, all you need are your credentials for each provider and the FQDN of their server. Log into Asterisk-GUI Administration as admin using a browser. From the System Status screen, click Incredible PBX Apps. Click on each provider you have chosen and fill in the blanks with your credentials. When you’ve saved all of your settings, log into your server as root via SSH and type: service asterisk restart or asterisk-restart. You can also issue the command in the Asterisk-GUI by choosing the Asterisk CLI tab² in the left column. Doesn’t get any simpler!

Update: It should be noted that Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI also supports Anveo Direct trunks; however, they are configured differently because of the way Anveo handles the calls. You’ll need the PIN provided by Anveo to set up your trunk, and Anveo supports CallerID spoofing so you can enter any CallerID number for the trunk that you are authorized to use. You’ll find the Anveo Direct setup link in the Incredible PBX Apps tab. To route an outgoing call through Anveo trunk, dial 2 + any desired 10-digit number.

Here is the complete list of dialing prefixes and the trunks to which they are associated:

1 – Google Voice
2 – Anveo Direct
3 – Future Nine
4 – CallCentric
5 – DIDlogic
6 – IPcomms
7 – Les.net
8 – Vitelity
9 – VoIP.ms

For free iNUM calling worldwide, the following dialing prefixes are supported in conjunction with the last seven digits of any destination iNUM DID. Free iNUM DIDs for your own PBX are available from both of these providers as well.

0XXXXXXX – CallCentric
90XXXXXXX – VoIP.ms

5. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

We’re in the home stretch now. You can connect virtually any kind of telephone to your new Gotcha-Free PBX. Plain Old Phones require an analog telephone adapter (ATA). Because your server is actually in the RentPBX Cloud, a standalone SIP device is required. Good choices are ObiHai’s OBi100 or OBi110 (if you have a phone line from Ma Bell to hook up as well). SIP phones can be connected directly so long as they have an IP address. These could be hardware devices or software devices such as the YateClient softphone. We’ll start with a free one today so you can begin making calls. You can find dozens of recommendations for hardware-based SIP phones both on Nerd Vittles and the PIAF Forum when you’re ready to get serious about VoIP telephony. Don’t forget to WhiteList the IP address of each SIP phone you wish to connect using /root/add-ip or /root/add-fqdn.

We recommend the YateClient softphone which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 6002 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 6002 password. Choose Users -> 6002 and write down your SIP/IAX Password. You can also find it in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 6002 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. Click OK to save your entries.

Once you are registered to extension 6002, 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:

7001 - IVR Demo 123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News *61 - Time of Day TODAY - Today in History

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

Configuring Google Voice

If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support 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 keep this account a secret!

IMPORTANT: Do NOT under any circumstances take Google’s bait to switch from Google Chat to Hangouts, or you will forever lose the ability to use Google Chat with Incredible PBX. Also 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. Thus far, Google has apparently had a change of heart on discontinuing Google Chat support so it’s enabled by default in all new Google Voice accounts. Nothing free lasts forever so make some alternative arrangements before disaster strikes!

Once you’ve created a Gmail and Google Voice account, go to Google Voice Settings and 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’ve adjusted 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.

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!

Now you’re ready to configure your Google Voice account in Incredible PBX. You can do it from within Asterisk-GUI by choosing Google Voice within the Incredible PBX Apps tab. Once you’ve entered your credentials, don’t forget to restart Asterisk, or Google Voice calls will fail. If you still have trouble placing or receiving calls, follow these tips.

SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

We know what some of you are thinking. "What does a fast food worker really know about VoIP and Gotcha-Free PBXs?? Before I waste a bunch of time on this, show me the beef!" Fair enough. Sit by your phone and click the Call Me icon below. Type in a fake name and your real phone number. Click the Connect button, answer your phone when it rings, and press 1. You’ll be connected to the Incredible PBX IVR for Asterisk-GUI. Pick an option from the menu of choices and take the Incredible PBX apps for a spin on our dime… actually it’s Google’s dime. Everything you see and hear is part of what you get with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI including the ability to set up your own click-to-dial web interface exactly like this one. The demo just happens to be running on our Mac desktop. So… what are you waiting for? Click away and try Incredible PBX for yourself. And, by the way, nobody besides the NSA and Google will be monitoring your call. 😉

Nerd Vittles Demo IVR Options³
1 – Call by Name (say “Delta Airlines” or “American Airlines” to try it out)
2 – MeetMe Conference (password is 1234)
3 – Wolfram Alpha (say “What planes are overhead?”)
4 – Lenny (The Telemarketer’s Worst Nightmare)
5 – Today’s News Headlines
6 – Weather Forecast (say the city and state, province, or country)
7 – Today in History
8 – Speak to a Real Person (or maybe just voicemail if we’re out)

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Incredible Apps and Asterisk-GUI

Just Released: The Gotcha-Free Incredible PBX Application User’s Guide

Your next stop should be a careful reading of the new Incredible PBX Application User’s Guide. It documents the 31 apps for Asterisk that are included with your new PBX. You also need to learn all you can about Asterisk-GUI and how to make the best use of its powerful feature set. Here’s one word of warning. We mentioned that Incredible PBX was a hybrid system that combines some customized settings with the standard Asterisk-GUI interface. Before modifying existing settings for the default trunks, extensions, and default routes, take a look at the credentials* files in /etc/asterisk. If you modify any of these trunk entries or the Outgoing or Incoming Call Rules in Asterisk-GUI, you may break the Incredible PBX setup. So steer clear of that minefield until you know what you’re doing. Adding new extensions and additional trunks is perfectly fine and will not break anything.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll point you to some excellent tutorials that already have been written. Start with Chapter 3 of Digium’s Asterisk Appliance™ Administrator Manual. Next, review Chapter 11 of The Asterisk Book (Second Edition). Finally, take a look at a couple of the tutorials that have been written by other companies that incorporated Asterisk-GUI into their hardware products, e.g. Yeastar’s MyPBX SOHO User Manual and Grandstream’s UCM6100 User Manual.

In the meantime, if you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free.

We also are quickly building a collection of tutorials tailored specifically for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI:

Enjoy your new Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud!

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

Originally published: Monday, February 23, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Vitelity, Google, and RentPBX provide financial support to Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX project. [↩]
If, for some reason, the Asterisk CLI tab does not appear on your server, click Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options. [↩]
Allison is available to record custom voice prompts with the same quality as this one. [↩]

Where to Begin: A Comparison of Open Source Features in Asterisk Aggregations

Tuesday, February 17, 2015 / 1 Comment on Where to Begin: A Comparison of Open Source Features in Asterisk Aggregations

[purehtml id=19]

We receive frequent inquiries requesting that we document the feature set in the open source Asterisk® distributions that Nerd Vittles writes about each week. So today we’re pleased to provide a Feature Matrix that we will attempt to keep current as we move forward. Just bookmark this page, and you can check back periodically to get a quick thumbnail sketch of what each of these distributions currently supports.¹ A chart, of course, doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a good starting point.

Not covered this week are the Asterisk aggregations that are either non-GPL code or are produced by organizations whose primary focus is the sale of commercial hardware and/or software. But don’t despair. Nerd Vittles is weeks away from announcing a commercial solution with some surprises that may encourage non-hobbyists to reevaluate your options and to take a fresh look at commercial alternatives, some of which may soon be free. So… hold on to your checkbook a bit longer!

All of the Asterisk aggregations we’re covering today have several things in common. First, all of the products rely upon industry-standard operating system platforms including CentOS, Scientific Linux, Ubuntu, and Raspbian. Each has an enormous user base and technical support team to assure that your operating system remains stable, secure, and non-proprietary for the life of your PBX. All of today’s products also support open source, non-proprietary, and free fax solutions with installers customized to the various platforms. Unlike other alternatives, all of these aggregations compile Asterisk and the graphical user interface used to manage your PBX as part of the install process. That means your compiled code is tailored to your particular hardware, and the source code is always installed on your server to simplify the task of making changes or enhancements to the default install without spending hours scouring the Internet to track down dependencies and missing source components. Try finding 3-year-old source code of some of the other distributions (as the GPL requires), and you’ll appreciate our SourceForge repository which goes back almost 5 years. Last but not least, all of these aggregations support Google Voice directly with free calling and free faxing throughout the U.S. and Canada in just minutes.

Once you’ve identified the feature set that best meets your needs, the next step is finding a tutorial to get you started. Look no further than Nerd Vittles for step-by-step instructions tailored to your specific platform whether it’s dedicated hardware, a virtual machine, or a Cloud-based platform. You won’t find an equivalent resource anywhere else. And, of course, the most user-friendly forum on the planet stands ready to help should you ever hit a snag.

PIAF-Green — CentOS Installer and Guide & VirtualBox Image and Install Guide & $15 RentPBX Cloud Install²
PIAF-Black — CentOS Installer and Guide & $15 RentPBX Cloud Install
Incredible PBX 11 with Incredible GUI — CentOS/Scientific Linux and Ubuntu 14 and Raspberry Pi 2
Incredible PBX 11 (Legacy with FreePBX®) — CentOS/Scientific Linux, Ubuntu 14, Raspberry Pi B+, BeagleBone Black, CuBOX, PogoPlug
Incredible PBX 12 (Legacy with FreePBX®) — Ubuntu 14 Installer and Guide for Asterisk 12 with FreePBX 12
Gotcha-Free PBX 11 with Asterisk-GUI — CentOS/SL, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi 2, The Cloud, App Users Guide
Meet the Two Amigos: Introducing Incredible PBX for Elastix — Elastix MT or Elastix 2.5 or The Cloud
SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

Originally published: Tuesday, February 17, 2015

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

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Our special thanks to Captain Anonymous for the terrific code that made an HTML layout of this feature comparison chart possible. [↩]
RentPBX is a Platinum Sponsor of the PBX in a Flash project. Install PIAF in the Cloud for $15/mo. with Coupon Code: PIAF2015 [↩]

The Gotcha-Free PBX: Raspberry Pi 2, Meet Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI ❤

Monday, February 9, 2015 / 10 Comments on The Gotcha-Free PBX: Raspberry Pi 2, Meet Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI ❤

[iframe-popup id="3″]
NOTICE: This version is no longer supported because Digium® has discontinued support of Asterisk-GUI. Check out our latest fully-supported offerings featuring pure open source GPL code: Incredible PBX GUI for Asterisk 11 and Incredible PBX GUI for Asterisk 13.

OK. The Raspberry Pi 2 may not quite rival the Raspberry Pi supercomputer built at Boise State, but it’s getting closer. The supercomputer that included 32 Raspberry Pi’s a year ago can now be built with about 5 Raspberry Pi 2’s. While the footprint may look the same as the $35 Raspberry Pi that you knew and loved two years ago, the RasPi² sports a 900MHz ARMv7 quad core processor with a full gig of RAM under the hood. And even though the Raspberry Pi 2 may be camera-shy, there’s a good reason. It’s a screamer! Early testing indicates a six-fold increase in performance even though it still looks much the same. What hasn’t changed is the price. It’s still $35 in the U.S. if you can find one. We couldn’t wait so we headed to the Pimoroni Shop in the U.K. to order ours with a Pibow case. Shipped within hours, and we got it in 2 days!

Do we have a Valentine’s Treat for you! Today we’re pleased to introduce the all-new Raspberry Pi edition of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI featuring the just-released Raspberry Pi 2 and the just-released Asterisk® 11.16. And, not to worry, if you ever get tired of running your own PBX (and we don’t think you will), Micro$oft announced last week that you’re going to get a free version of Windows 10 for the Raspberry Pi 2 later this year.

Last week we released a tutorial covering all of the new Gotcha Free PBX applications, and that guide applies to today’s Raspberry Pi 2 release as well. That’s the beauty of the new Incredible PBX modular design. And, speaking of design, we don’t build Incredible PBX servers with an included operating system any longer so we’ll walk you through getting the Raspberry Pi 2 squared away with the latest and greatest version of Raspbian before we actually install Incredible PBX.

Target Audience: Home or SOHO/SBO in need of a turnkey, Gotcha-Free PBX

Default Configuration: Asterisk 11 with enhanced Asterisk-GUI, Kennonsoft GUI, and NANPA dialplan

Platform: Raspbian 7 running on a Raspberry Pi 2

Standard Memory: 1024MB

Recommended Disk: 16GB+

Default Trunks: Google Voice, CallCentric, DIDlogic, Future-Nine, IPcomms, Les.net, Vitelity, VoIP.ms¹

Feature Set: SMS messaging, VPN, Reminders, ConfBridge Conferencing, AsteriDex, Voicemail, Email, IVR, News, Weather, Voice Dialer, Wolfram Alpha, Today in History, TM3 Firewall WhiteList, Speed Dialer, iNUM and SIP URI (free) worldwide calling, OpenCNAM CallerID lookups, DISA, Call Forwarding, CSV CDRs

Administrator Utilities: Incredible Backup/Restore, Automatic Updater, Asterisk Upgrader, phpMyAdmin, Timezone Config, Plug-and-Play Trunk Configurator, WebMin, External IP Setup, Firewall WhiteList Tools

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (RasPi 2 Edition)

Here’s a quick overview of the installation and setup process for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI:

Install Linux for Raspberry Pi 2 – Install Raspbian 7 Platform

Configure Raspbian 7 – Optimize Raspbian 7 for Incredible PBX

Download and Install Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

Set Up Passwords for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Connect a Softphone to Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

1. Install Raspbian 7 Platform for Raspberry Pi 2

For those with Raspberry Pi experience, this is the same drill you’ve performed a dozen times before. For newbies, here’s the procedure. You’ll need a microSD card of at least 8GB, and we strongly recommend a 16GB or 32GB Type 10 card for Incredible PBX. We’ve tested both the SanDisk and Transcend cards, and they work great.

Begin by downloading the very latest RASPBIAN image from RaspberryPi.org to your desktop. After you’ve unzipped the image, you need to get it moved to your microSD card. RaspberryPi.org has excellent tutorials that will walk you through the process using a Linux, Mac, or Windows desktop platform. Don’t forget to unmount the card before removing it!

Once you have your microSD card ready to go, plug it into the slot on the back of the Raspberry Pi 2 and then plug in the power cord. On your attached monitor, you can follow the boot up process. When the login prompt appears, log in as user pi with the password raspberry.

2. Optimizing Raspbian 7 for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

The first time you boot up your Raspberry Pi 2 with Raspbian 7, it will run the raspi-config script. This allows you to make a number of changes to your Raspberry Pi environment to maximize performance. Let’s take advantage of it.

Option 1. Expand the File System to fill your SD card. Otherwise, there’s insufficient disk space to complete the install.

Option 3. Enable Boot to Desktop (top selection). No Linux GUI please!

Option 8. Change your Hostname under A2 to incrediblepi2.

Tab to the Finish option and press ENTER. Then choose Reboot and YES.

After the reboot, log back in as pi:raspberry and set a very secure root password: sudo passwd root. Decipher your IP address so that you can log in as root via SSH: ifconfig.

We recommend completing the install by logging in as root using a desktop computer via SSH or Putty (for Windows). This gives you the ability to scroll back up and find errors if something happens to come unglued during the install process.

3. Install Incredible PBX on Your Raspberry Pi 2

Adding Incredible PBX to the Raspberry Pi 2 is easy. To restate the obvious, your server needs a reliable Internet connection to proceed. Using SSH (or Putty on a Windows machine), log into your Raspberry Pi 2 as root at the IP address you deciphered in the ifconfig step at the end of the Raspbian install procedure above.

IMPORTANT: Before you begin the Incredible PBX install, expand your console window to at least 80×27, or the Asterisk compilation step may fail. If you’re in doubt about the window dimensions, just maximize the window to full-screen during the install process.

Now let’s begin the Incredible PBX install. After logging in as root, issue the following commands. The install takes less than an hour and runs unattended so there’s no need to watch unless you’re curious how sausage is made. Remember, we compile all of the major components for Incredible PBX as part of the build process. And you can review the open source GPL2 script to see how it’s done if you have an interest or wish to embellish. It’s Gotcha-Free code so go for it and share your discoveries. After all, that’s what open source is all about!

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx11guiPi.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblepbx11guiPi.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblepbx11guiPi.tar.gz
./IncrediblePBX11Pi-GUI.sh

4. Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

Administrators have been trying to stomp out faxing for at least two decades. Here’s a hint. It ain’t gonna happen. So go with the flow and add Gotcha-Free Faxing to your server. It’ll be there when you need it. And sooner or later, you’ll need it. This install script is simple enough for any monkey to complete. Run the script and enter the email address for delivery of your faxes. Then, if you’re in the U.S. or Canada, press the Enter key to accept every default entry during the HylaFax and AvantFax installation steps. For other countries, read the prompts and answer accordingly. When the installation finishes, reboot your server to bring faxing on line. Be sure to change your AvantFax admin password by logging in to AvantFax from the Incredible PBX GUI. By default, the admin password is password. You can also use the script included in the /root folder: avantfax-pw-change. REMINDER: Don’t forget to reboot your server!

cd /root
./incrediblefax11-GUI.sh

Outgoing faxes using standard document attachments can be created using the AvantFax GUI. The faxes will be sent out using your default outbound dial rules. For example, a 10-digit number will be sent using the default Google Voice trunk unless you haven’t configured it. Then the next configured trunk will be used. You can add a dial prefix in sending a fax with AvantFax to force the call out a particular trunk.

Incoming faxes will be delivered to the email address you specified when installing Incredible Fax; however, incoming faxes will be ignored until you configure a destination DID to accept the faxes. In the /etc/asterisk directory, edit extensions.conf. As noted, a dedicated DID is required to support incoming faxes! Find the desired incoming fax context which will be of the form: DID_TRUNKNAME_default, e.g. DID_GoogleVoice_default. Toward the end of the context, there will be several destination options for incoming calls to this DID. It looks like this:

;exten = _.,n,Gosub(macro-dumpvars,s,1())  ; in case you ever want to look at all of the Asterisk variables on the CLI
;exten = _.,n,Goto(default,6001,1)         ; routes incoming call to extension 6001
;exten = _.,n,Goto(ringroups-custom-1,s,1) ; routes incoming call to Ring Group #1
;exten = _.,n,Goto(voicemenu-custom-2,s,1) ; routes incoming call to Nerd Vittles Demo IVR
 exten = _.,n,Goto(voicemenu-custom-1,s,1)  ; routes incoming call to Stealth AutoAttendant and then to Ring Group #1

Comment out the destination entry that is not already commented out. Then add the following line just below that entry:

exten = _.,n,Goto(ext-fax,in_fax,1)

Now save the file and reload your Asterisk dialplan: asterisk-reload.

5. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Incredible PBX is installed with the preconfigured IPtables Linux firewall already in place. It implements WhiteList Security to limit server access to connected LANs, your server’s IP address, your desktop computer’s IP address, and a few of our favorite SIP providers. You can add additional entries to this WhiteList whenever you like using the add-ip and add-fqdn tools in /root. There’s also an Apache security layer for our web applications. And, of course, Asterisk-GUI has its own security methodology using Asterisk’s manager.conf. Finally, we randomize extension and DISA passwords as part of the initial install process. Out of the starting gate, you won’t find a more secure VoIP server implementation anywhere. After all, it’s your phone bill.

Even with all of these layers of security, here are 10 Quick Steps to better safeguard your server. You only do this once, but failing to do it may lead to security issues you don’t want to have to deal with down the road. So DO IT NOW!

First, log into your server as root with your root password and do the following:

Make your root password very secure: passwd
Set your correct time zone: ./timezone-setup
Restart Asterisk: asterisk-restart
Create admin password for web apps: htpasswd -b /etc/pbx/wwwpasswd admin newpassword
Make a copy of your other passwords: cat passwords.FAQ
Make a copy of your Knock codes: cat knock.FAQ
Decipher IP address and other info about your server: status

Second, log into your server as admin using a web browser pointed to your server’s IP address:

Click USERS tab in Incredible PBX GUI
Click Asterisk-GUI Administration
Log in as user: admin with password: password
Immediately change your admin password and login again

Log in to Asterisk-GUI again with your new password. Expand the options available in the GUI:

Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options

Last but not least, Incredible PBX includes an automatic update utility which downloads important updates whenever you log into your server as root. We recommend you log in once a week to keep your server current. Now would be a good time to log out and back into your server at the Linux command line to bring your Raspberry Pi 2 up to current specs.

6. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Now for the fun part. If this is your first VoIP adventure, be advised that this ain’t your grandma’s phone system. You need not and should not put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to telephone providers. In order to connect to Plain Old Telephones, you still need at least one provider. But there is nothing wrong with having several. And a provider that handles an outbound call (termination) need not be the same one that handles an incoming call (origination) and provides your phone number (DID). We cannot recommend Vitelity highly enough, and it’s not just because they have financially supported our projects for almost a decade. They’re as good as VoIP providers get, and we use lots of them. If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S., you’d be crazy not to set up a Google Voice account. It’s free as are all phone calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. The remaining preconfigured providers included in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI are equally good, and we’ve used and continue to use almost all of them. So pick a few and sign up. You only pay for the calls you make with each provider so you have little to lose by choosing several. The PIAF Forum includes dozens of recommendations on VoIP providers if you want additional information.

With the preconfigured trunks in Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI, all you need are your credentials for each provider and the FQDN of their server. Log into Asterisk-GUI Administration as admin using a browser. From the System Status screen, click Incredible PBX Apps. Click on each provider you have chosen and fill in the blanks with your credentials. When you’ve saved all of your settings, log into your server as root via SSH and type: service asterisk restart or asterisk-restart. You can also issue the command in the Asterisk-GUI by choosing the Asterisk CLI tab² in the left column. Doesn’t get any simpler!

Update: It should be noted that Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI also supports Anveo Direct trunks; however, they are configured differently because of the way Anveo handles the calls. You’ll need the PIN provided by Anveo to set up your trunk, and Anveo supports CallerID spoofing so you can enter any CallerID number for the trunk that you are authorized to use. You’ll find the Anveo Direct setup link in the Incredible PBX Apps tab. To route an outgoing call through Anveo trunk, dial 2 + any desired 10-digit number.

Here is the complete list of dialing prefixes and the trunks to which they are associated:

1 – Google Voice
2 – Anveo Direct
3 – Future Nine
4 – CallCentric
5 – DIDlogic
6 – IPcomms
7 – Les.net
8 – Vitelity
9 – VoIP.ms

For free iNUM calling worldwide, the following dialing prefixes are supported in conjunction with the last seven digits of any destination iNUM DID. Free iNUM DIDs for your own PBX are available from both of these providers as well.

0XXXXXXX – CallCentric
90XXXXXXX – VoIP.ms

7. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

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

We recommend YateClient which is free. Download it from here. Run YateClient once you’ve installed it and enter the credentials for the 6002 extension on Incredible PBX. You’ll need the IP address of your server plus your extension 6002 password. Choose Users -> 6002 and write down your SIP/IAX Password. You can also find it in /root/passwords.FAQ. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 6002 for your account name, and whatever password is assigned to the extension. Click OK to save your entries.

Once you are registered to extension 6002, 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:

7001 - IVR Demo 123 - Reminders 947 - Weather by ZIP Code 951 - Yahoo News *61 - Time of Day TODAY - Today in History

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

Configuring Google Voice

If you want to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support 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 keep this account a secret!

IMPORTANT: Do NOT under any circumstances take Google’s bait to switch from Google Chat to Hangouts, or you will forever lose the ability to use Google Chat with Incredible PBX. Also 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. Good News! You’re in luck. Google has apparently had a change of heart on discontinuing Google Chat support so it’s enabled by default in all new Google Voice accounts. Once you’ve created a Gmail and Google Voice account, go to Google Voice Settings and 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’ve adjusted 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.

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!

Now you’re ready to configure your Google Voice account in Incredible PBX. You can do it from within Asterisk-GUI by choosing Google Voice within the Incredible PBX Apps tab. Once you’ve entered your credentials, don’t forget to restart Asterisk, or Google Voice calls will fail. If you still have trouble placing or receiving calls, try BOTH of these tips.

If you have difficulty finding the Google Chat option after setting up a new Google Voice account, follow this tutorial.

NOTE: There are all sorts of rumors circulating again that the Google Voice free ride may be coming to a close. We’ve heard this song before, but who knows?? Whether true or not, you are well advised to not rely solely on Google Voice for your phone calls. That’s the real beauty of a PBX. So take advantage of it!

SIP Gateways for Google Voice — GVsip and Simonics

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

We know what some of you are thinking. "What does a fast food worker really know about VoIP and Gotcha-Free PBXs?? Before wasting a bunch of time on this, show me the beef!" Fair enough. Sit by your phone and click the Call Me icon below. Type in a fake name and your real phone number. Click the Connect button, answer your phone when it rings, and press 1. You’ll be connected to the Incredible PBX IVR for Asterisk-GUI. Pick an option from the menu of choices and take the Incredible PBX apps for a spin on our dime… actually it’s Google’s dime. Everything you see and hear is part of what you get with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI including the ability to set up your own click-to-dial web interface exactly like this one. The demo just happens to be running on our Raspberry Pi 2 instead of yours. So… what are you waiting for? Click away and try Incredible PBX for yourself. And, by the way, nobody besides the NSA and Google will be monitoring your call. 😉

Nerd Vittles Demo IVR Options
1 – Call by Name (say “Delta Airlines” or “American Airlines” to try it out)
2 – MeetMe Conference (password is 1234)
3 – Wolfram Alpha (say “What planes are overhead?”)
4 – Lenny (The Telemarketer’s Worst Nightmare)
5 – Today’s News Headlines
6 – Weather Forecast (say the city and state, province, or country)
7 – Today in History
8 – Speak to a Real Person (or maybe just voicemail if we’re out)

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Asterisk-GUI

Now would be a good time to explore the Incredible PBX applications. Continue reading there. After you’ve played with the preconfigured features, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and learn about Asterisk-GUI and its powerful feature set. Here’s one word of warning. We mentioned that Incredible PBX was a hybrid system that combines some customized settings with the standard Asterisk-GUI interface. Before modifying existing settings for the default trunks, extensions, and default routes, take a look at the credentials* files in /etc/asterisk. If you modify any of these trunk entries or the Outgoing or Incoming Call Rules in Asterisk-GUI, you may break the Incredible PBX setup. So steer clear of that minefield until you know what you’re doing. Adding new extensions and additional trunks is perfectly fine and will not break anything.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll point you to some excellent tutorials that already exist. Start with Chapter 3 of Digium’s Asterisk Appliance™ Administrator Manual. Next, review Chapter 11 of The Asterisk Book (Second Edition). Finally, take a look at a couple of the tutorials that have been written by other companies that incorporated Asterisk-GUI into their hardware products, e.g. Yeastar’s MyPBX SOHO User Manual and Grandstream’s UCM6100 User Manual.

In the meantime, if you have questions, join the PBX in a Flash Forums and take advantage of our awesome collection of gurus. There’s an expert available on virtually any topic, and the price is right. As with Incredible PBX, it’s absolutely free.

We also are quickly building a collection of tutorials tailored specifically for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI:

Just Released: The Gotcha-Free Incredible PBX Application User’s Guide

Originally published: Monday, February 9, 2015

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! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Vitelity and Google provide financial support to Nerd Vittles and the Incredible PBX project. [↩]
If, for some reason, the Asterisk CLI tab does not appear on your server, click Options -> Advanced Options -> Show Advanced Options. [↩]

Tag Archives: gvoice

The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING

Links

Follow us

Recent Posts

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (GIT Edition)

1. Choose a Platform for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

2. Install a Linux Flavor for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

3. Install GIT-R-Done Edition of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

4. Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

5. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

6. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

7. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configuring Google Voice

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Asterisk-GUI

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 (Cloud Edition)

1. Sign Up for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5 in the Cloud at RentPBX.com

2. Complete the Install of Incredible PBX

3. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

4. Activate Trunks with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

5. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

6. Configuring SMTP Mail with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Configuring Google Voice

Homework Assignment: Mastering Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

1. Getting Started with Google Voice

2. Connecting to JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

3. Configuring Networking on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

4. Configuring Google Voice on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

VoIP 101: Learning the Basics of Asterisk-GUI Management

5. Configuring Asterisk on JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance

6. Interconnecting JS200-FX Asterisk Appliance to Remote Asterisk Server

Making Free SIP URI Calls Worldwide

Setting Up Incoming SIP URIs for Your PBX

Hardening the JS200-FX Firewall

Implementing 7-Digit Dialing with Your Favorite Area Code

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

1. Choose a Platform for Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

2. Install 64-bit Elastix 2.5 on Your Platform

3. Download and Install Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

4. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

5. Activate Trunks with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

6. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

6. Configuring SMTP Mail with Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Configuring Google Voice

Homework Assignment: Mastering Incredible PBX for Elastix 2.5

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (Cloud Edition)

1. Sign Up for Gotcha-Free PBX in the Cloud at RentPBX.com

2. Complete the Install of Incredible PBX and Incredible Fax

3. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

4. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

5. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configuring Google Voice

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Incredible Apps and Asterisk-GUI

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Getting Started with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI (RasPi 2 Edition)

1. Install Raspbian 7 Platform for Raspberry Pi 2

2. Optimizing Raspbian 7 for Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

3. Install Incredible PBX on Your Raspberry Pi 2

4. Install Incredible Fax for Asterisk-GUI (optional)

5. Initial Configuration of Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

6. Configure Trunks with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

7. Configure a Softphone with Incredible PBX for Asterisk-GUI

Configuring Google Voice

OK, Smarty Pants: Show Me the Beef!

Homework Assignment: Mastering the Asterisk-GUI

Post navigation

Support Nerd Vittles

Free Asterisk Solutions

Tags