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Introducing NeoRouter 1.9 VPN: Still a Shining Star

Tuesday, August 6, 2013 / 2 Comments on Introducing NeoRouter 1.9 VPN: Still a Shining Star

In a previous article, we introduced PPTP VPNs for interconnecting remote users and branch offices to a central network hub. Known as a hub-and-spoke VPN, the advantage of this design is it lets remote users participate as peers in an existing home office LAN. It’s simple to set up and easy to maintain. The drawback is vulnerability to man-in-the-middle attacks.

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Today, we want to revisit the more traditional client-server VPN which relies upon a central server but uses a star topology to connect remote nodes. The major difference is that only registered devices participate in the virtual private network so there is no direct access to other machines on the LANs of the registered devices. If you have servers scattered all over the countryside, however, this is an excellent way to manage and interconnect them. All data and communications between the nodes can then be routed through the encrypted VPN tunnel for rock-solid security and NSA avoidance. Well, maybe and maybe not…

https://twitter.com/chrisVEGGIE16/status/364463018647629824

With NeoRouter’s latest 1.9 (free) software, you can set up your VPN server using a PC, a Mac, a Linux or FreeBSD machine, OpenWrt Backfire, Tomato, or even a Raspberry Pi. VPN clients are available for PCs, Macs, Linux and FreeBSD machines, Raspberry Pi, OpenWrt, Tomato as well as Android and iOS phones and tablets. There’s even an HTML5 web application in addition to a Chrome browser plug-in. With the OpenWrt and Tomato devices or if you’re an extreme techie, you can broaden your NeoRouter star configuration to include bridging of remote LANs. See pp. 47-50 of the NeoRouter User’s Manual.

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You can interconnect up to 256 devices at no cost. For $999, you can enlarge your VPN to support 1,000 devices. Screen sharing, remote desktop connections, HTTP, and SSH access all work transparently using private IP addresses of the VPN nodes which are automatically assigned in the 10.0.0.0 private network.

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Several years ago, we kissed Hamachi goodbye. Suffice it to say, LogMeIn put the squeeze on the free version to the point that it became next to worthless. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any mention of a free version of Hamachi (other than a trial edition) on LogMeIn’s current web site. Here’s a feature comparison which says it better than we could:

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Today we are introducing the second generation of the NeoRouter VPN solution. We have a simple installation script that works with any current PBX in a Flash™ server. It’s suitable for use on a dedicated server or running as a virtual machine. Whether to run NeoRouter 1.9 server on a dedicated machine is your call. Keep in mind that a dedicated platform isolates your VPN server from your PBX which generally is a better network strategy. Regardless of the installation scenario you choose, remember that neither option requires exposure of your entire server to the Internet. Only a single TCP port needs to be opened in your hardware-based firewall and IPtables Linux firewall.

NeoRouter Setup with PIAF™. We’re assuming you already have a PBX in a Flash server set up behind a hardware-based firewall. If not, start there. Next, we’ll need to download and run the installer for your new NeoRouter Server. It also installs the client. Just log into your server as root and issue the following commands:

wget http://incrediblepbx.com/install-neorouter
chmod +x install-neorouter
./install-neorouter

The installer will walk you through these five installation steps, but we’ll repeat them here so you have a ready reference down the road.

First, on your hardware-based firewall, map TCP port 32976 to the private IP address of your PIAF server. This tells the router to send all NeoRouter VPN traffic to your PIAF server when it hits your firewall. If you forget this step, your NeoRouter VPN will never work!

Second, we’re going to use your server’s public IP address as the destination for incoming traffic to your NeoRouter VPN. If this is a dynamic IP address, you’ll need an FQDN that’s kept current by a service such as DynDNS.com.

Third, each administrator and user is going to need a username to access your NeoRouter VPN. You can use the same credentials to log in from multiple client machines, something you may or may not want to do. We’re going to set up credentials for one administrator as part of the install. You can add extra ones by adding entries with one of the following commands using the keyword admin or user. Don’t use any special characters in the username and password!

nrserver -adduser username password admin
nrserver -adduser username password user

Fourth, make up a very secure password to access your NeoRouter VPN. No special characters.

You’re done. Review your entries very carefully. If all is well, press Enter. If you blink, you may miss the completion of the install process. It’s that quick.

Fifth, after your NeoRouter 1.9 VPN is installed, you can optionally go to the NeoRouter web site and register your new VPN by clicking Create Standalone Domain. Make up a name you can easily remember with no periods or spaces. You’ll be prompted for the IP address of your server in the second screen. FQDNs are NOT permitted.

When a VPN client attempts to login to your server, the server address is always checked against this NeoRouter database first before any attempt is made to resolve an IP address or FQDN using DNS. If no matching entry is found, it will register directly to your server using a DNS lookup of the FQDN. Whether to register your VPN is totally up to you. Logins obviously occur quicker using this registered VPN name, but logins won’t happen at all if your server’s dynamic IP address changes and you’ve hard-coded a different IP address into your registration at neorouter.com.

Setting Up a NeoRouter Client. As mentioned previously, there are NeoRouter clients available for almost every platform imaginable, including iPhones, iPads, and our beloved Raspberry Pi. So Step #1 is to download whatever clients are appropriate to meet your requirements. Here’s the NeoRouter Download Link. Make sure you choose a client for the Free version of NeoRouter. And make sure it is a version 1.9 client! Obviously, the computing platform needs to match your client device. The clients can be installed in the traditional way with Windows machines, Macs, etc. Older NeoRouter 1.7 clients still work with the new 1.9 server; however, the Android client is much improved and now provides the same functionality as the Mac and Windows clients. In short, you can use your NeoRouter VPN tunnel to connect to another resource using SSH, VoIP clients, and web browsers.

CentOS NeoRouter Client. As part of the installation above, we have automatically installed the NeoRouter client for your particular flavor of CentOS 6, 32-bit or 64-bit. In order to access resources on your NeoRouter server from other clients, you will need to activate the client on your server as well. This gets the server a private IP address in the 10.0.0.0 network.

To activate the client, type: nrclientcmd. You’ll be prompted for your Domain, Username, and Password. You can use the registered domain name from neorouter.com if you completed step #5. Or you can use the private IP address of your server. If your router supports hairpin NAT, you can use the public IP address or server’s FQDN, if you have one. After you complete the entries, you’ll get a display that looks something like this:

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To exit from NeoRouter Explorer, type: quit. The NeoRouter client will continue to run so you can use the displayed private IP addresses to connect to any other online devices in your NeoRouter VPN. All traffic from connections to devices in the 10.0.0.0 network will flow through NeoRouter’s encrypted VPN tunnel. This includes inter-office SIP and IAX communications between Asterisk® endpoints.

Admin Tools for NeoRouter. Here are a few helpful commands for monitoring and managing your NeoRouter VPN.

Browser access to NeoRouter Configuration Explorer (requires user with Admin privileges)

Browser access to NeoRouter Network Explorer (user with Admin or User privileges)

Manage your account on line at this link

To access your NeoRouter Linux client: nrclientcmd

To restart NeoRouter Linux client: /etc/rc.d/init.d/nrservice.sh restart

To restart NeoRouter Linux server: /etc/rc.d/init.d/nrserver.sh restart

To set domain: nrserver -setdomain YOUR-VPN-NAME domainpassword

For a list of client devices: nrserver -showcomputers

For a list of existing user accounts: nrserver -showusers

For the settings of your NeoRouter VPN: nrserver -showsettings

To add a user account: nrserver -adduser username password user

To add admin account: nrserver -adduser username password admin

Test VPN access: http://www.neorouter.com/checkport.php

For a complete list of commands: nrserver –help

To change client name from default pbx.local: rename-server OR…

  • Edit /etc/hosts
  • Edit /etc/sysconfig/network
  • Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
  • Edit /etc/asterisk/vm_general.inc
  • reboot

For the latest NeoRouter happenings, follow the NeoRouter blog on WordPress.com.

Upgrading NeoRouter 1.7 Server to 1.9. If you followed our previous tutorial to install NeoRouter 1.7 Server, then upgrading to version 1.9 is easy. Log into your NeoRouter 1.7 server as root and download either the 32-bit or 64-bit 1.9 server software for your operating system. Then issue the following commands:


/etc/rc.d/init.d/nrserver.sh stop
rpm -Uvh nrserver-1.9*
/etc/rc.d/init.d/nrserver.sh start
chkconfig nrserver.sh on

GPL2 License. The install-neorouter application is open source software licensed under GPL2. The NeoRouter Server and Client software is freeware but not open source. This installer has been specifically tailored for use on PBX in a Flash servers, but it can be adjusted to work with virtually any Linux-based Asterisk system. If you make additions or changes, we hope you’ll share them on the PIAF Forum for the benefit of the entire VoIP community. Enjoy!

Deals of the Week. There are a few amazing deals still on the street, but you’d better hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster. Finally, O’Reilly has over 1,000 Packt Ebooks on sale for 50% off until August 15. Better hurry!

Originally published: Tuesday, August 6, 2013

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

 

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Don’t miss the first-ever FreePBX World on August 27-28 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For complete details, see this post on the FreePBX blog.

 

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

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Taking a Page from Asterisk: How Far We Have Come

Monday, July 22, 2013

We’ve never written about paging technology before, and this is one of those areas of VoIP telephony where it certainly paid to wait. What a difference a few years makes! At least in the Asterisk® context, SIP-based paging traditionally involved issuing a Page command with a list of extensions in your dialplan. The wrinkle was that each VoIP phone manufacturer had its own SIP header to trigger autoanswer on its phones. And, without autoanswer, paging becomes next to worthless with desktop phones. Then came FreePBX®. It took all the pain out of the process by using the *80 prefix to issue a page to almost any type of SIP phone. The one wrinkle was that Grandstream and a few other phones require that autoanswer be enabled for paging in the device configuration. Aside from that, any user can pick up a phone on a PBX in a Flash system and dial *80707 to page extension 707 with duplex voice communications through the speakerphones, meaning both parties can talk and listen to each other, the perfect VoIP intercom. And, there’s more good news. Paging works with almost all of the major phone manufacturers’ phones: Aastra, Digium, Grandstream, Linksys/Sipura, Mitel, Polycom, SNOM, and Yealink. In addition, the SIP-compatible Cyberdata ceiling speaker and Cyberdata POE Doorphone/Intercom with Keypad function just like a SIP phone.

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For small groups of phones, paging now works equally well using the FreePBX Paging Module which allows an administrator to preconfigure a group of phones, specify whether to skip busy extensions, barge into busy extensions and place existing callers on hold, or whisper the page to the busy extensions. You can even enable or disable duplex communications during the page. Think of it as instant conference. The module also provides the flexibility for individual phone users to block pages from one or more extensions or even all extensions. Finally, the module lets you create and save multiple configurations for different purposes, and you can designate an Announcement message that plays to every page recipient. For a historical look at the evolution of paging on the Asterisk platform, see Chapter 11 of Asterisk: The Definitive Guide (4th edition). Better yet, buy the book!

So why do we need paging? In the corporate setting, it provides a perfect emergency broadcast service for fires, earthquakes, patient escapes from the loony bin, etc. In a school setting, it could inexpensively replace costly public address systems requiring dedicated wiring, speakers, and amplifiers. The Asterisk paging solution has the added benefit of letting anyone broadcast from anywhere by simply picking up a nearby phone and dialing some (hopefully password-protected) extension number. Separate RTP streaming IP addresses also could be configured on departmental phones to allow automobile dealership zone paging for parts, sales, or service. So a receptionist could park a call and then announce it to a particular department by pressing a softkey on the sidecar. And you still could have an additional emergency channel that reaches everybody. Just set up a different number to page each zone as well as the entire organization.

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So that’s where we were until a week ago when Brian Kelly of PIAF Forum fame began exploring Multicast RTP Paging with Asterisk and AirPlay. Think of Multicast RTP as a radio station that streams data on a particular IP address and port. If you happen to have Multicast-aware SIP phones, they can "tune in" to particular channels of interest. And, whenever a stream is broadcast on one of the channels the phone device is preconfigured to listen to, it will go off hook just as if it had received a page as outlined above. The major advantage to RTP streaming is that there is only a single stream of data on a single channel whereas paging to multiple extensions requires a channel of data for every extension. If you want to follow along with today’s project, just configure one of the Multicast RTP streams on your phone with the port and IP address shown below.

The wrinkle is your phone devices must support Multicast RTP streaming, and many current models do not. Our VoIP Phone of the Year, the Yealink T46G, qualifies. So do some of the Aastra, SNOM (v7), and Linksys/Cisco phones (with quirks!). And the Cyberdata speaker and doorphone (above) support Multicast RTP streaming as well. Digium Phones currently do not. If you know of other phones that support Multicast RTP streams, please post a comment. You’ll know if your particular phone supports it if it has a configuration section in the manual that looks something like this:

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The good news is current versions of Asterisk including 1.8, 10, and 11 support Multicast RTP Streaming and PIAF-Purple and PIAF-Green come preconfigured for RTP Multicast Streaming. A single line of dialplan code is all you need to initiate a broadcast:

exten => 1234,1,Dial(MulticastRTP/basic/224.0.0.1:1234)

This would cause the Multicast RTP Stream broadcast to begin on port 1234 of IP address 224.0.0.1 as soon as someone on your PBX in a Flash server dialed extension 1234 and began to speak. Every phone or SIP device listening for broadcasts on port 1234 from IP address 224.0.0.1 would receive the listen-only page on their speakerphone.

Of course, Brian was not content to merely issue a page from Asterisk to his SIP phones. He wanted all of them to be able to listen to his iTunes music collection using his iPhone or iPad. This required AirPlay, but AirPlay can only stream to iOS devices. Well, not so fast. An enterprising guru on SourceForge created his own AirPlay emulator called Shairport4w. This is a Windows application that works just like an AirPort server. It "listens" for content from an iPhone or iPad that has designated Shairport4w as its AirPlay device. iTunes has the ability to stream music to any AirPlay device including the Shairport4w. So that was half of the puzzle. That got iTunes music playing great on the Windows desktop.

But we needed the other piece of the puzzle. We needed to push the music from the Windows machine to the SIP phones using Multicast RTP streaming. Brian found the missing piece of the puzzle for that as well. It’s called Multicast Streamer for Windows and it’s available at no cost from CodeProject. Simply download and unzip the bundle of goodies and run Multicast Streamer on your Windows desktop together with Shairport4w. Shairport4w captures the incoming AirPlay stream and pushes it to the sound card.

Now we simply need to configure the sound card as the input device for Multicast Streamer and make the appropriate settings to broadcast the RTP stream to port 1234 on IP address 224.0.0.1. This was the listening port and IP address we configured on our SIP phones. Be sure to also adjust the Samples per second to 8,000 and the Bits per Sample to 16.

Your mileage may vary but in our case the only output device showing on Multicast Streamer was Microphone. What we needed was Stereo Mix to capture data from the sound card rather than the microphone. If yours is missing, do the following. Right-click on the Speaker icon and switch to the Recording tab. If you don’t see Stereo Mix, then Right-click on an empty area and make sure that both "Show Disabled Devices" and "Show Disconnected Devices" are checked. When the Stereo Mix option appears, Right-click on it and check Enable. Set the level to 100. Now it will also appear as an input device when you restart Multicast Streamer. Choose it as the default input device, make sure all your other settings match what we outlined above, and then click Start to begin the stream. Now stroll over to your iPod music player app on your iPhone or iPad, choose Shairport4w as the AirPlay output device, and play away. To cancel the stream on any phone, just hangup the speakerphone. Enjoy!

Deals of the Week. There are a couple of amazing deals still on the street, but you’d better hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster.

Originally published: Monday, July 22, 2013

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

 

blank

Don’t miss the first-ever FreePBX World on August 27-28 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For complete details, see this post on the FreePBX blog.

 

blank

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

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Programmer’s Paradise: Introducing the VoIP Phone of the Year, Yealink’s T46G

Monday, July 15, 2013 / 2 Comments on Programmer’s Paradise: Introducing the VoIP Phone of the Year, Yealink’s T46G

If you’ve been missing the Aastra programming platform these last couple years while America’s patent trolls continued to destroy the software development community in the United States, then you’ll be excited to learn that there’s a new kid on the block with a revolutionary phone. One can’t help wondering what the heck we are doing to ourselves. First, we destroy the programming community with tax breaks for off-shore developers, and then we grant bogus software patents for "inventions" that have been showing in SciFi movies for at least 30 years. Really? </end of rant>

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Yealink’s new T46G steps into the VoIP phone spotlight where Aastra left off with a magnificent color screen and every VoIP phone feature you can dream up: HD voice, dual port gigabit Ethernet, POE, Bluetooth headset support, automatic provisioning via FTP/TFTP/HTTP/HTTPS, OpenVPN, STUN, 1,000 user local phone book with photos plus LDAP support, RTP multicast streaming, full-duplex speakerphone with AEC, 27 function keys plus four softkeys and cursor keys not to mention (let the alphabet soup begin) VAD, CNG, AEC, PLC, AJB, AGC, SMS, BLF, SNMP, SRTP, QoS, and on and on. But the most exciting features have got to be complete Asterisk® function support including call hold, DND, MWI, attended and unattended call transfers, voicemail, intercom, paging, and barge plus action URLs and Yealink’s XML web development platform. All of it is integrated into this phone. Virtually anything you could build with PHP and XML on the Aastra phones can now be created on the Yealink platform. It’s simple, non-proprietary, and just works! See the Nerd Vittles sidebar for a terrific deal on these phones if you hurry.

Legal Disclaimer. Our mission today is to introduce you to XML programming on the T46G. This is proof-of-concept code owned by Ward Mundy & Associates, LLC. It is not licensed for use at all without your first consulting a patent attorney and getting a green light to proceed. Then, and only then, you may consider it GPL2 code. In short, the delivered code is to teach programming design basics NOT to step on anybody’s claimed patents. Displaying an RSS news or weather feed or picture on a phone does not qualify as rocket science, but we can’t vouch for whether somebody, somewhere claims to have "invented" it. These sorts of features have been around since at least 1990 with AT&T’s Partner Plus phone system and IBM’s Simon Communicator. That places the features well outside the 20-year patent umbrella. But this is not legal advice, and consider yourself warned. Some of the examples rely upon RSS, XML, or HTML links from other organizations. Specifically, the News and Weather feeds use Yahoo! RSS feeds, the Sports feed uses ESPN’s RSS feed, the PIAF RSS Feed uses the PBX in a Flash security alert system, and the Photo of the Day uses Google+ public links to Lilliphoto’s incredible photography. Check with your attorney and explain your intended use before using any of these apps. Never remove credits from published material of others!

XML 101. XML stands for Extensible Markup Language and is a language used for describing data. It doesn’t really care what the data happens to be. In our case, we want to tell the T46G phone how to do something so we have to follow the XML design rules that the phone understands. These are all covered in Yealink’s XML Browser Developer’s Guide. So Step #1 is to actually write an XML program. Once you’ve written your XML program, then you need to host it on a web server. This could be your PBX in a Flash server which includes an Apache web server, or it could be a hosted web server on the Internet. The advantages to using a web server colocated on a private subnet where your phones reside are that (1) it’s easy to protect your stuff from the NSA and other prying eyes and (2) it’s easy to obtain data directly from your Asterisk server without much risk of compromising the results to strangers. Step #3 is to configure a button on your phone to run the XML application that you’ve deployed on your web server.

Hello World. All programming tutorials begin with a "Hello World" example that shows you how to display something simple on a monitor. On some platforms, capitalization doesn’t matter. On Yealink phones, it does so pay particular attention to the actual syntax required, or your program won’t work. Here’s how you write an XML program called hw.xml to display "Hello World" on your phone when you push a button to run the hw.xml program:

<TextMenu>
<Title>Hello World</Title>
<MenuItem>
<Prompt>Hello World</Prompt>
</MenuItem>
</TextMenu>

If you want to try this on your own server, log into your PBX in a Flash server as root, switch to the /var/www/html directory, create a yealink folder, switch to that folder, and use an editor to create the hw.xml program shown above:
cd /var/www/html
mkdir yealink
cd yealink
nano -w hw.xml

Once you’ve created the text, press Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter to save the file.

Step #3 is to assign the web application to a button on your phone. We’ll use the phone’s web GUI to do that. First, you’ll need the IP address of your phone. Press the OK button from the main screen to obtain it.

Using a web browser, go to the IP address from the previous step. Login to your phone using admin:admin as the username and password (unless you’ve changed it). Click on the DSSKey tab and then click Programmable Key in the left sidebar. Let’s use the Down cursor key to store our program for the time being. You’ll see it in the Key list. Click on the pull-down menu beside the Down key and choose XML Browser for the Type. In the blank field under the Value column, type: http://192.168.0.50/yealink/hw.xml. Substitute the private IP address of your PIAF server for 192.168.0.50. When you’re finished, click the Confirm button at the bottom of the page.

Switch to your phone and press the Down cursor key from the main screen, and Voila! Hello World.

Congratulations. You’re now a G-E-N-U-I-N-E XML Programmer!

PHP Basics. What you can’t do with XML programming is retrieve data from other sources. In other words, XML code is static data. For our examples today, however, we want to retrieve data from other sources and display it on our phone. We need another programming language to do that. PHP happens to be simple, and it’s included on all PBX in a Flash servers so let’s use it. As with XML, you need the programming guide to learn what the commands are. For today, all you need to know is that PHP programs have file names ending in .php and always begin with <?php and always end with ?>. Everything in between has to be a PHP command or function with each line ending with a semicolon. While your Yealink phone’s XML Browser can run PHP programs, it can only understand output that conforms to its XML rules. So the trick is to have your PHP program print out results that are formatted to look like the XML "Hello World" example above. Aside from that, a PHP program can do anything it wants under the covers.

Our "Hello World" hw.php example in PHP to display on the Yealink phone would look like this:

<?php
echo "<TextMenu>\n";
echo "<Title>Hello World</Title>\n";
echo "<MenuItem>\n";
echo "<Prompt>Hello World</Prompt>\n";
echo "</MenuItem>\n";
echo "</TextMenu>\n";
?>

Congratulations. You’re now a G-E-N-U-I-N-E PHP Programmer, too. Two diplomas in one day. WOW!

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Yealink Main Menu. Shown above is the main screen which displays when you boot your phone. We’ll walk you through all the steps to get it configured as shown. You will note there are 10 function keys displayed as well as 4 Softkeys. Applications and features that you wish to use can be assigned to one of the 10 function keys, any of the four softkeys, or the cursor keys. Where you place apps that you build matters! Keep in mind that the feature set of the Softkeys below the display as well as the cursor keys will change whenever you place a call or make a menu selection. So it’s probably not a smart idea to place apps that you need during a call on a softkey, or they’ll disappear. You’re not limited to 10 function keys. There actually are 27 available. When you add more than 10, the 10th function key will allow you to scroll through two more screens full of functions. So you actually get 27 functions keys that can be assigned. If you only have 10, then all 10 are shown on the main screen as shown above.

The easiest way to configure Yealink’s Main Menu is through the phone’s web GUI described previously. You’ll find all the options under the DSSKey tab. A word about logos: JPEG wallpaper can be as large as 480×272 pixels; however, you probably don’t want a full screen image because the 10 function key tabs will cover up about 120 pixels on the left and right sides of the image. So leave those two areas as white on your 480×272 image, and you’ll end up with something that looks like the PIAF image above. You can download the PIAF image here. You upload and install it on the Settings tab in the phone GUI.

Yealink XML Basics. The XML platform on the Yealink phone supports several types of display screens, and we’ve tried to provide examples of the more important ones in our News, Weather, Photo of the Day, and Asterisk Phonebook applications. The TextMenu object is just what it says: a list of menu options from which you can make a selection. If you highlight a particular option and press the OK button or some other designated function key, the XML program stored with that menu option is run. If you highlight an option and press a Dial button or the Speakerphone button, a phone number stored with that option is dialed. The InputScreen object is a data entry screen. It lets the user key in a number or text using the numeric keypad in much the same way that you do it on any cellphone. It then passes the results to a PHP program indicating the variable name and its contents. This is what we use in the Weather by ZIP Code application to determine which weather forecast to display. The Directory object is self-explanatory as well. It gives a list of names and numbers and dials the number of the entry chosen by the user. The ImageScreen object displays a JPEG photo with automatic resizing. We built the Photo of the Day app to show you how to do it.

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Just a few basics and you then can download the file, accept the license agreement, and take a look at the code. First, we’ve discovered a minor bug in the latest Yealink T46G firmware. The menus and queries hang about 4 out of every 5 attempts unless you configure your phone with a static IP address and set the DNS server addresses manually. We suspect this is a timing issue, but we wanted to alert you to avoid needless frustration in playing with this. Once you’ve taken care of this and installed the software, the initial display by pressing the #10 function key (XML Apps in the screenshot above) will bring up the Applications Menu shown above.

If you have also installed Incredible PBX on your PIAF server, then there are dial options in addition to display options with several of the applications. To initiate a display option, simply highlight a menu selection and press either OK or the Select button. To initiate an actual call, highlight a menu selection and press the Speakerphone button. Phonebook (411), News (951), and Weather by ZIP (947) dial the Incredible PBX apps shown in parentheses. Be advised that the National Weather Service recently revised their Weather by ZIP service. If you need the patch to return your Incredible PBX system to the living, you’ll find it on the PIAF Forum. Incredible PBX 11 and Incredible Pi 3.11 systems were automatically patched for you.

The Asterisk Phonebook option was specifically designed to support those users who have imported their Google Contacts into the Asterisk Phonebook. If you have not yet done this, visit the PIAF Forum to get the script. If you are using a dedicated domain for your Google Apps, there is also a patch to support domains other than gmail.com. When you choose this option, you’ll be prompted to enter a name. First, press the 2aB SoftKey twice to change the keyboard to abc format. Then it works for the alphabet just like your cellphone. Next, enter four or more characters of a first or last name or organization and press Search or OK button. The phonebook app then will find all matching entries in your Asterisk Phonebook. Both the phone number and name entry will be displayed. Highlight the desired choice and press the Speakerphone button to place the call. You will note that only six matches are displayed on the screen even though there is room for more. This doesn’t mean you’ve seen all matches! Just scroll down the list to see the next six entries. If you would prefer to simply say the name of someone in your AsteriDex phonebook and you’ve installed Incredible PBX, then highlight the Phonebook option on the Applications Menu and press the Speakerphone button. Say the name desired when prompted.

The News Headlines option retrieves the Yahoo! RSS News Feed. To display the information on your phone, highlight the News option and press Select or OK button. If you’d prefer to listen to the News headlines and you’ve installed Incredible PBX, then press the Speakerphone button.

The Weather by ZIP Code app retrieves the latest weather information from Yahoo! (text) or the National Weather Service (voice). Simply key in the 5-digit zip code and press Submit or OK to display the current conditions and forecast from Yahoo! If you press the Speakerphone button, you get to listen to the latest update from the National Weather Service.

The Sports Headlines app retrieves the latest sports news from ESPN’s RSS Feed and the Associated Press. Just highlight the option and press Select or OK.

The PBX in a Flash Security Alerts app retrieves the PIAF RSS Feed and displays the latest security bulletins together with links to forum posts documenting the problem and the fix.

The Photo of the Day app displays a collection of photographs from renowned photographer, Midori Chan. It provides an excellent demonstration of the image resolution quality of the Yealink T46G’s screen. In addition, it shows off the auto-sizing capability of the phone. A more practical application might be a collection of PowerPoint slides which could be displayed during a conference call on the phone. The possibilities are endless!

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If you scroll up or down the PIAF Apps Menu, you’ll find the bonus SMS Messaging with Google Voice application. It’s also available by pressing SoftKey3 from the results screen within the Asterisk Phonebook app. There are two prerequisites to use this app. First, on your PIAF2 server, you’ll need to install SMS Dictator 2 as well as the SMS Message Blaster app included in that tutorial. These applications both are preinstalled in all versions of Incredible PBX, including the Raspberry Pi edition. Next you’ll need to create gvoice.php in /var/www/html/yealink and enter the username and password credentials for one of your Google Voice accounts. The file should look like this:

<?php
$GVACCT="username@gmail.com";
$GVPASS="yourpassword";
?>

You can take it for a spin by selecting the application from your T46G and plugging in a 10-digit cellphone number plus a brief text message. Click the Submit button to send the messages. Note that replies will NOT be delivered to your phone. Instead, they will go to whatever email forwarding address you used when you set up your Google Voice account. In order to take maximum advantage of the SoftKeys for data entry, you’ll need to use the X button to exit from the SMS application. This button can also be used to exit from any screen on the T46G.

Installing the XML Apps. For those with PBX in a Flash, the installation procedure is simple because Apache and PHP environment with CentOS 6 is already in place. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands to get everything in place:

cd /
wget http://pbxinaflash.com/PIAF4yealink.tar.gz
tar zxvf PIAF4yealink.tar.gz
rm PIAF4yealink.tar.gz

Configuring the Yealink T46G. Using a browser, open the phone GUI by pointing to the IP address of your phone. Press the OK button if you’ve forgotten your phone’s IP address. Login with admin:admin. Click the DSSKey tab and select Line Key 10-18 in the left sidebar. For Line Key10, choose XML Browser from the Type pulldown. Beside it in the Value column, enter the following using your server’s IP address: http://192.168.0.222/yealink/piaf.php. In the Label column, type: XML Apps. Now click the Confirm button to save your entries. After complying with the license agreement in /var/www/html/yealink/COPYING, you can take the apps for a spin by pressing Function Key 10 on your Yealink T46G. You can download a number of additional T46G apps from the T46G thread on the PIAF Forum.

Conclusions. With a phone as new as the T46G, we were more than a little skeptical of the XML programming platform that Yealink was providing. We were pleasantly surprised. Except for one typo in the documentation, the XML code was flawless and performed exactly as documented in Yealink’s excellent documentation. These six sample apps barely scratch the surface of what is possible using these new phones. We’ll look forward to seeing what others can produce in coming months. It’s great to have a terrific new VoIP phone to support future open source development. And the stunning color display is simply icing on the cake. Enjoy!

Deals of the Week. There are a couple of amazing deals still on the street, but you’d better hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster.

Originally published: Monday, July 15, 2013

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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.

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Triple Treat: Some Asterisk Utilities to Brighten Your Summer

Wednesday, June 26, 2013 / 6 Comments on Triple Treat: Some Asterisk Utilities to Brighten Your Summer

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If you live and breathe Asterisk® but don’t visit the PIAF Forum regularly, you’re missing one of the best VoIP resources on the Internet. To get everyone in the Independence Day mood, we thought we’d share a few of the new goodies that have appeared on the PIAF Forum since The Great Crash of 2013. Although each of these utilities was designed to support PBX in a Flash™ and Incredible PBX™ systems, with a little tweaking, they’ll work equally well on other CentOS 6-based Asterisk servers of any flavor so long as the base version of Asterisk is at least 1.8. They also run just fine with Incredible PBX for the Raspberry Pi.

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Import Google Contacts into Asterisk Phonebook. For everyone still using Gmail after the NSA disclosures, this app is for you. Now you can share your Google Contacts with Asterisk as well as the NSA. The beauty of this utility is that it also makes your Google Contacts available as a CallerID Name lookup source for CallerID Superfecta. So all of those cellphone numbers in your contacts will now display real CallerID names when those folks call you. Our special tip of the hat to John Babb for producing the original script and to @raphou for finding it and sharing it with the PIAF community.

Before you can import your Google Contacts into the Asterisk Phonebook, you first need to install Google’s gdata Python client. Just log into your server as root using an SSH client and issue the following commands:

cd /root
mkdir Google
cd Google
wget https://gdata-python-client.googlecode.com/files/gdata-2.0.18.tar.gz
tar zxvf gdata*
cd gdata*
chmod +x setup.py
./setup.py install
wget http://pbxinaflash.com/googlecontacts.py
nano -w googlecontacts.py

Once the editor opens, you need make a couple changes in googlecontacts.py. NOTE: We’ve adjusted the original code for use in the United States. If you’re living elsewhere, then grab the original code on the PIAF Forum.

The code you downloaded looks like this (plus some required indentation):
#!/usr/bin/python
# googlecontacts.py v0.1
# By: John Baab
# Email: rhpot1991@ubuntu.com
# Purpose: syncs contacts from google to asterisk server
# Requirements: python, gdata python client, asterisk
#
# License:
#
# This Package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
# License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
# version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This package is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
# License along with this package; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
#
# On Debian & Ubuntu systems, a complete copy of the GPL can be found under
# /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-3, or (at your option) any later version

import atom,re,sys,os
import gdata.contacts
import gdata.contacts.service

def main():
# Change this if you aren't in the US. If you have more than one country code in your contacts,
# then use an empty string and make sure that each number has a country code.
country_code = ""

gd_client = gdata.contacts.service.ContactsService()
gd_client.email = "yourname@gmail.com"
gd_client.password = "your_password"
gd_client.source = 'gcontact2ast'
gd_client.ProgrammaticLogin()
query = gdata.contacts.service.ContactsQuery()
query.max_results = 1000
feed = gd_client.GetContactsFeed(query.ToUri())

# delete all of our contacts before we refetch them, this will allow deletions
os.system("asterisk -rx \'database deltree cidname\'")

# for each phone number in the contacts
for i, entry in enumerate(feed.entry):
for phone in entry.phone_number:
# Strip out any non numeric characters
phone.text = re.sub('\D', '', phone.text)

# Remove leading digit if it exists, we will add this again later for all numbers
# Only if a country code is defined.
if country_code != "":
phone.text = re.sub('^\+?%s' % country_code, '', phone.text)

# Insert the number into the cidname database, reinsert the country code if defined.
os.system("asterisk -rx \'database put cidname %s%s \"%s\"\'" % (country_code,phone.text,entry.title.text))

if __name__ == "__main__":
main()

Before you save the script, you’ll need to make a few adjustments. First, insert your actual Gmail account name and password in lines 37 and 38. If you’re using 2-step authentication with your Google account, remember to generate and use an application-specific password. Your regular password won’t work! Second, if your Google Contacts include more than 1,000 phone entries, adjust the default setting on line 42. Now save the script: Ctrl-X, Y, then Enter. Then make the script executable: chmod +x googlecontacts.py.

Now you’re ready to import your Google Contacts. Just issue the following command: ./googlecontacts.py

You can check whether the import was successful by displaying a list of all the new entries in your Asterisk Phonebook. Here’s the command:

asterisk -rx "database show cidname"

Want to import entries from more than one Google account? It’s easy. Just make a duplicate of the script and repeat the setup process above with your new credentials. You’ll also need to comment out line 46 in the second script so that your previous import doesn’t get wiped out of the Asterisk Phonebook when you run the second script. Just make a mental note to run the scripts in the proper order whenever you wish to update your Asterisk Phonebook.

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UPDATES: There’s now an Asterisk Phonebook app for Yealink T46G Color SIP phones. Once installed, you can look up and call numbers in your Asterisk Phonebook by pressing a button on your phone. Read all about it and download the app from the PIAF Forum.

For those using Google to host your own domain, there’s now a patch to let you import your Google Contacts into the Asterisk Phonebook as well. See this post on the PIAF Forum for the procedure.

If you’d like to keep your Asterisk Phonebook sync’d with your Google Contacts, then run the script every night by inserting the following line in /etc/crontab:

9 0 * * * root /root/Google/gdata-2.0.18/googlecontacts.py >/dev/null 2>&1

Now that you have your contacts imported, we need to adjust CallerID Superfecta so that incoming calls are scanned for a phone number match using the Asterisk Phonebook. Using a web browser, open FreePBX® and choose the CallerID Superfecta application. Modify CallerID Superfecta Lookup Sources in FreePBX to include Asterisk Phonebook. Make certain the Asterisk Phonebook entry appears near the top of the list so that it gets examined before any external lookup sources. This speeds up incoming call connections considerably.

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Email Daily Call Log to Yourself. Many have requested a simple way to have a snapshot of your incoming daily calls emailed to the Asterisk administrator each day. Special thanks to @Boolah for the code. Using any PIAF system, simply create a file in /root called cdrlog.sh that looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
mysql -u root -ppassw0rd asteriskcdrdb -e 'SELECT calldate, clid FROM cdr WHERE DATE(calldate) = SUBDATE(CURDATE(), 1) AND did <> ""'

For Incredible PBX for the Raspberry Pi, the script should look like this:

#!/bin/bash
mysql -u root -praspberry asteriskcdrdb -e 'SELECT calldate, clid FROM cdr WHERE DATE(calldate) = SUBDATE(CURDATE(), 1) AND did <> ""'

Make the script executable: chmod +x /root/cdrlog.sh

Then run the script: /root/cdrlog.sh

If you’d like the listing of the previous day’s calls emailed to you each day, then add the following entry to /etc/crontab after inserting your actual email address:

8 0 * * * root /root/cdrlog.sh | mail -s "Daily Call Log" yourname@gmail.com >/dev/null 2>&1

Trunk Failure Email Alerts. One of the most frequently requested scripts on the PIAF Forum has been a utility which would alert you when one of your Asterisk trunks has failed. So here you go. This script monitors SIP, IAX2, and Google Voice trunks and sends you an email whenever one or more of the trunks fails. Just download the script, insert your email address at the top of the script, and add an entry to /etc/crontab to check the trunks as often as desired. The default setting is every 5 minutes.

cd /root
wget http://pbxinaflash.com/trunkcheck.tar.gz
tar zxvf trunkcheck.tar.gz
nano -w trunkcheck.sh
echo "5 * * * * root /root/trunkcheck.sh > /dev/null 2>&1" >> /etc/crontab

MP3 Playback of Voicemails with Optional Transcription. And we have a bonus application for you as well. By default, Asterisk voicemails that are delivered to your email address won’t play back on many computers and smartphones. This script fixes that while also providing the option to transcribe the first 15 seconds of the message into text. We’ve only tested this with PIAF-Green with Asterisk 11, but it also should work just fine with Incredible PBX 11 for the Raspberry Pi. To install it, log into your server as root and issue the following commands. If you want to activate the transcription feature, edit the downloaded script and change transcribe=0 to transcribe=1.

cd /root
wget http://pbxinaflash.com/installmp3stt.sh
chmod +x installmp3stt.sh
./installmp3stt.sh

Once you have run the installation script, you’ll need to make a couple of adjustments in the FreePBX GUI. Log into FreePBX 2.11 and choose Settings, Voicemail Admin, Settings and make the following changes:

format: wav|wav49
mailcmd: /usr/sbin/sendmailmp3

Now leave yourself a voicemail message after making certain that you’ve entered an email delivery address for the extension. Enjoy and Happy Fourth!

Deals of the Week. There are a couple of amazing deals still on the street, but you’d better hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster.

Originally published: Wednesday, June 26, 2013

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

 

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Don’t miss the first-ever FreePBX World on August 27-28 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For complete details, see this post on the FreePBX blog.

 

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We are pleased to once again be able to offer Nerd Vittles’ readers a 20% discount on registration to attend this year’s 10th Anniversary AstriCon in Atlanta. And, if you hurry, you also can take advantage of the early bird registration discount. Here’s the Nerd Vittles Discount Code: AC13NERD.

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

The 5-Minute PBX: Incredible PBX 11 and Incredible Fax Get a Facelift

Tuesday, June 18, 2013 / 11 Comments on The 5-Minute PBX: Incredible PBX 11 and Incredible Fax Get a Facelift

blankWith the release of PBX in a Flash™ 2.0.6.4.4 last week, it seemed only fitting to reintroduce our one-click wonder that takes advantage of the latest and greatest feature sets in both Asterisk® 11 and FreePBX® 2.11. Incredible PBX™ 11 gives you the best of all worlds plus all of the very best, preconfigured Asterisk applications we could find. And the installer together with all of the apps are pure open source so you can learn how to build a system like this for yourself if that happens to be your thing. Installation is a breeze. Set up a new PBX in a Flash™ 2.0.6.4.4 server with PIAF-Green and FreePBX 2.11, download the Incredible PBX 11 installer, and five minutes later you’re ready to begin your VoIP adventure. And it’s all FREE!
 

News Flash: Incredible PBX 11 and Incredible Fax also are available for the $35 Raspberry Pi.

So what’s included? Dozens of upgraded Asterisk Apps. 9-Layer Security. 20 Preconfigured VoIP Provider Trunks. 1-Click Installers for Asterisk.everything. Certified Asterisk support. All-new Google Voice connectivity with Asterisk Motif. Voice-enabled SMS messaging and script-based SMS message blasting. Incredible PBX Automatic Update Utility. Incredible Fax™ 11 delivers free faxing with HylaFax™ and AvantFax®. And Incredible PBX and Incredible Fax are now GPL2-licensed.

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blankThe Incredible PBX 11 Inventory. For those that have never heard of The Incredible PBX, here’s the current 11.0 feature set in addition to the base install of PBX in a Flash with the CentOS 6.4, Asterisk 11, FreePBX 2.11, and Apache, SendMail, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, IPtables Linux firewall, Fail2Ban, and WebMin. Incredible Fax, NeoRouter and PPTP VPNs, and all sorts of backup solutions are still just one command away and may be installed using the scripts included with Incredible PBX 11 and PBX in a Flash. Type help-pbx and browse /root for dozens of one-click install scripts.

And then there’s the Incredible Freebie! As they say, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." What began as a kludgey, dual-call, dual-provider Google Voice implementation to take advantage of Google’s free PSTN calling in the U.S. and Canada with Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 is now a zippy-quick, Gtalk-based calling platform that rivals the best SIP-to-SIP calls on the planet. The Incredible PBX Google Voice implementation provides virtually instantaneous PSTN connections to almost anybody, anywhere. Trust us! Except for the price which is still free, you’ll never know you weren’t connected via Ma Bell’s overpriced long-distance lines and neither will the Little Mrs.

To get started, download the latest PBX in a Flash 2.0.6.4.4 ISO from SourceForge, burn to then boot from the PIAF2 CD, choose the PIAF-Green option to load Asterisk 11, and pick FreePBX 2.11 when prompted. Take a look at the PIAF Quick Start Guide for step-by-step installation instructions. Once the PIAF2 install is completed, just download and run the new Incredible PBX 11 installer.

A Few Words About Security. Thanks to its Zero Internet Footprint™ design, Incredible PBX is different. It remains the most secure Asterisk-based PBX around. What this means is The Incredible PBX has been engineered to sit safely behind a NAT-based, hardware firewall with no Internet port exposure to your actual server. For those needing remote telephone support, Incredible PBX optionally loads Travelin’ Man 2 and 3 for you so your IPtables Linux Firewall can be either self-managed by end-users or set up with predefined IP addresses and FQDNs for all of your remote sites. Read about this Asterisk SIP vulnerability. Then you’ll understand why WhiteList-based server security has become absolutely essential. WhiteList Security means only those devices with a registered IP address in your WhiteList can get to your server’s resources. To the NSA and everyone else, your server doesn’t even exist. Their only way to connect to you is with a POTS telephone and your published phone number. Can you hear me now?

For those with multiple servers to interconnect, we’ve provided one-click installers for not one but two VPN solutions: NeoRouter and PPTP. Suffice it to say, Incredible PBX has Security in Spades™: customized IPtables Linux Firewall, Fail2Ban tweaked for Asterisk security monitoring, FreePBX Extension Lockdown by IP address, randomized FreePBX extension passwords, Travelin’ Man 2 and 3 WhiteList Security, multiple VPN solutions for encrypted server-to-server communications, plus a bottom-up design focused on flawless operation behind a hardware-based firewall. You won’t find a more secure Personal Branch Exchange™ at any price.

Here’s the Incredible PBX 9-Layer Security Model:

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

We’ve shifted gears on our recommended Atom platform for PIAF2 after excellent results with both the single-core and dual-core Atom kits manufactured by Foxconn (pictured on the left below). That’s the dLink Gaming Router on the right. Seems kinda silly to spend twice as much for a machine that you can build yourself in under 5 minutes. Basically you remove four screws, insert a Phillips screwdriver in one of the holes and gently pry the cover away from the box. Then you pop off the back by inserting a small flat-blade screwdriver, remove four more screws, slide in a solid-state drive (SSD) and a 4GB stick of notebook computer RAM, and you’re done in a couple minutes. Replace the screws and the cover, and you have a perfect PIAF2 platform with terrific performance and no moving parts for about $200. The link above will take you to the PIAF Forum thread for these machines. They go on sale almost weekly. See the right column of Nerd Vittles (just below our tweets) for this week’s special at Amazon. The dual-core Atom box typically is under $150. It could easily handle an office with 50+ employees sitting on a bookshelf with an Internet connection (wired or wireless!). No noise. Very little heat. Low power requirements. Perfect!

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Installing Incredible PBX 11. The installation process is simple. Here are the 3 Easy Steps to Free Calling, and The Incredible PBX will be ready to receive and make free U.S./Canada calls immediately:

1. Install PIAF-Green with FreePBX 2.11 using PIAF2 ISO or PIAF-Green VM
2. Run Incredible PBX 11 installer
3. Configure Google Voice and a softphone or SIP phone

blankConfiguring Google Voice. If you plan to use Google Voice, you’ll need a dedicated Google Voice account to support Incredible PBX 11. If you want to use the inbound fax capabilities of Incredible Fax 11, then you’ll need an additional Google Voice line that can be routed to the FAX custom destination using FreePBX. 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!

We’ve tested this extensively using an existing Gmail account, and inbound calling is just not reliable. The reason seems to be that Google always chooses Gmail chat as the inbound call destination if there are multiple registrations from the same IP address. So, be reasonable. Do it our way! Set up a dedicated Gmail and Google Voice account, and use it exclusively with Incredible PBX 11. It’s free at least through 2013. Google Voice no longer is by invitation only so, if you’re in the U.S. or have a friend that is, head over to the Google Voice site and register.

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

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

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

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

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

Incredible PBX 11 Installation. Log into your server as root and issue the following commands to run The Incredible PBX 4 installer:

cd /root
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblepbx11.gz
gunzip incrediblepbx11.gz
chmod +x incrediblepbx11
./incrediblepbx11

Now have a quick cup of coffee while the installer works its magic. While you’re waiting just make sure that you’ve heeded our advice and installed your server behind a hardware-based firewall. No ports need to be opened on your firewall to support Incredible PBX. Leave it that way!

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!

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FINAL STEPS. Once the Incredible PBX 11 install completes, there are two optional steps for those that will have remote phones or users outside your firewall. Install both Travelin’ Man 2 and 3 for an ultra-secure system.

Logging in to FreePBX 2.11. Using a web browser, you access the FreePBX GUI by pointing your browser to the IP address of Incredible PBX 11. Click on the Users tab. It will change to Admin. Now click the FreePBX Admin button. When prompted for a username, it’s maint. When prompted for the password, it’s whatever you set up as your maint password when you installed PBX in a Flash. If you forget it, you can always reset it by logging into your server as root and running passwd-master.

Configuring Google Voice Trunks in FreePBX. All trunk configurations now are managed within FreePBX, including Google Voice. This makes it easy to customize your Incredible PBX to meet your specific needs. If you plan to use Google Voice, here’s how to quickly configure one or more Google Voice trunks within FreePBX. After logging into FreePBX with your browser, click the Connectivity tab and choose Google Voice/Motif. To Add a new Google Voice account, just fill out the form. Do NOT check the third box or incoming calls will never ring!

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While you’re still in FreePBX, choose Applications, Extensions, and click on the 701 extension. Write down your extension and voicemail passwords. You’ll need them to configure a phone in a minute.

IMPORTANT LAST STEP: Google Voice will not work unless you restart Asterisk from the Linux command line at this juncture. Using SSH, log into your server as root and issue the following command: amportal restart.

Incredible Fax 11 Installation. If you want the added convenience of having your Incredible PBX double as a free fax machine, run /root/incrediblefax11.sh after the Incredible PBX 4 install completes. Plug in your email address for delivery of incoming faxes and enter your home area code when prompted. For every other prompt, just press the Enter key. If you’d like to also add the optional OCR utility, just choose it when prompted. For complete documentation, see this Nerd Vittles article. Don’t forget that a REBOOT OF YOUR SERVER is required when the install is finished, or faxing won’t work! Then log in through the PIAF GUI using maint:password. You’ll find the AvantFax GUI on the Admin menu.

Also be sure to set up a second, dedicated Google Voice number if you want support for inbound faxing. Once the Google Voice credentials are configured in FreePBX for the additional Google Voice line, simply add an Inbound Route for this DID to point to the Custom Destination: Fax (Hylafax). This comes preconfigured with Incredible PBX 11.

Eliminating Audio and DTMF Problems. You can avoid one-way audio on calls and touchtones that don’t work with these simple settings in FreePBX: Settings -> Asterisk SIP Settings. Just plug in your public IP address and your private IP subnet. Then set ULAW as the only Audio Codec.

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Setting Up a Desktop Softphone. PBX in a Flash supports all kinds of telephones, but we’ll start with the easy (free) one today. You can move on to "real phones" once you’re smitten with the VoIP bug. For today, you’ll need to download a softphone to your desktop PC or Mac.

The easiest way to get started is to set up a YATE softphone on your Desktop computer. Versions are available at no cost for Macs, PCs, and Linux machines. Just download the appropriate one and install it from this link. Once installed, it’s a simple matter to plug in your extension credentials and start making calls. Run the application and choose Settings -> Accounts and click the New button. Fill in the blanks using the IP address of your server, 201 for your account name, and whatever password you created for the extension. Click OK.

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Once you are registered to extension 701, close the Account window. Then click on YATE’s Telephony Tab and place your first call. It’s that easy!

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Incredible PBX Test Flight. The proof is in the pudding as they say. So let’s try two simple tests. First, let’s place an outbound call. Using the softphone, dial your 10-digit cellphone number. Google Voice should transparently connect you. Answer the call and make sure you can send and receive voice on both phones. Second, from another phone, call the Google Voice number that you’ve dedicated to The Incredible PBX. Your softphone should begin ringing shortly. The call will be answered by the Nerd Vittles sample IVR. You can explore all of the preconfigured options at your leisure.

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Learn First. Explore Second. Even though the installation process has been completed, we strongly recommend you do some reading before you begin your VoIP adventure. VoIP PBX systems have become a favorite target of the hackers and crackers around the world and, unless you have an unlimited bank account, you need to take some time learning where the minefields are in today’s VoIP world. Start by reading our Primer on Asterisk Security. We’ve secured all of your passwords except your root password and your passwd-master password. We’re assuming you’ve put very secure passwords on those accounts as if your phone bill depended upon it. It does! There’s loads of additional documentation on the PBX in a Flash documentation web site.

Incredible PBX 11 Automatic Update Utility. With Incredible PBX 11, we’ve introduced a new automatic update utility to assist in keeping your system current and secure. It runs each time you log into your server as root. The first ten updates are at no cost. You then can elect to continue the service by subscribing to the update service which is available for a modest $20 for the remainder of calendar year 2013. Whether you subscribe or not, new releases of PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX will always be free! This simply is a way for us to recover our costs in providing a service that many of our users have asked for. We hope you like it.

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

Incredible PBX 11 includes preconfigured trunk setups for all of your favorite trunk providers. Just plug in your credentials and activate the trunks you need. In less than a minute, you’re done. Here’s the Incredible PBX Top 20 Trunk List with some reasons why these providers made our short list:

  • AxVoice ($14.99/mo. Business Plan; $16.58/mo. Unlimited Calls to 45 Countries)
  • CallCentric (Good International Calling Rates)
  • DIDforSale (20 channels per DID; unlimited DID calls for $8.99/mo.)
  • ENUM
  • FlowRoute (Good International Calling Rates)
  • FreeNum
  • Future-Nine (Supports CallerID Spoofing)
  • Google Voice (Free DIDs and free U.S./Canada calling)
  • IPkall (Free SIP/IAX DIDs)
  • Les.net (Supports CallerID Spoofing; very low rates)
  • LocalPhone (Dirt-cheap DIDs and calling rates worldwide; Free iNum DID)
  • Simon Telephonics (Free SIP-to-GoogleVoice Gateway)
  • SIPgate (Free residential DIDs sometimes)
  • Skype (Free Skype-to-Skype calls worldwide)
  • Teliax (Unlimited inbound DID $5/mo.)
  • Vitelity (Our supporter and the Best in the Business!)
  • VoIPms (CallerID spoofing; Free iNum calling; Very low rates)
  • VoIPMyWay (Residential Unlimited: $15.50/mo. Business Unlimited: $40/mo.)
  • VoIPStreet (Free DID)

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

A Final Word About Security. In case you couldn’t tell, security matters to us, and it should matter to you. Not only is the safety of your system at stake but also your wallet and the safety of other folks’ systems. Unless you subscribe to the new Automatic Update Utility, our only means of alerting you to security issues which arise is through the RSS Feed that we maintain for the PBX in a Flash project. This feed is prominently displayed in the web GUI which you can access with any browser pointed to the IP address of your server. Check It Daily! Or add our RSS Feed to your favorite RSS Reader. We also recommend you follow @NerdUno on Twitter. We’ll keep you entertained and provide immediate notification of security problems that we hear about. Finally, visit the PIAF Forums regularly. You’ll be surprised what you can learn in 10 minutes of browsing. Be safe!

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

  • D-E-M-O – Incredible PBX Demo (running on your PBX)
  • T-I-D-E – Get today’s tides and lunar schedule for any U.S. port
  • 4-1-1 – Phonebook lookup/dialer with AsteriDex
  • C-O-N-F – Set up a MeetMe Conference on the fly (PIN: 1234)
  • 1-2-3 – Schedule regular/recurring reminder (PW: 12345678)
  • 2-2-2 – ODBC/Timeclock Lookup Demo (Empl No: 12345)
  • 2-2-3 – ODBC/AsteriDex Lookup Demo (Code: AME)
  • 3-3-3 – Look up a definition for any word or term
  • 9-4-9 – Weather forecast for any city in the world
  • 9-5-0 – Retrieve stock report by stock symbol
  • 9-5-1 – Latest Google News headlines
  • Dial *68 – Schedule a hotel-style wakeup call from any extension

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

Deals of the Week. There are a couple of amazing deals still on the street, but you’d better hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster.

Originally published: Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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

 

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Don’t miss the first-ever FreePBX World on August 27-28 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For complete details, see this post on the FreePBX blog.

 

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We are pleased to once again be able to offer Nerd Vittles’ readers a 20% discount on registration to attend this year’s 10th Anniversary AstriCon in Atlanta. And, if you hurry, you also can take advantage of the early bird registration discount. Here’s the Nerd Vittles Discount Code: AC13NERD.

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Here We Go Again: Getting Ready for the Next Google Voice Train Wreck

Monday, June 3, 2013 / 4 Comments on Here We Go Again: Getting Ready for the Next Google Voice Train Wreck


Self-inflicted wounds are nothing new in the technology business, but Google spent much of last week working hard to take top honors for what is clearly one of the most selfish and short-sighted moves ever in the telecommunications marketplace. Less than a week after extolling the values of open source technology during Google I/O 20131, Google wasted little time performing a complete 180 by deep sixing further support of the open source XMPP protocol for messaging and VoIP communications. With one brief announcement, Google basically killed off years of Google Voice development and announced the upcoming demise of Google Voice, XMPP, and Jabber messaging as we know it. Never mind that literally millions of users have come to rely upon Google Voice and XMPP messaging as their primary sources of communications. Google now has declared XMPP too confining for their view of what the telecommunications world really needs. Instead, we get yet another proprietary communications protocol. So much for the Do No Evil ethos. With classic pot calling the kettle black ire, one of Microsoft’s leading cheerleaders wasted little time condemning the move.

So why the sudden change of heart at Google? Well, it had nothing to do with the needs of Google customers obviously. In the old days, Google at least labeled projects as beta (for years) to warn you that something might happen down the road, good or bad. That era is over. Now the carnage happens almost randomly. Remember Google knols? It was perhaps the greatest collection of medical and technical literature of all time. Poof! All gone. We won’t go through the entire litany. Suffice it to say, this is nothing new for Google. Every company is entitled to its New Coke moment. Google has had more than its fair share, and it should serve as a wakeup call to organizations and individuals that reliance upon Google infrastructure is a really bad idea.

The current train wreck turns out to be yet another turf war motivated by retribution against Microsoft’s recent decision to support XMPP in its Outlook.com unified messaging product, something most companies would have greeted with jubilation. Instead, Google is miffed that Microsoft was now supporting its messaging protocol while continuing to keep its own protocol proprietary. That meant Microsoft cellphones could chat with Android phones but not the other way around. The moral of the story for consumers is pretty simple. Don’t for a minute assume that any technology company has your best interests at heart. None of them do. It’s all about money and industry domination. Google viewed this as a brazen attempt by Microsoft to create a messaging platform that could speak Android while continuing to restrict access to the Microsoft messaging installed base. And Google chose to pick up its marbles and go home rather than hand Microsoft easy access to hundreds of millions of Android cellphone users. So we’re back to handing the Bell Sisters the unified messaging monopoly with SMS and MMS as the lowest common denominator. Welcome to Big Business!

What does all of this have to do with Google Voice? Well, it rides along on the same messaging platform as Google Talk, Microsoft Lync, and XMPP/Jabber-based solutions including Asterisk, FreeSwitch, Yate, Cisco Jabber, Openfire, and Avaya in addition to all of the Google Voice-compatible softphones and OBiHai devices. So expect a train wreck!

We’re all about VoIP communications so we’ll leave the cellphone messaging for others to sort out. The important question for those of us that depend upon Google Voice for VoIP communications is what can you do to insulate yourself from the upcoming disaster. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend this isn’t going to happen, and you’d be dead wrong for the reasons we’ve outlined above. And, remember, Google has served clear notice that XMPP is over as far as they are concerned unless Microsoft, Apple, and now Facebook blink. Of course, Google could always redeploy SIP for Google Voice calling. If you think any of that is likely to happen, you also might want to buy a lottery ticket which affords you about the same chance of seeing any of your dreams come true.

To keep things simple, let’s divide VoIP communications into four categories: inbound calling, outbound calling, messaging, and faxing. We’ll leave video for another day only because it remains a niche product. With the demise of Google Voice, we recommend not putting all of your eggs in one basket (again). Inbound calling is the most critical. That’s your phone number, and it’s how folks get in touch with you. If there are numbers (DIDs) that you don’t want to lose, now is the time to move them away from Google Voice before it’s too late. If Google elects to shut down Google Voice, your ability to port your numbers elsewhere is OVER! So don’t procrastinate on this one. Luckily, Vitelity (one of the primary supporters of Nerd Vittles and the PBX in a Flash projects) has provided an incredible deal to our fan club for many, many years. For $3.95 a month you get a DID with unlimited inbound calls. It’s not free, but it’s not expensive either. And the call quality and service reliability are as good or better than anyone else in the business. You can read all about the offer at the end of this article. Google charges $3 to port your number out of Google Voice to a new provider. The step-by-step tutorial is available in the PIAF Forum. Do it while you still can!

For outbound calling (terminations), the thought process is different. Unlike traditional analog telephony, there is no reason not to have multiple providers especially if you’re using Asterisk, PBX in a Flash, or Incredible PBX as your communications server. If one outbound path fails, your server can automatically send the calls out through another call path. So continue to cling to your Google Voice dream for outbound calling if you’re a Believer. But do a little advance planning while there’s no crisis. There are numerous termination providers and generally you get what you’re willing to pay for. If cheap is your primary objective and call quality is secondary, then Anveo Direct and VoIP.ms can’t be beat. Both allow you to spoof your CallerID to match a DID that you own so they work well with a service such as Vitelity that is being used to handle your inbound calls. We’ve written about both of them, and we use both of them with excellent results. There are many, many others. Visit the PIAF Forum for lots of additional recommendations.

SMS messaging is an evolving technology in the VoIP marketplace. Expect to see some terrific new services before the summer is over. If you’re in a hurry, the easiest current solution to implement is through Anveo Direct. Our recent article will walk you through the setup process to send and receive SMS messages with Asterisk.

Faxing remains a crap shoot using VoIP technology. If you want commercial quality, then choose one of Vitelity’s dedicated fax circuits. If you want analog faxing that usually works, then Anveo Direct and VoIP.ms are about as good as you can do. All versions of Incredible PBX for PBX in a Flash include a free faxing solution using the HylaFax/ AvantFax platform. A similar solution is provided on the Raspberry Pi platform. As we said, it’s not perfect but it usually works.

Continue reading Part II: Google Puts the Final Nail in the Google Voice Coffin

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Originally published: Monday, June 3, 2013

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

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

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. Larry Page reportedly commented as follows: "I’ve personally been quite sad at the industry’s behavior around all these things. If you take something as simple as IM, we’ve had an open offer to interoperate forever. Just this week Microsoft took advantage of that by interoperating with us but not doing the reverse. Which is really sad and not the way to make progress. You can’t have people milking off of just one company for their own benefit…" [↩]

The Week That Was: The PIAF Forum Returns

Thursday, May 23, 2013

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What a week! If you read last week’s article, you already know that our hosting provider’s server experienced a 2-disk RAID failure (according to them) a week ago. Unbeknowst to us, the provider had discontinued making backups of domains that had grown beyond 10 gigabytes in size. That impacted the main PBX in a Flash site, pbxinaflash.com, as well as the PIAF Forum which is hosted on that site.

Beginning last Friday, we set up an alternative site on Google+. It would be an understatement to say that some of our fans were not overly enthusiastic about the new approach to community living. And, to be fair, much of the criticism was well deserved.

As much as we’d love to be rid of the headache of maintaining the PIAF Forum, it serves a huge audience and we have literally hundreds of gurus that chip in to make PBX in a Flash technical support second to none. So… what to do? Even though the current XenForo forum database in MySQL was almost totally destroyed, we still had a backup copy of the vBulletin forum from 15 months ago. Since we lost over seven years of data, recovering 85% of the content was certainly better than nothing. And recover it we did. By Tuesday night, we were back in business albeit limping along. In the meantime, a number of our gurus had collected snapshots from Google’s cache of more recent content on the site. We also have recovered most of the message threads from the old XenForo database although the threads lack the identity of the posters. Some of this content already has been restored, and there’s more to come. Unfortunately, Google begins purging content after several days and within a week almost all of it’s cache content is gone forever.

In any case, we’re glad to be back in business, and we hope all of you will once again lend a hand to restore the PIAF Forum to its former level of glory. If you had a forum account in the vBulletin days, you still should be able to log in with your old credentials. If not, sign up again, and we’ll get you set up in a day or two. It’s pretty amazing to see what’s been done in less than a day and a half, and we’re looking forward to the next hundred years of PBX in a Flash development and support. Come join the fun!

Deals of the Week. There are a couple of amazing deals that have just hit the street, but you’ll have to hurry. First, for new customers, Sangoma is offering a board of your choice from a very impressive list at 75% off. For details, see this thread on the PIAF Forum. Second, and speaking of backups, a new company called Copy.com is offering 20GB of free cloud storage with no restrictions on file size uploads (which are all too common with other free offers). Copy.com has free sync apps for Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. To take advantage of the offer, just click on our referral link here. We get 5GB of extra storage, too, which will help avoid another PIAF Forum disaster. Enjoy!

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Originally published: Thursday, May 23, 2013

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

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

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

Lessons Learned: An Update on Our Server Outage

Friday, May 17, 2013 / 8 Comments on Lessons Learned: An Update on Our Server Outage

It’s been a busy couple of days following the double whammy of two RAID drive failures on Wednesday morning. We wanted to provide an interim update on where things stand. We share a dedicated server with a couple of other folks. The server is managed and maintained by WestNIC out of New York but physically resides in a data center in Dallas. Even with state-of-the-art hardware, things go wrong. And a dual drive failure made things worse, much worse.

The server runs cPanel and includes weekly onsite backups to a separate server as well as monthly off-site backups to New York. At least that’s what we had been told. It turns out that cPanel apparently chokes on account backups larger than 10GB so our provider had set a size limit on the accounts that qualified for backups in order to assure that the backups were reliable. Not a bad idea… if only we had known. Then we would have made our own backups of some of the one-of-a-kind data such as the PIAF Forum. Woulda, coulda, shoulda unfortunately doesn’t help at this juncture.

Our sites include Nerd Vittles, PBX in a Flash (.org and .com), and Incredible PBX as well as some other smaller domains. Luckily, Nerd Vittles escaped the 10GB limitation although it turned out the weekly backup was damaged. But a restore from New York retrieved all of our content except for the last three articles. Thanks to Google, those three articles still were sitting in Google’s cache. So Nerd Vittles is almost back to normal except where there were links to content or images on pbxinaflash.com or pbxinaflash.org. By yesterday, we had Nerd Vittles fully operational once again. Incredible PBX was much the same story, and it’s once again among the living.

Both the .org and .com sites for PBX in a Flash didn’t fare as well. They both were larger than 10GB which meant there were no cPanel backups anywhere. Most of the static content on both sites is readily available elsewhere for restoration. Unfortunately, the .com site also hosts the PIAF Forum which now includes over 100,000 messages covering VoIP.everything for the past six or seven years. Luckily (we hope), the raw data in the form of static files still exists on the damaged drives. So today we will be moving the raw data for the .org site back into place on the new server. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that the test will go smoothly. That turned out to be 11GB of data.

The more problematic site is pbxinaflash.com. That involves 50GB of data. While most of it is static content that can easily be restored, the PIAF Forum is still a question mark because it includes very fluid MySQL tables running under XenForo. The MySQL databases are also static files under Linux; however, recovery of the data is unknown at this juncture because we don’t know the type of MySQL tables that were in use. If they’re MyISAM, you can basically shut off MySQL momentarily, copy the files over, and restart MySQL with no problems. If the tables use the newer innoDB format then things get more complicated. We think, although we haven’t been able to verify it yet, that we have a XenForo backup in place from several weeks ago. Loss of a few week’s postings would obviously be a godsend when one considers the other alternative. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Should you find any glaring issues with the Nerd Vittles site, please post a comment and let us know. We appreciate your understanding during this difficult time for all of us.

Originally published: Friday, May 17, 2013

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Need help with Asterisk? Visit the new PBX in a Flash Dev Page & Community on Google+
 
[purehtml id=8]
Once you’ve joined, just click About and choose PIAF Forum Community to start participating.

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

 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


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

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

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

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

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

Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

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