Practical Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6: From Beginner to Expert, Rough Cut

Description

• Copyright 2010
• Dimensions: 7 X 9-1/8
• Pages: 840
• Edition: 1st

• Rough Cuts
• ISBN-10: 0-321-54375-0
• ISBN-13: 978-0-321-54375-2

This is a working draft of a pre-release book. It is available before the published date as part of the Rough Cuts service.

Using the open source Asterisk platform, you can deploy a state-of-the-art VoIP PBX on a low-cost PC or server for a fraction of the cost of conventional PBX systems. The only drawback to Asterisk is its notoriously poor documentation. Practical Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 is the solution to that problem. This book provides all the detailed, real-world, ground-level information you need to plan, install, configure, and reliably operate Asterisk in any environment.

This tutorial and reference systematically introduces each of Asterisk’s key building blocks and shows how to use them to implement a full spectrum of communications solutions, from conferencing to call queuing, voicemail and fax to IVR. Leading Asterisk consultants Stefan Wintermeyer and Stephen Bosch draw on their extensive experience, presenting detailed usage examples and practical tips not available anywhere else.

Coverage includes

• Detailed instructions for configuring a basic Asterisk system
• A start-to-finish business case example demonstrating Asterisk design for real-world deployment
• A thorough introduction to dialplan applications and functions
• How to use the new Asterisk Extensions Language to build concise, readable, and maintainable dialplans
• Using Asterisk’s diverse network and IP telephony protocols, audio codecs, and wire transports
• Configuring Asterisk’s powerful voicemail features
• Building a sophisticated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system with Asterisk
• Defining and utilizing call queues in call center environments
• Using Asterisk’s built-in conferencing functions
• Controlling Asterisk from external applications, scripts, or the system shell
• Interacting with external applications through the Asterisk Gateway Interface
• Setting up extension monitoring and hints for SIP telephones
• Upgrading existing systems to the latest versions of Asterisk

Whether you’re a network professional, telephony expert, software developer, or power user, Practical Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6 will provide you with the most thorough detail and practical Asterisk guidance available anywhere.

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Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword xxvii

Preface xxix

Acknowledgments xxxi

About the Authors xxxiii

Chapter 1: How to Get the Most Out of This Book 1

1.1 What Is Asterisk? 1

1.2 Who Should Read This Book? 3

1.3 Updates and Versions of the Book 5

1.4 Reader Contributions and Feedback 5

1.5 Additional Resources 6

Chapter 2: Installation and “Hello World” 9

2.1 Installing Asterisk on the Server 9

2.2 Calling “Hello World” from the CLI 10

2.3 Calling “Hello World” with a SIP Phone 13

2.4 Building a Minimal Phone System with Two SIP Phones 16

2.5 Rights Administration with Contexts 18

2.6 Calls to and from the Public Switched Telephone Network 20

Chapter 3: Dialplan Fundamentals 25

3.1 Contexts 25

3.2 Extensions 26

3.3 Pattern Matching 29

3.4 Include Statements 37

3.5 The ${EXTEN} Variable and the ${CALLERID(num)} Function 39

Chapter 4: Case Study: A Typical Business Telephone System 41

4.1 The Numbering Plan 43

4.2 Choosing the Infrastructure 44

4.3 Base Configuration 48

4.4 What Next? 55

Chapter 5: Dialplan Programming 57

5.1 Programming “How-To” 57

5.2 Variables 60

5.3 Special Extensions 67

5.4 Macros 70

5.5 Deprecated Features 71

Chapter 6: Asterisk Extension Language 73

6.1 CLI Commands for AEL 73

6.2 aelparse 74

6.3 Comparing extensions.conf with extensions.ael 74

6.4 Choosing between extensions.ael and extensions.conf 88

Chapter 7: Protocols 89

7.1 Network Protocols 89

7.2 Channels 95

7.3 Peers, Users, and Friends 97

7.4 IAX Versus SIP 97

Chapter 8: Making Connections 101

8.1 Codecs 101

8.2 Integrated Services Digital Network 105

8.3 Analog Telephony 112

Chapter 9: Voicemail 115

9.1 Example Implementations 115

9.3 Dialplan Applications 121

9.4 voicemail.conf 124

9.5 Dial-by-Name 133

9.6 Saving Passwords in voicemail.conf 135

Chapter 10: Interactive Voice Response 137

10.1 A Simple IVR 138

10.2 Multilevel IVR Systems 140

10.3 Text-to-Speech 142

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Updates

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