There is also a custom firmware (based on OpenWRT) available for the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND broadband router. Details of how to install this custom firmware can be found at - http://sysadminman.net/blog/2012/vpnpbx-getting-started-3890

While SysAdminMan does not sell the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND broadband router directly, it is available from many retailers including Amazon.

Here is an example of how VPN:PBX and the TL-WR1043ND could be deployed -

It can be deployed at a site and provide the following benefits -

• No changes required to existing router/firewall  (depending on deployment layout chosen)
• None of the problems of Network Address Translation associated with SIP as no NAT happens between the VOIP phones and the Asterisk server
• Voice traffic to the Asterisk server is encrypted
• Easy to deploy with custom firmware for the TL-WR1043ND router which includes OpenVPN client and GUI page for encryption settings
• Multiple TL-WR1043NDs can be deployed at multiple sites and connected to the same VPN:PBX server

Please see the product page for more information, or use the contact form if you have any questions.

Having servers based in the UK and US with great network connections has enabled us to provide stable VOIP platforms to customers in countries as far away as New Zealand, Spain, Canada and India!

Apparently though there are 196 countries – so still some room for growth yet!

First a little background … SysAdminMan has been selling hosted FreePBX servers for the past 3 years and by far the biggest number of issues are caused by broadband firewall/routers and the way they handle both NAT and SIP connections. Even when NAT is handled correctly by Asterisk many of the SIP gateways built in to the broadband routers can mess up SIP packets.

This is especially true for system implementers that rent servers from SysAdminMan to implement at customer sites, where they often have little control over the firewall/router used.

Any solution needed to meet the following requirements -

• Easy to deploy
• Prevent broadband routers corrupting NAT / SIP packets
• Inexpensive to deploy

Which leads me on to the new SysAdminMan offering – VPN:PBX. This new PBX comes in 2 parts. Firstly there is the virtual server running Asterisk, FreePBX, A2Billing and OpenVPN. Having OpenVPN allows you to create a secure tunnel to your PBX, bypassing your broadband routers NAT and SIP ALG (Application Layer Gateway).

The second part is a custom OpenWRT firmware for the TP-Link 1043ND. This is an inexpensive and capable router that allows the firmware to be replaced very simply. The new custom firmware includes OpenVPN pre-installed and also a web page for entering your virtual PBX IP address and VPN authentication details. It is expected that the existing broadband router would be left in-place, with the new TP-Link 1043ND being plugging in to it, providing access for the phones. This causes minimal disruption to any existing network devices.

Also configured on the firmware is DHCP that hands out an IP address along with the address of your PBX to any phones connected to the router. This enables the use of FreePBX End Point Manager to automatically deploy VOIP phones – with zero configuration of the handset itself. All that’s required is a supported handset (and there are many) along with the phones MAC address.

This allows handsets to be configured centrally, and deployed at site within minutes.

A lot of work has gone in to making VPN:PBX as simple as possible to deploy. While it does require purchasing an additional router (the TP-Link 1043ND)  it’s very reasonably priced and hopefully the ease of deployment and the added benefits will make this a sound investment.

More details and user guides to follow soon.

This includes Asterisk 1.8.8.0 and FreePBX 2.8.

Please see here for more information on a hosted PBX in a Flash virtual server - http://sysadminman.net/pbx-in-a-flash-hosting.html

This is designed so that you can hear an example of a VOIP call to a SysAdminMan server.

If you dial the above number you will be presented with a menu where you can choose from the following options -

1. Test conference call for up to 10 callers
2. An echo test which will echo back anything you say
3. Current news read by Cpestral text-to-speech for Asterisk. See here for more into - http://cepstral.com/
4. Music on hold

You can also press * to hang-up.

This is also a good example of what can be achieved by created an IVR (auto-attendant) on a SysAdminMan server.

Give it a go by calling  0203 455 6550  from inside the UK, or  44 203 455 6550  from outside the UK.

This is a pretty advanced setup but here is a walkthrough for setting up a SysAdminMan VPS as an OpenVPN server and then connecting to it with a TP-LINK router running OpenWRT.

Specifically this router is used - http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WR1043ND. I paid around £40 from Amazon, an absolute bargain for something that will run OpenWRT.

Setting up the router

First you need to flash OpenWRT on to the router. This replaces the original firmware. Here are some instructions for this TP-Link router - http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr1043nd?s. I got version 18 of the router and flashed Backfire 10.03.1-rc6 version of OpenWRT.

Next the router was connected via the WAN port on the TP-LINK to my home network. The WAN side of your TP-LINK should be given an IP address from your network DHCP server. It will use this to connect to the Internet.

Now connect a PC to a LAN port using a network cable and you should be given an IP address in the range 192.168.1.0/24

Now make the following changes on the router using a web browser. This will install the OpenVPN software and assign a new IP address to the router. If you use a different subnet you will need to change some settings below to match -

• Assign a password
• Change the LAN network address to 10.10.10.1
• In OpenWRT go to System / Software and click on Update Lists
• Click Available Packages and install OpenVPN
• Click System / Administration and enable SSH on the LAN interface
• Click System / Startup and Enable and Start OpenVPN
• Reboot the router

On the SysAdminMan VPS

For this to work you will need a TUN device assigning to your VPS. Please open a support ticket to request this.

First we’re going to install OpenVPN. This will install from rpmforge, which is set up as standard -

Now, if you’d like you can edit /etc/openvpn/vars and change the settings at the bottom to some sensible defaults. This is not required, but will make creating the certificates easier.

Next we’re going to set up some certificates for OpenVPN. You should run these commands one at a time and answer the questions that are asked -

Now create a file called /etc/openvpn/server.conf with the following settings -

Now we’re going to tell OpenVPN to route traffic to our LAN behind the TP-LINK router -

Now fire up OpenVPN -

Next we need to allow the OpenVPN traffic through the local IPTables firewall -

ON THE TP-LINK ROUTER VIA SSH

Next from your PC we’re going to SSH on to the TP-LINK router at 10.10.10.1 and run the following. This will copy the certificate files we created earlier to the router. X.X.X.X should be replaced with your VPS IP -

Now create a copy of the original OpenVPN config file -

Next we’re going to edit that file and change some settings from the default. These settings start half way down the file under the client configuration settings. Finally reboot the router -

ON THE TP-LINK ROUTER VIA THE WEB GUI

First we’re going to create a new interface that includes the tun interface created by OpenVPN

• Network / Interfaces / Add New Interface
• name – openvpn
• protocol – unmanaged
• interface – tun0

and now we’re going to allow traffic through the TP-LINK firewall to the VPN -

• Network / Firewall / Zones / Add
• Input / Output / Forward = Accept
• Tick lan in Destination and Source zones

and now Reboot the router.

And we’re done!

If you used the settings above then VPS should be accessible on the IP address via the IP 10.20.0.1. You should be able to get to the FreePBX web interface on this address and also use it for your phone configuration.

This is definitely not for the faint hearted as it’s pretty technical and could require some troubleshooting if things don’t work immediately. It’s pretty cool though and should allow for multiple VOIP handsets to be plugged in to the TP-LINK router and connect to the VPS without any worry of NAT problems  (as there’s no NAT happening across the VPN).

I’ve done a few test calls which worked well, but I’ve still got to do some speed tests to see how well the TP-LINK performs.

Elastix 2.2 includes an updated dashboard, built-in GUI firewall control, and updates to the included modules.

For more information about getting an Elastix VPS see here - http://sysadminman.net/elastix-hosting.html

Here are some screenshots from the new release -

• CentOS 5.7
• Asterisk 1.8.7.1
• FreePBX 2.9
• A2billing 1.9.4

For more information please see the website here – http://sysadminman.net/sysadminman-freepbx-a2billing-hosting.html

There will be no FreePBX installed on the server, just the latest stable version of A2Billing. FreePBX is great but if you’re looking at running a high capacity billing server then you don’t need/want the overhead of FreePBX.

This will mean inbound routes and trunks need to be configured manually, at the command prompt, but then everything else is in A2Billing.

Here are the latest VPS load testing results showing A2Billing handling 100 concurrent calls, with one leg G729 and the other leg of each call running G711. Over 2500 calls were generated in 10 minutes at around 4.5 per second.

The new hosting product, called ‘A2B100′, will be launched over the next couple of weeks.

A2Billing is available on 2 different SysAdminMan VPS systems – Elastix and SysAdminMan. The SysAdminMan template is built from scratch and includes Asterisk, FreePBX and A2Billing.

If you are looking to run A2Billing then I can recommend the SysAdminMan template. This includes a much more recent version of A2Billing than that included with Elastix. Below is a table highlighting the differences between the versions (correct at time of writing – 27/7/11).

Beside additional features, newer versions of A2Billing will likely have security fixes so if your A2Billing install will be publically accessible I recommend running the latest version possible.

More information about A2Billing can be found here – http://www.asterisk2billing.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi