SYSADMINMAN

You can now pay for Sysadminman hosted Asterisk systems with regular PayPal payments as well as PayPal subscriptions.

Click here for more details – http://sysadminman.net/uk-voip-vps.html

Installing Digium’s g.729 codec for Asterisk on an OpenVZ VPS requires an Asterisk friendly VPS provider. This is because the installation routine relies on there being an ‘eth0′ device on the server. This is not normally the case with OpenVZ where the network device is called venet0.

An ‘eth0′ device can be created on the VPS by running the following command (this is done on the OpenVZ server) -
(see here for more information – http://wiki.openvz.org/Asterisk_G729)

Continue reading ‘Installing Digium g.729 codec for Asterisk on an OpenVZ VPS’ »

If you’ve installed Asterisk and FreePBX, or you’re using one of the preconfigured distributions such as Trixbox or Elastix, a good idea is to have the linux firewall, iptables, running on your system. Here’s an example of how you could set this up.

First thing to note is that it’s pretty easy to lock your self out of your server when playing around with iptables! It’s best to take a couple of simple precautions in case this happens.

These instructions should apply to CentOS/Redhat/Fedora.

Continue reading ‘iptables for Asterisk and FreePBX’ »

The Sysadminman Trixbox CE server template has been updated and is now running version 2.8. All new Trixbox servers will be built with version 2.8 unless otherwise requested.

Trixbox CE 2.8 uses Asterisk 1.6 (rather than Asterisk 1.4)

It’s definitely a good idea to change the default passwords you get with your Sysadminman hosted Asterisk server.

Here’s how to do it if you’re using Trixbox 2.6.

Changing the passwords should be pretty much the same as it would be on a regular Trixbox server.

First you need to SSH (a secure command line connection) to the server. If you use Windows on your desktop a good program for making SSH connections is Putty. It’s free and you can find it here – http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

For changing the server root password -

Use Putty, or another SSH client, to log into the server as the user root

Run the passwd command -

For changing the Trixbox ‘maint’ password -

Use Putty, or another SSH client, to log into the server as the user root

Run the passwd-maint command -

For changing the Voicemail ‘admin’ password -

Use Putty, or another SSH client, to log into the server as the user root

(Unfortunately there is no command for changing this password and you need to manually edit a file)

Now find the line that contains (line 73) -

and change $ARI_ADMIN_PASSWORD to equal your required password. Now save the file.

For changing the WebMeetMe passwords -

WebMeetMe passwords can be changed through the WebMeetMe interface

Our Asterisk Only VPS template has been updated to run Asterisk 1.6 and CentOS 5.3.

This VPS comes with the Dahdi dummy driver compiled meaning you can run IAX2 trunks and Conferences if required.

For more details on all Sysadminman VOIP VPS plans click here

I’ve been testing AsteriskNow running on a VPS today but from what I can see it doesn’t offer anything more than the current distributions I offer (Elastix, Trixbox and PBX in a Flash). If you have a preference for AsteriskNow over any other distribution please let me know why!

EDIT – these test numbers are no longer functional

As a quick demonstration of what you can achieve with Trixbox in a couple of hours I have put together a demonstration phone system.

Trixbox uses Asterisk and FreePBX to provide a richly featured phone system that you can do lots of interesting things with.

For the demonstration I created a phone system with DDI numbers in the London and New York. These phone numbers are provided by future-nine.com.

If you would like do give it a go you can call the system using the following regular telephone numbers -

• UK  xxxxxxxxxxxx
• US  xxxxxxxxxxxx

The system comprises an automated voice menu with the following options -

• Press 1 – for some music.
• Press 2 – for a speaking clock that reads the time in the UK.
• Press 3 – for an echo test. This will echo back everything you say to it, giving you an idea of the delay on the line.
• Press 4 – to leave a voicemail. This will then be e-mailed to me as an e-mail attachment.
• Press 5 – for some current news. This is produced by downloading the latest rss news feed from Yahoo and then converting it to speech using software from Cepstral. It’s certainly not perfect but gives an idea of what is possible. The audio is updated automatically every hour. The main IVR menu speech was also created using Cepstral.

The whole process from ordering the phone numbers from future-nine, to having a functioning phone system, took only a couple of hours and the only part that is not possible to perform via the web gui was downloading and converting the news feed.

As FreePBX forms the basis of most of the Asterisk distributions is just as easy to do the same with Trixbox, Elastix or PBX in a Flash.

Please give it a go and add a comment below to let me know how you get on.

If you’d like more information about virtual PBXs from Sysadminman then click here

“PBX in a flash” has been added to the list of options you can now choose from on a Sysadminman VOIP VPS. This is in addition to the Trixbox CE, Elastix and Asterisk/FreePBX/A2Billing templates currently available.

See here for more details