SysAdminMan | Page 3 of 34 | FreePBX and A2Billing

FreePBX 12 upgrade broken on CentOS 5 (and possibly other Distros)

21 September 2014MattFreePBX

FreePBX 12 is currently in beta testing but there is an option on FreePBX v2.11 called “FreePBX Upgrader” to allow upgrading to FreePBX 12. It is not overly obvious that this currently upgrades you to a beta version. If you are running on CentOS 5 it is recommended that you do not run this update as it will break your FreePBX install. This is caused by the way that the module update routine checks for available updates (using wget -q). There is no intention to fix this issue so FreePBX 12 will not run on CentOS 5 (without some manual…

Insecure home routers when using SIP

13 September 2014MattVOIP

This post looks at reports from last year which I must admit had passed me by. They show how using a SIP device with a vulnerable router could leave you seriously exposed to VOIP fraud calls. The reports focus on the BT Home Hub 3, but now that I’ve read it’s possible with one router, I have concerns that others could be affected. When you have a SIP phone at home (or in the office) this is what you would expect to happen – phone connects to external Asterisk server or VOIP provider on port 5060 the firewall opens the…

Routers with SIP, NAT and ALGs

26 June 2014MattAsterisk, Network

Getting some routers working with VOIP can be a pain. The problem is caused by NAT, and the translation of a private IP address (10.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16) in to a IP address that works on the internet. This is difficult with SIP/VOIP because IP addresses are not only included in the packet header, but also inside the packet itself. There are various methods that can be used to try and resolve this issue, and various places that ‘fixes’ can try and work. The issue is this … a local device (phone) sends a SIP packet to a device on the internet…

didlogic

1 April 2014MattAsterisk, VOIP

Setting up a trunk to a SIP call provider in Asterisk can be a pain. Even for me – and I do it a lot! When we set up a SIP call provider in Asterisk (a SIP trunk) and send calls to them our Asterisk server will send the call provider a SIP INVITE. Their system could respond in many different ways – decline the call, ask for user info, silently drop the call, process the call …. Sometimes the call provider will send back information in the SIP reply as to why the call has failed. Maybe you have…

Free UK DDI and FreePBX

11 March 2014MattFreePBX

A little while ago I wrote some instructions for setting up a DDI with UKDDI. At the time this involved forwarding the call to a SIP URI and setting up a couple of trunks. The nice folks at UKDDI have made this process much easier. Now we can register our FreePBX server with them, and they will send the calls to our registered IP address. The process of registration tells the remote provider who we are and what our IP address is, so that they can send calls to us. Setting up our number in UKDDI First we need to…

OpenVPN to Asterisk using a Microtik router

24 February 2014MattAsterisk, FreePBX

For a while now SysAdminMan has been offering FreePBX/A2Billing hosting with OpenVPN server already installed on the server. What I really want to find is the perfect client/router that’s simple to configure and easy to deploy. We’ve been recommending OpenWRT for a while now but it can be a pain to flash the firmware and get OpenVPN configured. I’ve also used Microtik routers for a while and they are very powerful routers in such a small, reasonably priced, package. This test was done using a Microtik RB750GL I wasn’t sure how it would work though as Microtik routers only support…

FreePBX 2.11 Guide: Inbound calls

21 February 2014MattFreePBXfreepbx

Because our VOIP phone system is on the internet there is no geographical restrictions. That means we can purchase a telephone number in any country, and forward the calls to our FreePBX system. Many countries allow anyone to purchase a number in that country, some, such as France, place restrictions that you have to prove you are a resident in that country. We are going to set up a phone number on our system from UKDDI, currently you can get free UK geographic numbers here. These telephone numbers are referred to as “DDI numbers” or “DID numbers” depending on which…

FreePBX 2.11 Guide: Blacklist a caller

19 February 2014MattFreePBXfreepbx

If you get annoying telemarketing calls then it’s really simple to block the caller ID with FreePBX. First you need to ensure the caller ID module is installed, see here for more info – http://sysadminman.net/blog/2014/freepbx-2-11-guide-updating-and-installing-modules-5922 Blocking a caller via the Web GUI First we need to go to the Blacklist menu option

FreePBX 2.11 Guide: Updating and installing modules

19 February 2014MattFreePBXfreepbx

FreePBX is very flexible and has many calling features. Most of these are deployed as modules that can be added to the system as required. You should keep the modules on your system up-to-date for security reasons. Updating modules First select Module / Module Admin from the main menu

FreePBX 2.11 Guide: Local number dialling

19 February 2014MattFreePBX

When using VOIP to place telephone calls our call provider has no real concept of our exact geographical location, we could be anywhere. So there’s no ‘local’ area code by default. In this set up guide we are using Voiptalk to place our external calls. As they are a UK provider they will accept UK numbers dialled in the regular national format. So if I want to dial a Northampton number (with the area code 01604) I can call “01604 838383”. But if my telephone users are based in Northampton they may be used to just dialling “838383” We can implement…