Asterisk: The Definitive Guide 3rd Edition

Description

Design a complete VoIP or analog PBX with Asterisk, even if you have no previous Asterisk experience and only basic telecommunications knowledge. This bestselling guide makes it easy, with a detailed roadmap to installing, configuring, and integrating this open source software into your existing phone system.

 Ideal for Linux administrators, developers, and power users, this book shows you how to write a basic dialplan step by step, and quickly brings you up to speed on the latest Asterisk features in version 1.8.

* Integrate Asterisk with analog, VoIP, and digital telephony systems
* Build a simple interactive dialplan, and dive into advanced concepts
* Use Asterisk’s voicemail options-including a standalone voicemail server
* Build a menuing system and add applications that act on caller input
* Incorporate a relational database with MySQL and Postgre SQL
* Connect to external services such as LDAP, calendars, XMPP, and Skype
* Use Automatic Call Distribution to build a call queuing system
* Learn how to use Asterisk’s security, call routing, and faxing features

CONTENTS:

Foreword; Preface; Audience; Organization; Software; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Safari Books Online; How to Contact Us; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: A Telephony Revolution; 1.1 Asterisk and VoIP: Bridging the Gap Between Traditional and Network Telephony; 1.2 Massive Change Requires Flexible Technology; 1.3 Asterisk: The Hacker’s PBX; 1.4 Asterisk: The Professional’s PBX; 1.5 The Asterisk Community; 1.6 The Business Case; 1.7 Conclusion; Chapter 2: Asterisk Architecture; 2.1 Modules; 2.2 File Structure; 2.3 The Dialplan; 2.4 Hardware; 2.5 Asterisk Versioning; 2.6 Conclusion; Chapter 3: Installing Asterisk; 3.1 Installation Cheat Sheet; 3.2 Distribution Installation; 3.3 Software Dependencies; 3.4 Downloading What You Need; 3.5 How to Install It; 3.6 Base Configuration; 3.7 Updating Asterisk; 3.8 Common Issues; 3.9 Upgrading Asterisk; 3.10 Conclusion; Chapter 4: Initial Configuration Tasks; 4.1 asterisk.conf; 4.2 modules.conf; 4.3 indications.conf; 4.4 musiconhold.conf; 4.5 Conclusion; Chapter 5: User Device Configuration; 5.1 Telephone Naming Concepts; 5.2 Hardphones, Softphones, and ATAs; 5.3 Configuring Asterisk; 5.4 Loading Your New Channel Configurations; 5.5 Testing to Ensure Your Devices Have Registered; 5.6 Analog Phones; 5.7 A Basic Dialplan to Test Your Devices; 5.8 Under the Hood: Your First Call; 5.9 Conclusion; Chapter 6: Dialplan Basics; 6.1 Dialplan Syntax; 6.2 A Simple Dialplan; 6.3 Building an Interactive Dialplan; 6.4 Conclusion; Chapter 7: Outside Connectivity; 7.1 The Basics of Trunking; 7.2 Fundamental Dialplan for Outside Connectivity; 7.3 PSTN Circuits; 7.4 VoIP; 7.5 Emergency Dialing; 7.6 Conclusion; Chapter 8: Voicemail; 8.1 Comedian Mail; 8.2 Dialplan Integration; 8.3 Storage Backends; 8.4 Using Asterisk As a Standalone Voicemail Server; 8.5 Conclusion; Chapter 9: Internationalization; 9.1 Devices External to the Asterisk Server; 9.2 PSTN Connectivity, DAHDI, Digium Cards, and Analog Phones; 9.3 Asterisk; 9.4 Conclusion - Easy Reference Cheat Sheet; Chapter 10: Deeper into the Dialplan; 10.1 Expressions and Variable Manipulation; 10.2 Dialplan Functions; 10.3 Conditional Branching; 10.4 Macros; 10.5 GoSub(); 10.6 Local Channels; 10.7 Using the Asterisk Database (AstDB); 10.8 Handy Asterisk Features; 10.9 Conclusion; Chapter 11: Parking and Paging; 11.1 features.conf; 11.2 Overhead and "Underchin” Paging (a.k.a. Public Address); 11.3 Conclusion; Chapter 12: Internet Call Routing; 12.1 DNS and SIP URIs; 12.2 ENUM and E.164; 12.3 ISN, ITAD, and freenum.org; 12.4 Security and Identity; 12.5 Conclusion; Chapter 13: Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Queues; 13.1 Creating a Simple ACD Queue; 13.2 Queue Members; 13.3 The queues.conf File; 13.4 The agents.conf File; 13.5 Advanced Queues; 13.6 Queue Statistics: The queue_log File; 13.7 Conclusion; Chapter 14: Device States; 14.1 Device States; 14.2 Extension States; 14.3 SIP Presence; 14.4 Using Custom Device States; 14.5 Distributed Device States; 14.6 Shared Line Appearances; 14.7 Conclusion; Chapter 15: The Automated Attendant; 15.1 An Auto Attendant Is Not an IVR; 15.2 Designing Your Auto Attendant; 15.3 Building Your Auto Attendant; 15.4 Conclusion; Chapter 16: Relational Database Integration; 16.1 Installing and Configuring PostgreSQL and MySQL; 16.2 Installing and Configuring ODBC; 16.3 Managing Databases; 16.4 A Gentle Introduction to func_odbc; 16.5 Getting Funky with func_odbc: Hot-Desking; 16.6 Using Realtime; 16.7 Storing Call Detail Records (CDRs); 16.8 ODBC Voicemail; 16.9 Conclusion; Chapter 17: Interactive Voice Response; 17.1 What Is IVR?; 17.2 Components of an IVR; 17.3 IVR Design Considerations; 17.4 Asterisk Modules for Building IVRs; 17.5 A Simple IVR Using CURL; 17.6 A Prompt-Recording Application; 17.7 Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech; 17.8 Conclusion; Chapter 18: External Services; 18.1 Calendar Integration; 18.2 VoiceMail IMAP Integration; 18.3 Using XMPP (Jabber) with Asterisk; 18.4 Skype Integration; 18.5 LDAP Integration; 18.6 Text-to-Speech Utilities; 18.7 Conclusion; Chapter 19: Fax; 19.1 What Is a Fax?; 19.2 Ways to Handle Faxes in Asterisk; 19.3 spandsp; 19.4 Digium Fax For Asterisk; 19.5 Incoming Fax Handling; 19.6 Outgoing Fax Handling; 19.7 Fax Pass-Through; 19.8 Conclusion; Chapter 20: Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI); 20.1 Quick Start; 20.2 Configuration; 20.3 Protocol Overview; 20.4 Development Frameworks; 20.5 Interesting Applications; 20.6 Conclusion; Chapter 21: Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI); 21.1 Quick Start; 21.2 AGI Variants; 21.3 AGI Communication Overview; 21.4 Development Frameworks; 21.5 Conclusion; Chapter 22: Clustering; 22.1 Traditional Call Centers; 22.2 Hybrid Systems; 22.3 Puuuuuure Asterisk, Nondistributed; 22.4 Asterisk and Database Integration; 22.5 Asterisk and Distributed Device States; 22.6 Multiple Queues, Multiple Sites; 22.7 Conclusion; Chapter 23: Distributed Universal Number Discovery (DUNDi); 23.1 How Does DUNDi Work?; 23.2 The dundi.conf File; 23.3 Configuring Asterisk for Use with DUNDi; 23.4 Conclusion; Chapter 24: System Monitoring and Logging; 24.1 logger.conf; 24.2 Call Detail Records; 24.3 CEL (Channel Event Logging); 24.4 SNMP; 24.5 Conclusion; Chapter 25: Web Interfaces; 25.1 Flash Operator Panel; 25.2 Queue Status and Reporting; 25.3 Call Detail Records; 25.4 A2Billing; 25.5 Conclusion; Chapter 26: Security; 26.1 Scanning for Valid Accounts; 26.2 Authentication Weaknesses; 26.3 Fail2ban; 26.4 Encrypted Media; 26.5 Dialplan Vulnerabilities; 26.6 Securing Asterisk Network APIs; 26.7 IAX2 Denial of Service; 26.8 Other Risk Mitigation; 26.9 Resources; 26.10 Conclusion - A Better Idiot; Chapter 27: Asterisk: A Future for Telephony; 27.1 The Problems with Traditional Telephony; 27.2 Paradigm Shift; 27.3 The Promise of Open Source Telephony; 27.4 The Future of Asterisk; Understanding Telephony; Analog Telephony; Digital Telephony; The Digital Circuit-Switched Telephone Network; Packet-Switched Networks; Conclusion; Protocols for VoIP; The Need for VoIP Protocols; VoIP Protocols; Codecs; Quality of Service; Echo; Asterisk and VoIP; VoIP Security; Conclusion; Preparing a System for Asterisk; Server Hardware Selection; Environment; Telephony Hardware; Types of Phones; Linux Considerations; Conclusion; Colophon;