Asterisk: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition

Design a complete Voice over IP (VoIP) or traditional PBX system with Asterisk, even if you have only basic telecommunications knowledge. This bestselling guide makes it easy, with a detailed roadmap that shows you how to install and configure this open source software, whether you’re upgrading your existing phone system or starting from scratch.

Ideal for Linux administrators, developers, and power users, this updated edition shows you how to write a basic dialplan step-by-step, and brings you up to speed on the features in Asterisk 11, the latest long-term support release from Digium. You’ll quickly gain working knowledge to build a simple yet inclusive system.

• Integrate Asterisk with analog, VoIP, and digital telephony systems
• Build an interactive dialplan, using best practices for more advanced features
• Delve into voicemail options, such as storing messages in a database
• Connect to external services including Google Talk, XMPP, and calendars
• Incorporate Asterisk features and functions into a relational database to facilitate information sharing
• Learn how to use Asterisk’s security, call routing, and faxing features
• Monitor and control your system with the Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI)
• Plan for expansion by learning tools for building distributed systems

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. A Telephony Revolution
Chapter 2. Asterisk Architecture
Chapter 3. Installing Asterisk
Chapter 4. Initial Configuration Tasks
Chapter 5. User Device Configuration
Chapter 6. Dialplan Basics
Chapter 7. Outside Connectivity
Chapter 8. Voicemail
Chapter 9. Internationalization
Chapter 10. Deeper into the Dialplan
Chapter 11. Parking, Paging, and Conferencing
Chapter 12. Internet Call Routing
Chapter 13. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) Queues
Chapter 14. Device States
Chapter 15. The Automated Attendant
Chapter 16. Relational Database Integration
Chapter 17. Interactive Voice Response
Chapter 18. External Services
Chapter 19. Fax
Chapter 20. Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI)
Chapter 21. Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI)
Chapter 22. Clustering
Chapter 23. Distributed Universal Number Discovery (DUNDi)
Chapter 24. System Monitoring and Logging
Chapter 25. Web Interfaces
Chapter 26. Security
Chapter 27. Asterisk: A Future for Telephony

Appendix A. Understanding Telephony
Appendix B. Protocols for VoIP
Appendix C. Preparing a System for Asterisk