Asterisk and database questions

I’m new to Asterisk (and not very good at Linux) but willing to learn. I’m Microsoft developer by trade.

Asterisk got me interested and I’m intrigued by the capabilities and such. So far I got it running in VM and play around a little (FreePBX)

I also spent some time watching all material I can find on Asterisk. Architecture, modules, etc. Mainly I had to learn how VOIP works.

Now I got this idea and I’m not sure if it’s possible at all. Basically having phone almost free and support multi-channels.

Here is what I see… For example I need 3 channels. I also need 1 phone number which I transfer from current provider.

  1. Get SIP Trunk service (paid) and transfer my phone number in.
  2. Setup 3 Google Voice accounts for free calling.
  3. Setup 4 channels in Asterisk. One for paid SIP trunk, 3 for Google Voice
  4. Setup extensions and rules with IVR but mainly make it so each extention dials out using Google Voice.

With this setup there will be no charge for making calls. If incoming calls will be made to Google Voice numbers - there will be no charge either. I will only pay for incoming minutes to paid SIP trunk number.

Does it sound right? Is there any issues with my “idea”? From what I learned about Asterisk this should be doable, “how” will be my next task. But for now I just wanted to run it by you to confirm its possible.

I also wonder how good of a quality calls come out of Google Voice? It’s all inside US

Don’t use Any GUI if you want to learn how Asterisk works.

I recommend you, don’t waste your time trying to setup Google Voice on Asterisk.

[quote]Google Sets the Date for the End of XMPP with Google Voice
Recently Google announced the end of support for XMPP based calling with Google Voice. This will happen on May 15, 2014 –[/quote]

Wow. Good that I asked. Won’t bother with Google than.

The more I think about Asterisk the more I’m getting excited. Especially thinking what integrating it with my software can bring.

I will definitely learn to work with Asterisk without GUI. But I’d rather have ready to go system to beging with. In other words I understand architecture on how Distro pieced together and I don’t really care that there going to be extra services or programs sitting on a drive. I can trade this for not having to build myself from scratch…

I already ordered books from Amazon, writing plans and filling .config files will be fine.

I have 2 questions:

  1. Using Distro but not using GUI. Is there any potential problems? Like maybe .config files all filled with auto-generated text which will be a PITA?

  2. SQL databases. I see that SQL Server possible. To us it’s perfect. But to what degree database used? Ideally I config only DB connection in .conf files and then everything else inside SQL. Possible? I guess the question is: What kind of data stored in database? Transactions only (voicemail, logs) or config as well?

You can do some changes outside of the GUI using especial configurations files like extensions_custom.conf , But there are some configurations that need to be done using the GUI. And any attempt to do it directly on the configuration file could damage the whole system.

This chapter will cover my answer to your second question with more details.
asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edit … sk-DB.html

You can do some changes outside of the GUI using especial configurations files like extensions_custom.conf , But there are some configurations that need to be done using the GUI. And any attempt to do it directly on the configuration file could damage the whole system.
[/quote]

Just thinking… GUI just automates .conf files, correct? If I start editing .conf files manually I will break GUI (understandable) but if I don’t use GUI at all - it should be OK, right?

Is there any official plain vanilla asterisk distro’s without gui?

If you wont use GUI doesn’t make to install it.

Asterisk installation is very simple . You can use Centos Or Ubuntu server or any Linux distro of your preference.

This guide is quiet old, but it works. Note Asterisk 13 is the latest Asterisk LTS

blogs.digium.com/2012/11/05/how- … -centos-6/

blogs.digium.com/2012/11/14/how- … -12-4-lts/

This looks even a better choice for you

ipcomms.net/sample-device-co … -on-centos

ipcomms.net/sample-device-co … ntu-debian

Thanks. Will go with plain install and see what happens :smile: