Failing to get GUI to work

Asterisk Asterisk Distributions
1

I’m new to Asterisk…

I have a current-version Linux Mint machine and I used the built-in software installer to install Asterisk. I went through some tutorial and got the “Hello World” to work from a physical phone using only the command line and editing .conf files.

Then I decided I wanted to try out the web GUI. I looked at many online guides for installing it from source as the GUI didn’t seem to be available in the Mint repository. I followed the directions and everything seemed to be in place. The “make checkconfig” said all was well and gave me the URL where my GUI should be. But, it doesn’t work. All I ever get in a browser is a 404 error. But, the error does indicate it’s coming from Asterisk.

I’ve searched and found many other online guides for the GUI and they are all pretty much exactly what I did. When there are differences I’ve tried them but nothing has worked.

Any suggestions?

-Farren

2

There is no GUI supported on this forum. AsteriskGUI was killed off may years ago, and FreePBX has its own forum.

3

Well that explains a few things!

So, this forum is just Asterisk – command line only stuff.

If I want any sort of GUI then I need to be running the FreePBX distro, right? I can’t just install FreePBX on an existing Linux install?

-Farren

4

I believe you can install FreePBX directly on Linux plus Asterisk, although I also believe that newbies are discouraged from doing so. However, for definitive answers on that, you need to ask on https://community.freepbx.org/

5

you can try FreePBX

6

Yup, I’ve already tried FreePBX without much success but I will continue. I’m not opposed to a command line – that’s all we had 40 years ago.

I’m curious: do the majority of Asterisk users use it strictly from the command line? And, do the majority of users use the .conf files or do they use the SQL database method?

I’m reading the O’Reilly Asterisk book and they’re teaching the SQL database method but that’s the only place I’ve seen it recommended.

-Farren

7

Yup, I’ve already tried FreePBX without much success but I will continue.
I’m not opposed to a command line – that’s all we had 40 years ago.

I use Asterisk a lot, and I have also used FreePBX, which I quite like - when
it does what you need. When it doesn’t, Asterisk gives you the full power to
do anything you can configure in the dialplan (and more, if you use AMI, AGI,
ARI, etc).

I’m curious: do the majority of Asterisk users

I can’t speak for “the majority of Asterisk users”…

use it strictly from the command line?

… but I would suggest “yes”.

And, do the majority of users use the .conf files or do they use the SQL
database method?

Again, I can’t speak for “the majority of users” but I would think that most
people use .conf files (or, in some cases, .ael files, which are actually my
preference).

I do also use SQL tables, but only for their original purpose - of “real-time”
data which changes frequently, and which Asterisk needs to be aware of
immediately after a change.

I use SQL for things like peer definitions where these are maintained by some
external system, but I put dialplans in .ael files.

I’m reading the O’Reilly Asterisk book and they’re teaching the SQL
database method but that’s the only place I’ve seen it recommended.

It has its place. I would say that if you define some thing (endpoint,
dialplan, voicemail config, whatever) and once you’ve defined it, it stays like
that long term, then it belongs in a static file. If this thing changes often
(it’s up to you to decide whether “often” means every few minutes or every few
days) then it may be better to put it into SQL.

I wouldn’t use SQL as the default choice for everything.

I hope that helps,

Antony.

8

My gut feeling is that most people who configure Asterisk use FreePBX, or FreePBX forks (I don’t have a feeling for the proprietary GUI, Switchvox).

Although FreePBX has a database, most of what it uses the database for is to write .conf file. It does store some things in the database for runtime access, but the main use of the database is on a configuration reload.

Many direct users of Asterisk are doing things that are more specialised than FreePBX caters for.

9

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