Hi.
I have installed Asterisk v1.6 in my Computer at the office. I’m using Centos 5 Operating System. All the Computers in the office are connected to the D Link GLB 502T Router/Modem via a Switch to access the Broadband Internet connection. I would like to make calls to the Asterisk installed Computer from my home Computer where I’m having the Windows XP Operating System and the Xlite Softphone. Heard that I should have a Static IP or DDNS and thus do Port Forwarding to make it practical. I don’t know anything about Port Forwarding more than its name. Also, we dont have a static IP or DDNS, but the IP address of the Asterisk installed is statically set as 192.168.1.100. Is it necessary to have the static IP from the Internet Provider to do port forwarding? Is there any other way than port forwarding? Please help! Please provide detailed information as I’m new to all of these things. Thanks in advance…
Is there any problem of security in port forwarding? Any help would be appreciated…
I do not suggest you using port forwarding, a much better way is to use a VPN connection from your home to your workplace and run VoIP calls through the VPN Tunnel. But for that you need to have a VPN enabled router and a static WAN IP address or DDNS.
The networking stuff is a bit complex for a beginner, so I suggest you try to get someone with more networking and Asterisk experience to help you set up the Asterisk server for you. 2 extension Asterisk setup and configuring a VPN tunnel should not cost too much …
Thanks for the information. For the VPN connectivity, I should have VPN enabled router at both ends. Right? Presently, I think neither the USB Modem at home nor the DLink router at office has VPN capability. So I will try port forwarding until I can get my hands on a VPN router. I have created a free Dynamic DNS server address and configured it in my Dlink router. But It shows the DDNS update status as ‘No response’ error or ‘DDNS Client is disabled’ even after I enabled the DDNS Client. I also tried port forwarding using the current IP address (At a particular time, will the IP be constant even if the router is configured to use dynamic IP?) and tried to access the asterisk server from outside. It didn’t work. Hope I can have some help in Port Forwarding as it is possible with out any extra hardware in the system. Thank you.
hi
first A linux machine can also be used as a router .
1.put your modem in bridge mode
2. connect your modem directly to the centos machine for this you need to have two lan cards. one fot the public access and other for lan access
3. run the pppoe command in the centos machine , it will ask your pppoe username and password
4. run the ezipupdate (this is the dyndns updater client)in centos
5. convert your centos machice as dhcp server. and run dhcp in that
6. connect a lan switch to the other port of the centos machine. so that your workstation computer will get the ip and can access the internet
so now you can access your asterisk server using your dyndns account also your lan user can access through the lan ip
only problem in this setup is : HACKERS 
Do NOT do this if you do not know how to set up a very restrictive firewall on the Linux server!
Thanks again…
The DLink router has its own Firewall and it has been in the enabled state. Still I need to setup a Firewall in CentOS?
The CCTV set up in my company is having the DynDNS Updater Software installed in the Computer and I’m able to access those videos from anywhere else using the Internet. This computer (CCTV) is set up in the same way as every Computers are connected through the LAN via Switch and then to the Router. The CCTV Software (Eyespy) is listed among the Applications in the Port Forwarding setup of the DLink Router. Can the Asterisk Server Computer also be set up like that? I had even tried the Port Forwarding settings in the Router for the Asterisk Server. Is it necessary to install the DDNS Client Software in the Computer? If yes, what is the particular software for CentOS? Is there any other settings to be done in the router? I’ll provide if any other information is needed about my system. Thank you…
If you have DynDNS running on the CCTV, you have this covered. Now you have to open port UDP 5060 and range of UDP ports from 10 000 to 20 000 in the Port Forwarding on the router for the local IP address that is assigned to the Asterisk server.
But be warned, when you do this, you open the Asterisk to everybody on the internet. Tere are a lot of scripts on the web that are trying to brute force SIP Registrations on the Asterisk servers. So take the appropriate security measures when setting up the Asterisk server.
Thank you…that makes sense. Let me try…
Okay. Succeeded in establishing the calls. But, the Asterisk server is not able to hear the sound from the client computer. I have opened the UDP ports 10000 to 20000 as directed. What will be the problem?
Can I have some help in setting up a VPN Network? Is it necessary to have the VPN enabled router at both ends (Asterisk Server and the Client Computers)? I have seen the option ‘VPN’ under the ‘Category’ section of the Router’s ‘Port Forwarding’ setup. In the ‘Available Rules’ of ‘VPN’, both ‘IPSEC L2TP’ and ‘PPTP’ are listed. Does this mean that I can use it for setting up a VPN connection? Is this DLink Router having the VPN capability?
Thank you…
However, the poptop (PPTP) VPN is setup. But I’m not able to access the files of the CentOS system(server) from the Windows XP system(client) and vice versa. The VPN [WAN Miniport(PPTP)] status is shown as ‘Connected’. Is this enough for making calls through asterisk? How can I configure the Xlite softphone installed in the Windows XP system to register itslef with Asterisk in the CentOS system? ( Can I put the DDNS address of the Asterisk server in the ‘Domain’ section of the Xlite softphone?)…
Please help…
Since it is impossible for the guys on the forum to guess the right cause of your network problem, you are more or less on your own as network debugging is concerned. For using Asterisk via VPN connection all you need is a good communication path between the remote machine and Asterisk. And you do not check if a VPN connection is OK with file sharing, in most cases pinging the Asterisk server from remote machine is proof enough.
So my advice is - try pinging your Asterisk server when you are on remote site and connected to the server via VPN. As far as setting up a SoftPhone on a Windows XP there is tons of tutorials online, so just google it. It’s a very basic thing so you should not have a problem finding the information.
Thank you for your support. However, I could make calls through the VPN tunnel. But, I can only select the *.gsm files in the Xlite softphone to get the two way audio. Is there any known issue in the VPN connection like the ‘one-way audio problem over NAT’ in port forwarding? What about the band width required for the RTP protocols to travel smoothly across the tunnel? Please advise…
If my LAN network is connected to several other LAN networks at different locations through internet via VPN tunnels, can each single computer in the network have its own identity (IP address) in the whole network? IP address in the sense, the one as I got while the VPN connection was setup. This IP address is different from the one which is used to connect internet, but to be put in the Xlite softphone to access the Asterisk server connected via VPN tunnel. Sorry for disturbing you this much. I’m very thankful to you as I reached up to this step with your help…
With regards,
anupvg