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well-known Asterisk-based projects. These projects take the base Asterisk product |
and add a web-based administration interface, a complex database, and external func‐ |
tions that are useful in a typical PBX (such as set provisioning, a time server, and so |
forth). |
We have chosen not to cover these projects in this book, for several reasons: |
• This book tries, as much as possible, to focus on Asterisk and only Asterisk. |
• Books have already been written about many of these Asterisk-based projects. |
• We believe that if you learn Asterisk in the way that we will teach you, the knowl‐ |
edge will serve you well regardless of whether or not you eventually choose to use |
one of these prepackaged versions of Asterisk. |
• If you want to be able to make sense of what’s going on under the hood of a |
FreePBX-based system, this book will introduce you to some of the skills you will |
need. |
• For us, the power of Asterisk is that it does not attempt to solve your problems |
for you. These projects are truly amazing examples of what can be built with |
Asterisk. However, if you are looking to build your own Asterisk application |
(which is really what Asterisk is all about), these projects might create needless |
obstacles, simply because they are focused on simplifying the process of building |
a business PBX, not on making it possible to access the full potential of the Aster‐ |
isk platform. |
Installing Asterisk |
| |
25 |
Some of the most popular Asterisk-based projects include (in no particular order): |
AsteriskNOW |
Managed by Digium. Uses FreePBX GUI. |
Issabel |
A fork of the original open source releases of the Elastix product.4 Uses FreePBX |
GUI. |
The Official FreePBX Distro |
The official distro of the FreePBX project. Managed by Sangoma. |
Asterisk for Raspberry Pi |
A complete install of Asterisk and FreePBX for the Raspberry Pi. |
AstLinux |
The AstLinux project caters to a community that want to run Asterisk on small, |
low-power, solid-state devices. The install size of the entire solution is measured |
in megabytes (AstLinux was originally designed to fit on CompactFlash cards). If |
you are fascinated by small computers, and want to play with a PBX-in-a-box |
that fits in your pocket, AstLinux may be for you. |
We recommend that you check them out.5 |
Linux Installation |
Asterisk is developed using Linux, and unless you’re very comfortable with porting |
software between various platforms, that is what you’re going to want to use. |
In this book, we’re going to use CentOS as the platform. If you would prefer a differ‐ |
ent Linux distro, it is expected that you have sufficient Linux skills to understand |
what some of the differences may be. These days, it’s so easy and cheap to fire up an |
instance of any common distribution that there’s no real harm in using CentOS to |
learn, and then migrate to whatever you prefer when you’re ready. |
We recommend installing the Minimal version of CentOS, since the installation pro‐ |
cess we will be going through handles all the prerequisites. This also ensures you’re |
not installing anything you don’t need. |
4 Elastix is no longer an Asterisk-based or open source product. |
5 After you read our book, of course. |
26 |
| |
Chapter 3: Installing Asterisk |
Choosing Your Platform |
OK, so strictly speaking we’ve already chosen your platform for you, but there are |
several different ways to get a CentOS server up and running (see Table 3-1). |
Table 3-1. Comparing Linux platforms that are suitable for Asterisk |
Platform |
OpenStack (DigitalOcean, |
Linode, VULTR, etc.) |
VirtualBox (or other PC- |
based platform) |
AWS and/or Lightsail |
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