Datasets:
Squidnutz
/
extractedtest

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
152
into an Asterisk dialplan on a system that you’ve built from scratch.
People get this funny grin on their faces as they realize that they
have just created a telephone system. This pleasure can be yours as
well, so please, don’t go any further until you have made this little
bit of dialplan work. If you have any problems, get back to Chap‐
ter 5 and work through the examples there.
If you don’t have this dialplan code built yet, you’ll need to add it and reload the
dialplan with this CLI command:
$ sudo asterisk -rvvvvv # ('r' attaches to a daemonized Asterisk; 'v's are for verbosity)
*CLI> dialplan reload
or you can issue the command directly from the shell with:
$ sudo asterisk -rx "dialplan reload" # ('rx' execute an Asterisk command and return)
Calling extension 200 from either of your configured phones7 should reward you
with the friendly voice of Allison Smith saying “Hello, World.”
If it doesn’t work, check the Asterisk console for error messages, and make sure your
channels are assigned to the sets context.
We do not recommend that you move forward in this book until
you have verified the following:
1. Calls between extension 100 and 101 are working.
2. Calling extension 200 plays “Hello World.”
7 If you haven’t configured two phones yet, please consider heading back to Chapter 5 and getting a couple of
phones set up so you can play with them. You can get away with only one phone for testing, but really two is
ideal. There are lots of free softphones available, and some of them are rather good.
88
|
Chapter 6: Dialplan Basics
Even though this example is very short and simple, it emphasizes the core dialplan
concepts of contexts, extensions, priorities, and applications. You now have the fun‐
damental knowledge on which all dialplans are built.
As you build out a dialplan, it will be helpful to have the Asterisk CLI open in a new
window. You will be reloading the dialplan often, and while testing your call flow, you
will want to see what is happening, as it happens. The Asterisk CLI is useful for both
of those things.
$ sudo asterisk -rvvvvv
*CLI> dialplan reload # this Asterisk CLI command reloads the dialplan
Best practice, then, would be to edit in one window, and to reload and debug in
another.
Building an Interactive Dialplan
The dialplan we just built was static; it will always perform the same actions on every
call. Many dialplans will also need logic to perform different actions based on input
from the user, so let’s take a look at that now.
The Goto(), Background(), and WaitExten() Applications
As its name implies, the Goto() application is used to send a call to another part of
the dialplan. Goto() requires us to pass the destination context, extension, and prior‐
ity as arguments, like this:
same => n,Goto(context,extension,priority)
We’re going to create a new context called TestMenu, and create an extension in our
sets context that will pass calls to that context using Goto():
exten => 200,1,Answer()
same => n,Playback(hello-world)
same => n,Hangup()
exten => 201,1,Goto(TestMenu,start,1) ; add this to the end of the
; [sets] context
[TestMenu]
exten => start,1,Answer()
Now, whenever a device enters the [sets] context and dials 201, the call will be
passed to the start extension in the TestMenu context (which currently won’t do any‐
thing interesting because we still have more code to write).
Building an Interactive Dialplan
|
89
We used the extension start in this example, but we could have
used anything we wanted as an extension name, either numeric or
alpha. We prefer to use alpha characters for extensions that are not
directly dialable, as this makes the dialplan easier to read. Point
being, we could have named our target extension 123 or xyz321, or
99luftballons, or whatever we wanted instead of start. The word
start doesn’t mean anything special to the dialplan; it’s simply the
name of an extension.