Tag: Asterisk

Categories
Case Studies

Restaurant Booking Solution.

We have been working with a client on a Hosted restaurant booking solution, providing the CTI and call tracking systems. This was complicated by the simple fact that the booking system was a closed system by another supplier.

The system works by the restaurant diverting their line to a DDI number we provide that sends the call to the system with the destination matching a defined number for that restaurant when the call enters the system the relevant settings are looked up in a database and audio message file, IVR options and CallerID name are set and the call is passed to the IVR. The caller then chooses their preferred option, The call can be depending of the time of day be passed to the call centre for a booking to be taken on the restaurants behalf or the call is passed to the restaurant where in many a Hosted Gigaset Dect handset is provided for them to take the booking or call the call centre for free.

The system has changed and evolved over time and by using Asterisk has meant that we can accommodate most requests for changes, Most recently we updated the statistics package to Asternic Pro

Asternic stats
Pro stats

Statistics. This has allowed much more detailed reports to be created for queues and agents.

The calls are delivered to the platform over a EFM circuit from Gradwell.net providing quality and reliability combined with increased capacity over the original ISDN30 circuit.

For disaster recovery we provide a backup system in a data-centre that is kept in sync with the office system so in the case of power outage or system failure calls can be diverted to this system and calls take on mobile phones. Switching to back-up system is completed by the single click of a button on a web-page that instigates the diversion of the lines and starts the backup system automatically.

Currently we are migrating the database services off to a separate VMware server with 3 VMs, one for each of the core web or mysql servers. This will allow the service to scale as there are now over 1 million records per datatbase and it is showing no sign of slowing.

Categories
Knowledge Base

Digium G100/200 Gateways and UK CallerID Number

The current firmware in the Digium G series gateways have a quirk that if they don’t receive caller ID name they move the caller Id number to be the Caller Id name but don’t leave the Caller Id number in place. The relies on you setting  “trustrpid=yes” in teh sip trunk configuration.

We have produced a short document on settings for using the gateway with any freePBX based asterisk solution. It can be downloaded here

 

Categories
Case Studies

Elastix solution for a Bristol IT company

We were recently approached by a Bristol IT company to replace their ageing Avaya system. The proposed solution was an Elastix 2.3 solution running on Vmware 5.1, with their ISDN30e line connected via a Digium G100 gateway.

A key requirement was the ability to recharge usage to tenants in the building and replace an aging and expensive Oak call logger, This was simple with the Elastix solution as this option is included free of charge in the system and just required the uploading of a rates table.

The customer decided on Yealink T28 handsets for the office, utilising the BLF to have visibility of who is engaged on calls.

Categories
Case Studies

Outdoor pursuits company.

We were approached to supply  a hosted PBX solution to a Southwest England based Outdoor pursuits company replacing their on site AsteriskNow system with a more manageable and streamlined hosted Elastix based solution.

This gave them the ability to have handsets located where ever they were needed and add handsets easily with the user friendly Elastix interface. It also gave them increased viability of call usage with the inbuilt reporting and FOP2 let them see users engaged on calls.

We ported their existing BT Analogue lines to Gradwell VoIP trunks, This gave them an immediate increase in call capacity and combined with inclusive landline and mobile call packages meant call costs were kept under control.

Categories
Handsets

Snom Handsets

We Supply the full Snom range of handsets and feel that they provide both solid reliable business handsets to  touch-screen handsets that integrate with door-entry systems and much more.

 

 

For full details of handset features click on the handsets image

 

 

Snom 710 £80 inc PSU
Snom 720 £145
Snom 870 £165
Snom 821 £190
Categories
Case Studies

Xorcom Solution for Kensington Office

An existing client was moving offices from Carnaby St London to Kensington, Since the original system was installed the usage had changed with the majority of staff now being based in South Africa where we also have remotely installed an Asterisk solution previously.

For the new kensington office it was decided to use a Xorcom IPBX as this single box solution would make management easier and as ISDN2 Lines were required the overall cost would be lower than using a dedicated server and ISDN2 gateway.

xr2000-analog-250

The system was preconfigured and tested in our Lab and then taken to site and installed in one day. The clean interface allows for easy addition of handsets using the endpoint manager.

Since the company make a large volume of international calls it was decided to use Gradwell for outgoing calls as this means a great saving over BT for call charges. They also had a EFM circuit installed for both Voice and office internet usage.

Categories
Handsets

Gigaset Handsets

All the Gigaset DECT bases and handsets we sell are compatible with each other, but some handsets may only offer basic or limited compatability find out more information contact us

 

 

For full details of handset features click on the handsets image

 

Categories
Knowledge Base

Trusting Linux servers

This hopes to explain in simple steps setting up a pair (or more) servers as a trusted group.
So what do we want to achieve ? Well we wnat to be able to ssh, sftp, rsync etc between servers and not need to enter passwords
Steps required
1 Hosts File
2 Editing sshd_config
3 Create the ssh keys
4 Setting up the Auth. users file
Hosts File

Firstly we need to make sure all servers are in the hosts file
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 asterisk2.local
# We point to eth0 on our own box
192.168.10.100 asterisk2.local
192.168.10.100 asterisk2
# We point to eth1 on the other box
192.168.10.108 asterisk1

Editing sshd_config

Now we need to edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file
so that the following

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

replaces

#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

Now restart the sshd
/etc/init.d/sshd restart

Create the ssh keys

We now need to create the keys on each server
ssh-keygen -t rsa
and hit return for all the questions.
this will create 2 files in /root/.ssh

go the /root/.ssh directory and copy the id_rsa.pub to the other server and get its id_rsa.pub

sftp asterisk1

put id_rsa.pub asterisk2.pub
get id_rsa.pub asterisk1.pub
bye

Setting up the Auth. users file

In the /root/.ssh directory you will now have for example :-

asterisk1.pub id_rsa id_rsa.pub known_hosts

We now need to copy the asterisk1.pub to the authorized_keys file

cat asterisk1.pub >> authorized_keys

Do the same on the other server.

You should now be able to ssh and rsync between servers.

Categories
Gateways

Xorcom Astribank

Astribank is a versatile and powerful channel bank that was specifically designed for the Asterisk IP-PBX. Astribank supports all the common telephony lines and trunks: FXS, FXO, BRI, E1/T1 PRI, T1 CAS and E1 R2. The Astribank driver is a part of the standard Asterisk distribution.

DataSheet

Categories
Knowledge Base

Sip debugging with wireshark

Wireshark and Cloudshark are invaluable tools for debugging sip and iax issues on your Asterisk server.

Here we have a short Video that goes over the basics of getting a call captured and opened in Cloudshark

we also have a short tutorial for download here in PDF format

First we need to get the packets we want. This is far simpler than its thought. We use a simple command line tool called tcpdump, if its not installed install it now, You wont be able to live without it.

Here we have 2 commands, The first captures packets on interface eth0, -n means we won’t convert addresses, -w means we just capture raw packets and udp means its only the udp packets we want and finally port 5060 means its only the sip messaging we want. In the second we dont specify port 5060 so that we get the rtp stream as well.

/usr/sbin/tcpdump -n -i eth0 -w /tmp/wireshark.pcap -s2000 udp port 5060
 /usr/sbin/tcpdump -n -i eth0 -w /tmp/wireshark.pcap -s2000 udp
screen -S "udpDump" -dm tcpdump -n -i eth0 -C 9 -W 15 -w /var/log/asterisk/dumpsip.pcap -s2000 udp port 5060

The command above will write to file in the background and will rotate at 9 meg so suitable for cloudshark

Once you have started the capture and made a call as required you will get a file called for example /tmp/wireshark.pcap copy this to your workstation via ftp or sftp as you would copy any file.