Monitor Asterisk with Logwatch

Mark Berry February 18, 2012

How can I be notified when Asterisk reports issues in its logs, e.g. if a connection is lagged? One way is to include the Asterisk logs in the logs that are monitored by Linux’s daily logwatch.

Linksys SPA942 Busy Lamp Field with PiaF

Mark Berry November 15, 2011

A client has an old PBX in a Flash 1.3 installation running Asterisk 1.4.21.2. I’ve upgraded their Linksys SPA942 phones to the latest firmware, version 6.1.5(a). Can we get Busy Lamp Field (BLF) functionality to work on the empty line keys?

Get Asterisk to Use the G.729a Codec

Mark Berry November 4, 2011

I’m using Asterisk 1.8.5 under FreePBX 2.8.1.4. My endpoints (Polycom IP430 phone, SPA3102 ATA) and my ITSP all support the G.729a codec. I wanted to test audio quality using this compressed codec.

Keeping Asterisk Traffic Inside the VPN

Mark Berry January 9, 2009

No DTMF

I’m setting up a new PBX in a Flash (PiaF) machine running Asterisk 1.4.21.2. I’m testing it by calling in with SJPhone across a VPN (the PiaF machine is at a client site). When I dial 7777, I get my top-level IVR, but when I press a number, nothing happens. If I dial into a voicemail box, the * and # keys have no effect. It seems PiaF is not hearing my DTMF tones at all.

Unexpected Public Traffic

Moving PBX in a Flash from a Virtual to a Physical Machine

Mark Berry November 24, 2008

After running PBX in a Flash (PiaF) in a virtual machine for a few days, I had a couple issues:

The system would generate an occasional message “TSC appears to be running slowly. Marking it as unstable.” This issue did not keep the PBX from running.

Voice quality was sometimes jittery. In a call, it would sometimes “cut out” (like a bad cell connection). In voicemail, even listening to the pre-recorded prompts, there was frequently some garbled-sounding audio.

Getting Asterisk to Bridge Audio

Mark Berry November 22, 2008

In my original PBX in a Flash setup, Asterisk is set to “listen in” on calls. One advantage of this is that it can then respond to commands sent from a phone keypad during the call, e.g. to transfer or record the call. However, it does add processing overhead. If your devices support it, you can tell Asterisk to butt out of your conversations, allowing connections to “bridge” directly between endpoints and avoid going through Asterisk. Here’s how.