IP-PBX users?

[Philip Prindeville]

> On Jan 10, 2022, at 10:17 PM, Bruce Ferrell <bferrell at baywinds.org> wrote:
> 
> On 1/10/22 8:08 PM, Philip Prindeville wrote:
>>> On Jan 7, 2022, at 7:49 AM, Torsten Duwe <duwe at lst.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Wed, 5 Jan 2022 17:09:19 -0700
>>> Philip Prindeville <philipp_subx at redfish-solutions.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Anyone have documentation on getting started?
>>>> Or strong arguments to use Freeswitch over Asterisk or vice versa?
>>> My personal impression is that the mature Asterisk is good at combining
>>> POTS with VoIP, with very limited support for video, whereas the rather
>>> new FreeSwitch focuses on VoIP, has some ambitions towards video
>>> conferencing (Big Blue Button prefers it, FWIW), and seems to have
>>> limited support for POTS.
>>> 
>>> Around 2019 I had to switch from Asterisk to FreeSwitch because Deutsche
>>> Telekom is rather picky about their DNS setup; you must use their SRV
>>> records, otherwise phone service will fail in an obscure way,
>>> occasionally. Only FreeSwitch was able to do the proper DNS SRV lookup.
>>> I also found that it handles the forced DSL disconnects very gracefully.
>>> 
>>> FreeSwitch is being quite actively developed, and documentation (mostly
>>> the wiki) lags behind, more or less, so RTFS was inevitable back then.
>>> 
>>> 	Torsten
>> 
>> Bruce & Torsten: what packages/resources/functions, etc. do you enable in Asterisk?  There's a bazillion of them...
>> 
>> And which ones to stay away from because of their potential security exposure?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> -Philip
> 
> Oh gawd! what an open question.
> 
> To answer that I'd need to know what your needs are.


For now I just have my phone service through my ISP's soft-switch via SIP, with 3 lines, and I do find-me/follow-me to my cell phone if I don't pick up my desk phone.

At some point, I'd like to integrate some IPTV cameras into the system so I could dial in and check home/office security from the road.

Or maybe use a Grandstream video conference phone for checking in with the kids when I'm at work (they don't have iPhones or I'd just FaceTime them).

I'm in the US, so I'd like to have STIR/SHAKEN, too...


> 
> For me, SIP (via pj_sip.  I think it's needlessly complex, but it's mainline now) and WebRT (video) are my primary needs.  I used to work for the company that bought the OpenH323 project so I keep it on for old times sake.


There are a lot of SIP stacks out there, aren't there?  Including Opal... don't know which one is the most actively developed and/or feature-rich, or standards compliant...


> 
> I turn on all of the mods_, all of the res_ and most of the codecs (I skip g729... It costs money and bandwidth isn't quite the issue it was once) but tailor your codecs to the devices you have or plan to have.  Usually G711 is a good bet just in general.  Make sure you enable the modules that enable dial plan macros and any kind of dial plan "programming.  They're just too useful.


Yeah, I like being able to have high-fidelity audio...

Hmm...  I'll to port my dial plan from 1.8.6...  Might need to consult you on that.  Maybe also how to best configure the handsets to deal with being behind a NATting firewall/PBX.  Which technique works best?


> 
> you don't have to configure them all, but if you don't build them and want them, they you get to go back and do the build again.  I dislike that.


I can send you my current .config.  It might be bloated... but my box doesn't lack disk or RAM... or CPU.


> 
> I'm not at all fond of the ODBC database drivers, but sometimes...


Useful for keeping blacklists, etc.

Actually, I might populate a "break-through" list of people that can call me after hours, and send everyone else to voice mail during "do not disturb" time.

-Philip


> 
> And I always build the MySQL Integration.
> 
> 'nuff o' that!