Asterisk on OpenWRT

Update 2005-03-10: A new and more verbose version of this entry can be found at Asterisk on OpenWRT part 2.

The first thing I needed to do was install the OpenWRT firmware. I didn't take the time (or bandwidth) to compile it myself. I just used the snapshot for the gs version of OpenWRT (I have the GS hardware). There is a wonderful howto

here.

I actually first tried to turn the OpenWRT router into a simple bridge but ran into some problems being able to use the package tools as well as the WAN port on the machine. I ended up converting my entire network address space to handle the new router instead of using OpenWRT as a bridge (my internal IP addresses were the same as the routers external IP address... you can very well "route" with the same network on both sides of a router).

Once I got the machine setup and talking on the internet (and routing my traffic) I started the process of installing Asterisk.

The first thing I did was add the following line to my /etc/ipkg.conf file:
src local http://12.176.248.4/ipkg
src nico http://nthill.free.fr/openwrt/ipkg/stable
src nico-t http://nthill.free.fr/openwrt/ipkg/testing
src ab0oo http://www.wildcatwireless.net/wrt54g

The first "local" package line comes from Brian Capouch. He is really big into Asterisk and has created a OpenWRT package of the Asterisk-cvs branch. I used the cvs version for my install instead of the default "asterisk" package that comes from nthill.free.fr.

The second thing was to install 'asterisk-cvs' and 'asterisk-sounds' The package manager installs a few other packages that are needed for asterisk. There is the ability to install other modules for asterisk but I didn't/don't need them.

This is where the documentation for what I was doing was absent. I had never worked with asterisk let alone asterisk on openwrt. There were a few things I needed to change to the asterisk install to get it up and running. The first thing was to not load some of the modules that were not installed on the machine. I had to change/put the following in my /etc/asterisk/modules.conf file:

;
; Asterisk configuration file
;
; Module Loader configuration file
;

[modules]
autoload=yes
;
; If you want, load the GTK console right away.
; Don't load the KDE console since
; it's not as sophisticated right now.
;
noload => pbx_gtkconsole.so
;load => pbx_gtkconsole.so
noload => pbx_kdeconsole.so
noload => pbx_dundi.so
;
; Intercom application is obsoleted by
; chan_oss. Don't load it.
;
noload => app_intercom.so
;
; Explicitly load the chan_modem.so early on to be sure
; it loads before any of the chan_modem* 's afte rit
;
; load => chan_modem.so
noload => res_musiconhold.so
noload => chan_modem.so
noload => cdr_pgsql.so
noload => cdr_mysql.so
;
; Load either OSS or ALSA, not both
; By default, load OSS only (automatically) and do not load ALSA
;
noload => chan_alsa.so
;noload => chan_oss.so
;
; Module names listed in "global" section will have symbols globally
; exported to modules loaded after them.
;
[global]
; chan_modem.so=yes


After I got the modules all squared away, I needed to setup my IAX configuration to talk to SJC (so they could talk to me too). I edited the /etc/asterisk/iax.conf file to accomplish that. The next thing I did was to get my ATA 186 SIP phone talking to my new Asterisk server. That was really simple. I just needed to edit my /etc/asterisk/sip.conf file to talk to the ATA. Changing those two files doesn't do much for actually making calls. The next thing I had to do (and what took me all day) was to edit my /etc/asterisk/extenstions.conf file. With the help of the BC over my shoulder, I was able to get the asterisk server to use NuFone as well as have the on campus asterisk server to be able to dial my asterisk server which in turn rings my ATA.

There is so much more I want to get setup with that box but what does one do when they run a phone company?... I have that many possibilities!