Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Did you notice the last line ends in
*CLI>
? This is the prompt for the Asterisk command-
line interface (CLI), and it is the primary tool for interacting with the Asterisk system
and debugging within Asterisk. Before going any futher, here are a few commands to
help you feel comfortable.
To see how long Asterisk has been running, type:
*CLI> core show uptime
hockey*CLI> core show uptime
System uptime: 55 seconds
Last reload: 55 seconds
Most commands in the Asterisk CLI follow the “subsection-verb-details” model,
where the first word of the command tells which part of the system you want to interact
with (
core
in this case, which is a verb to tell Asterisk what you'd like to do:
show
), and
then any other details the system needs to know in order to perform the action.
To stop Asterisk immediately, type:
*CLI> core stop now
You can also use
core stop when convenient
to have Asterisk stop the next time there
are no active calls on the system, or
core stop gracefully
to reject any new calls, and
then shut down the system when the call volume reaches zero. Don't shut down As-
terisk just yet (unless you'd like to practice stopping it and starting it again just to get
a feel for it).
The Asterisk CLI also has built-in help (type
help
at the CLI) and tab-completion. For
an example, type
help
and then press the TAB key twice before
--
, and you'll see that
the Asterisk CLI shows you all the possibile commands that begin with “help.”
Setting Up a Softphone
There are three steps to setting up a softphone with Asterisk. The first is to configure
an account within Asterisk for the phone to connect to. Second, you'll need to con-
figure the softphone itself to connect to Asterisk. And finally, you'll need to set up a
list of instructions (called a
dialing plan
or
dialplan
) that Asterisk should follow when
a particular extension is dialed.
Configure an SIP account
To set up an account for the softphone, you'll first need to find the configuration file
for the type of connection you'll be using. Asterisk speaks a number of different voice
over IP protocols, but the most popular one is SIP, so that's what this example will use.
