Introduction to VoIP with Asterisk Labs

Start the Debian Linux non-graphical installer

Choose the appropriate language, country, and keymap

Set the hostname of the system to podX-asterisk where X is replaced by your pod ID letter.

Set the domain name to podX.local where X is replaced by your pod ID letter.

Set the root password to something you will not forget. It is suggested you write it down and/or use the password itc2300#voip

Create a new user with a username of your choice and password of your choice which you will not forget. Write these down somewhere.

Select the correct timezone

Use guided partitioning entire disk with all files in one partition and write the changes to disk to begin the installation

There is no extra installation media for you to scan

Select the US Debian Archive mirror deb.debian.org from the list with no HTTP proxy

Choose whether you want to participate in the package usage survey, for our purposes either choice is just fine.

On the software selection screen unselect "Debian desktop environment" and "GNOME" and make sure that "SSH server" and "Standard system utilities" are the only two selected options.

Choose Yes that you want to install GRUB on your primary drive which is /dev/sda.

Choose Continue to reboot into your new installation of Debian

Log in with the username root and password you set.

Log in to your Debian server with the username root and password you set if you are not already logged in.

Update the package manager with the latest software lists on your Debian server by running apt update

Install the sudo package with apt install sudo

Add your user to the sudo group with a command like adduser YOURUSERNAMEHERE sudo

Install the asterisk and tftpd-hpa packages in a similar manner to how you installed sudo.

Download the chan-sccp plugin to your Debian system like wget https://info.ihitc.net/franske-courses/current/itc-2300/_attachments/chan-sccp_4.3.4-1_amd64.deb

Install the gettext package which is required by chan-sccp

Install chap-sccp with dpkg -i chan-sccp_4.3.4-1_amd64.deb

Edit the /etc/asterisk/modules.conf file and disable loading of chan_skinny.so and enable loading of chan_sccp.so

Restart the Asterisk software to change the loaded modules. This can be done with the systemctl restart asterisk command.

Set the IP address on your Debian server’s outside ens192 interface to the static address for your pod indicated in the table at the top of this lab. These changes should be made in your /etc/network/interfaces file.

Set the IP address on your Debian server’s inside ens224 interface to the static address indicated at the top of this lab. Note that all pods use the same IP address on the inside interface and do not need a gateway or DNS server on this interface. These changes should be made in your /etc/network/interfaces file.

Apply the new network addresses by rebooting your server then verify it is set correctly by using the ip address show command and ping google.com

This is about all you can reasonably do from off campus. Be sure to safely shutdown your Linux server with the shutdown -h now command. Otherwise you can continue on but be sure to safely shutdown your system every time before your reservation ends or you may corrupt the data on your system and need to start over.

In order to connect your IP phones to your Asterisk server you will need to setup a LAN with a router and switch.

Use the sample switch and router configurations (need to be modified with correct IP addressing for your pod) to configure the router as a NAT device and DHCP server for your pod LAN.

Connect port Fa0/0 on your pod router to an available port on the B144 ITCnet classroom switch.

Connect for Fa0/1 on your pod router to port Gi1/0/24 on your pod switch.

Connect for port Gi1/0/23 on your pod switch to the correct port on the classroom switch identified in the table at the top of the lab. This connection will make a layer 2 connection from your Asterisk server’s ens224 interface to your internal pod network (the 192.168.10.0/24 subnet).

Sign in to a second PC in the classroom. After you have successfully signed in connect that PC to port Gi1/0/1 on your pod switch.

Because of our NAT and DHCP setup on the router even after connecting to the pod LAN the second PC should still have working Internet access. It should also be able to now ping both the inside and outside IP addresses of your pod’s Asterisk server and access the server using PuTTY (SSH) and Filezilla (SCP).

Create a file XMLDefault.cnf.xml on your lab PC following the template and instructions here and transfer it to the /srv/tftp/XMLDefault.cnf.xml location on your Asterisk server. The transfer can be done using the Filezilla software which will allow you to create and edit the file in Notepad on your lab PC first.

Open the Asterisk console on your Debian system asterisk -rvvvvvc

Connect two Cisco IP phones to ports Gi1/0/2 & Gi1/0/3 of your switch

After the phones boot and attempt to connect to your Asterisk server (you should see notifications of this in your Asterisk console window) use the sccp show devices Asterisk CLI command to see a list of the phones.

Configure your two IP phones in the SCCP configuration file see the example sccp.conf file.

Setup one line button on each phone with an extension number for your pod (xx01 and xx02) based on the chart at the beginning of this lab. Assign these lines to the default context.

Connect to the Asterisk CLI and issue the reload command

Verify you can successfully place a call to extension 1000 from the phones. This is a pre-built demo extension.

Modify your extensions.conf file to add the two phone extensions and allow calling between phones

Test calling between phones

Safely shutdown your Debian system, erase your switch/router configuration, and put away all equipment and cables. Be sure to note which phones you have so that next week you’ll be able to get the same two phones.