Book Image

Asterisk 1.6

Book Image

Asterisk 1.6

Overview of this book

Asterisk is a powerful and flexible open source framework for building feature-rich telephony systems. As a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) which connects one or more telephones, and usually connects to one or more telephone lines, Asterisk offers very advanced features, including extension-to-extension calls, queues, ring groups, line trunking, call distribution, call detail rerecords, and call recording. This book will show you how to build a telephony system for your home or business using this open source application. 'Asterisk 1.6' takes you step-by-step through the process of installing and configuring Asterisk. It covers everything from establishing your deployment plan to creating a fully functional PBX solution. Through this book you will learn how to connect employees from all over the world as well as streamline your callers through Auto Attendants (IVR) and Ring Groups.This book is all you need to understand and use Asterisk to build the telephony system that meets your need. You will learn how to use the many features that Asterisk provides you with. It presents example configurations for using Asterisk in three different scenarios: for small and home offices, small businesses, and Hosted PBX. Over the course of ten chapters, this book introduces you to topics as diverse as Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN), Voice over IP Connections (SIP / IAX), DAHDI, libpri, through to advanced call distribution, automated attendants, FreePBX, and asterCRM. With an engaging style and excellent way of presenting information, this book makes a complicated subject very easy to understand.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Asterisk 1.6
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
Preface

Chapter 10. Maintenance and Security

Now that we have an Asterisk server installed and running, we should consider the maintenance and security of the server. There are a number of aspects involved here and we will cover each in turn. As the Asterisk server is going to be the central hub of our phone system, the importance of securing and maintaining it is obvious, as without it we lose our primary means of communication.

This chapter also looks at scalability issues, which are important to keep Asterisk running at high loads. Finally, the last section takes a look at how to get support from the community, and how to stay abreast of Asterisk developments. Keeping up with what's going on in the Asterisk world can be a very useful way to stay prepared for potential problems before they happen, as well as providing a helping hand should things go wrong.

Backup and system maintenance

One of the most important aspects of maintaining a system is the update or patch management process. It's vital...