Installing AsteriskNOW

Installation Walkthrough: 1. Download AsteriskNOW image from Asterisks website. 2. Burn image onto a CD (or create a bootable USB with it). 3. Boot into the installation CD or bootable USB. 4. Follow prompts. 5. Remove installation device and reboot system. You can acquire an image of AsteriskNOW on Asterisks web site (http://www.asterisk.org/downloads). After downloading the image, you must burn it to a CD or make a bootable USB using it. Alternatively, you can also opt to install it on a virtual machine like VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/) or VMware (http://www.vmware.com/). Installing it on a virtual machine can be handy if you lack hardware or just want to give it a try. After burning the image onto the CD (burn as image, NOT AS DATA!!), you must boot into the CD. To do this you must access your systems BIOS and set the 1st boot priority to CD instead of the Hard Drive. Or, other systems could allow you to select a boot device by pressing a certain key after the power on self test (POST). Please check your systems user manual on how to get this done. After booting into the CD, the following screen will appear

1. Select by entering 3 and Enter

Just choose whatever option you wish and press enter (for example press 3 then enter). The researchers chose AsteriskGUI over FreePBX since the former is developed by Digium. The researchers, however, are not saying that one is better than the other. Literature on the internet suggests that FreePBX does have certain features that Asterisk-GUI does not and vice-versa. 1|Page

After some loading sequences the next screen appears. This is the part wherein you setup the hard disks partitioning. You are given four options: To remove all partions in certain drives and create default layout, To remove all linux partions in certain drives and create default layout, To use free space on selected drives and create default layout, and to create a custom layout. The researchers used the first option (To remove all partions in certain drives and create default layout) since they did not intend to have any other partitions on the hard drive other than AsteriskNOW. Advanced users (those familiar with linux) can opt for the custom layout depending on their needs.

3. Click Next

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After setting up the partitioning scheme, you must set up your system time settings. You could either use the drop down menu and select your time zone or just click on your country on the map.

4. Click and select Asia/Manila

5. Click Next

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The next screen that appears is the one wherein you must set your root accounts password. The password you choose should be at least six characters long. It must also be as secure as possible. AsteriskNOWs default or rather only user is root.
6. Enter Root Password and Confirm

7. Click Next

In linux, the root account has access to anything and control over everything. It could be compared to an Administrator account in Windows. Knowing this, a user must also be careful in entering commands (especially ones that could mess up the system if used improperly) since the system will not restrain you from doing anything since you already have the highest privilege.

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Afterwards, the file system will be formatted to prepare it for the installation of AsteriskNOW.

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After transferring and installing the image to the hard drive, other necessary packages are installed.

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After everythings done, just remove the installation CD or USB device then reboot the system.

8. Click Reboot

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Setting up and Configuring AsteriskNOW

Setting Up the Server: After installing AsteriskNOW, you will be presented with this boot loader everytime you power on your system. If you have another operating system on another partition, be sure to hit any key before the time runs out. Otherwise, you would have to reboot your system and access the loader to be able to switch to the other operating system.

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Setup Agent
During first use after loading everything necessary, you will be taken to the Setup Agent wherein you can easily configure certain settings like Network, Firewall, and Authentication settings. For those who are new to linux, the Setup Agent provides an easy way to make changes on some of the systems settings. AsteriskNOW usually uses DHCP to obtain an IP address. However, this could be changed to a static address using the Setup Agent or using the command line.

9. Select Network configuration by Keypad Arrow UP/DOWN and ENTER to configure the servers IP address

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10. Select Edit Devices and pressEnter

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11. Select the appropriate device and press Enter **in case of multiple NICs

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Assign the server to a Static IP address or use DHCP

To be able to access the Asterisk-GUI, a user must access the servers IP address (at port 8088) from a remote host (or locally if a desktop environment is installed on the server). Also, each device that would be part of the VoIP implementation will be configured to access the server through its address. Knowing these two things, it would be a good practice to configure the server with a static IP address. For beginners, it would be easy to do this using the Setup Agent. If you should still opt to use DHCP, the servers IP would be shown at the top of the screen (as seen in the next screenshot). If that message was cleared, you can also use the command ifconfig (without the quotes) to find out the servers IP address. 12 | P a g e

The default username would be root (without the quotes) and the password would be the one you entered during installation.

AsteriskNOW does not come with a graphical user interface (GUI). Everything is done through and Enter 4. Slect Edit Devices the command-line. The closest thing to a GUI would be the Setup Agent that could be accessed by entering the command setup (without the quotes). On succeeding reboots, you will not be directed to the setup agent but instead be presented with a login prompt.

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After logging in, the prompt will be like this.

Notes: After logging in, it is necessary to update AsteriskNOW and CentOS. To do this you need to enter the command yum update (without the quotes) to just update packages and/or yum upgrade (without the quotes) to update packages and remove obsolete ones while replacing them with newer ones. Sometimes bugs can be overcome by upgrading packages to a newer version. To access the Setup Agent anytime, the command is setup (without the quotes). To install a desktop environment, particularly GNOME, you could use the command yum groupinstall "X Window System" "GNOME Desktop Environment" (without the quotes in black). You should also take note of the capitalization with this command. To start the GUI you need to issue the command startx (without the quotes). The yum commands used all require internet connection. You can of course download the rpms or packages manually. However, using yum with the internet would save you the trouble with dealing with missing or unmet dependencies that are required on installation of some programs. 14 | P a g e