In this chapter, we’ve discussed all manner of issues that can contribute to the stability and quality of an Asterisk installation. Before we scare you off, we should tell you that many people have installed Asterisk on top of a graphical Linux workstation—running a web server, a database, and who knows what else—with no problems whatsoever.^[41]How much time and effort you should devote to following the best practices and engineering tips in this chapter all depends on how much work you expect the Asterisk server to perform, and how much quality and reliability your system must provide. If you are experimenting with Asterisk, don’t worry too much; just be aware that any problems you have may not be the fault of the Asterisk system.

What we have attempted to do in this chapter is give you a feel for the kinds of best practices that will help to ensure that your Asterisk system will be built on a reliable, stable platform. Asterisk is quite willing to operate under far worse conditions, but the amount of effort and consideration you decide to give these matters will play a part in the stability of your PBX. Your decision should depend on how critical your Asterisk system will be.