Organization

The book is organized into these chapters:

Chapter 1, A Telephony Revolution

This is where we chop up the kindling and light the fire. Asterisk is going to change the world of telecom, and this is where we discuss our reasons for that belief.

Chapter 2, Preparing a System for Asterisk

Covers some of the engineering considerations you should have in mind when designing a telecommunications system. Much of this material can be skipped if you want to get right to installing, but these are important concepts to understand, should you ever plan on putting an Asterisk system into production.

Chapter 3, Installing Asterisk

Covers the obtaining, compiling, and installation of Asterisk.

Chapter 4, Initial Configuration of Asterisk

Describes the initial configuration of Asterisk. Here we will cover the important configuration files that must exist to define the channels and features available to your system.

Chapter 5, Dialplan Basics

Introduces the heart of Asterisk, the dialplan.

Chapter 6, More Dialplan Concepts

Goes over some more advanced dialplan concepts.

Chapter 7, Understanding Telephony

Taking a break from Asterisk, this chapter discusses some of the more important technologies in use in the Public Telephone Network.

Chapter 8, Protocols for VoIP

Following the discussion of legacy telephony, this chapter discusses Voice over Internet Protocol.

Chapter 9, The Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI)

Introduces one of the more amazing components, the Asterisk Gateway Interface. Using Perl, PHP, and Python, we demonstrate how external programs can be used to add nearly limitless functionality to your PBX.

Chapter 10, Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI) and Adhearsion

Describes how external applications can connect to Asterisk to manipulate or monitor various aspects of the system. Also included in this chapter is a gentle introduction to the Adhearsion framework.

Chapter 11, The Asterisk GUI Framework

The Asterisk GUI Framework, new in Asterisk 1.4, is a framework system that allows web developers to create graphical interfaces with minimal interference to the standard configuration files.

Chapter 12, Relational Database Integration

Walks you through setting up Asterisk to work with ODBC databases.

Chapter 13, Managing Your Asterisk System

Discusses issues regarding how to best manage your Asterisk phone system, including CDR, logs, and prompts.

Chapter 14, Potpourri

Briefly covers what is, in fact, a rich and varied cornucopia of incredible features and functions—all part of the Asterisk phenomenon.

Chapter 15, Asterisk: The Future of Telephony

Predicts a future where open source telephony completely transforms an industry desperately in need of a revolution.

Appendix A, VoIP Channels, VoIP Channels

Appendix B, Application Reference, Application Reference

Appendix C, AGI Reference, AGI Reference

Appendix D, Configuration Files, Configuration Files

Appendix E, Asterisk Dialplan Functions, Asterisk Dialplan Functions

Appendix F, Asterisk Manager Interface Actions, Asterisk Manager Interface Actions

Appendix G, An Example of func_odbc, An Example of func_odbc