The book is organized into these chapters:
This is where we chop up the kindling and light the fire. Welcome to Asterisk!
Describes some initial configuration tasks for your new Asterisk system. This chapter goes over some of the configuration files required for all Asterisk installations.
Provides guidance on configuring Asterisk to allow devices such as telephones to connect and make calls.
Discusses how to configure Asterisk to connect to other systems, such as other Asterisk servers, Internet telephony service providers, or the plain old telephone network.
Covers the usage of one of the most popular applications included with Asterisk, the voicemail system.
Focuses on issues that an Asterisk administrator should be aware of when deploying a system outside of North America.
Describes the usage of two popular telephony features included with Asterisk, call parking and paging.
Covers techniques for routing calls between different administrative domains on the Internet.
Introduces the concept of device states and how they can be used as presence indicators.
Covers how to build a menuing system using the Asterisk dialplan.
Discusses various ways that Asterisk can be integrated with a database.
Goes over how Asterisk can be used to build applications that act on input provided by a caller.
Provides instructions on how to connect to external services including LDAP, calendars, IMAP for voicemail, XMPP, Skype, and text-to-speech.
Discusses the various options for integrating sending and receiving faxes with an Asterisk system.
Introduces a network API for monitoring and controlling an Asterisk system.
Introduces the Asterisk API that allows call control to be implemented in any programming language.
Discusses a number of approaches for clustering multiple Asterisk servers together once the demands of a deployment exceed the capabilities of a single server.
Covers a peer-to-peer protocol native to Asterisk that can be used for call routing.
Introduces some of the interfaces available for logging and monitoring an Asterisk system.
A survey of some of the web interfaces that complement an Asterisk installation.
Discusses some common security issues that Asterisk administrators should be aware of.
In conclusion, we discuss some of the things we expect to see from open source telephony in the near future.
Explores the technologies in use in traditional telecom networks. This used to be a chapter in old versions of this book. Although not directly relevant to Asterisk we felt that it might still be useful to some readers, so we’ve left it in the book as an appendix.
Delves into all the particularities of Voice over IP. This was also a chapter in old versions of this book.
Contains information you should be aware of and take into consideration when planning an Asterisk deployment.