How to handle missing calls

Hello! Newbie here. It is my first time setting up a Freepbx server so i have a few questions.

I have setted up a trunk sip from my provider, created an extension, then an inbound route that leads to the extension and an outbound route for dialling out.

I have only 1 number from my provider and at the moment i don’t need any other internal phones.

I am using a softphone application (zoiper) at my smartphone in order to receive and dial phone calls. While I am outside my office, i am using VPN in order to still receive phone calls.

When my GSM signal is low or my phone runs out of battery, is there any way to track down missed calls while my softphone app is unregistered? How do you recomend me to handle the missing calls when there is no end point(softphone or any IP phone) connected at the freepbx server?

thanks!

If the phone is unavailable (for any reason), the call should go to the extension’s voicemail, which is maintained on the server. Zoiper allows for VM notification, so you should have plenty of notice.

If you need more immediate notification, you can combine the Voicemail system’s “Pager” option to send an SMS to your phone using your provider’s Email-to-SMS gateway. This way, you get an immediate text message when the phone gets back into GSM range.

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You can also get email notification of voicemail by adding an email address to the extension’s voicemail

For missed calls you can try:

I have setup custom voicemail messages but after the custom greetings, it plays the default “please leave your message”.

How can i disable that and play only my custom message?

Pick the option with “No Message”.
Depends on how you setup your voicemail it could be in different places. I have one voicemail box with an extension 800 Voicemail that plays a custom Announcement “Not Available” and that Announcement is set to go to voicemail with “No Message”. All other extensions are set to Optional Destinations of extension 800

I have setup my Voicemail using the UCP and uploaded my custom messages. Is there any better or recommended way to do that?

Depends on your need. I just need one voicemail that anyone will be able to check.

What do you have in Extension (nn)>> Advanced >> Optional Destinations No Answer/Busy/Not Reachable? If it is set for voicemail pick the option with “No Message”. Also look at the Announcement and pick the option with “No Message”

Great, thanks for the help!

About firewall, should i enable it? I don’t have freepbx exposed to the internet, it is running at my LAN and connected with my provider (sip trunk)

Is there a reason why not to? almost once a month there is a post about possible freepbx hack. We make mistakes and hopefully the firewall (whitelist your SIP provider) and fail2ban will be there when needed. It is better to be safe than sorry.

What do you mean by whitelisting my SIP provider?

I have enabled firewall(not responsive, just the firewall), set my adapter at internet (default firewall) and added my local lan zones as trusted.

Also at fail2ban i have whitelist my local networks.

Do i have to do any more settings?

Add your SIP provider IP address(s) to the trusted zone of the firewall (Firewall >> Networks)

I believe you should be fine as long as you are not planning to access your system from outside the LAN.

thanks for the help! Do i have to enable responsive firewall as well or I am fine?

I have it turned on. These features are designed to work on the system without affecting it functionality.

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I have done this routinely for years, but my thinking on this has evolved recently. While you are doing setup and testing, by all means while list local subnets in fail2ban, but once you’re in production I would argue that you want to be notified if any local IP address is abusing the PBX services. There was a router/firewall exploit recently that would could have been detected sooner had local subnets not been white listed in fail2ban.

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