I would like to start out and use very inexpensive I do not have 1000s$ to spend on modules and so forth is it even possible? the instruction manual is somewhat vague and consistently points right from the beginning to buying this pack and that pack and spend $1000 here and 5000$ there… can it be done without some lofty investments?
I am interested in eventually connecting a sip line/trunk that’s inexpensive, phone numbers, voicemail, sending emails of voice messages…
right now I am trying just to call two soft phones I don’t know how to do this… and there’s no instructions, there’s no videos without being sold this and that phone for 12000$ here and 20000$ there… any pointers of what to do? I am new to this … I have a bachelors of engineering and have 5 years of experience as a unix system administrator…
can you link me to some of these tutorials that are not promoting some product that I need to pay for? I mean the majority of the tutorials that are free are about installing the system and stopping there… but they don’t go into the configuration details… and usually those are promoting vultr’s automatic setup etc… of the system etc… or something to that effect , but I have not seen any tutorials that are simply explaining how the system works without having to learn about zoiper for 60$ or this and that for $100 and so on and so forth , 60$ , 80$ , 1000$, 50$, these phones 540$ etc…
Regarding crosstalk , you need to install crosstalk modules, hardware from their website, hourly support on freepbx, full turnkey freepbx solutions work on the design, then he doesn’t want to show how to use cloud installation virtual machine xen environment… I will give them a try again but a lot of the steps really involved using crosstalk and not answering specific questions…
Before you dig yourself too deep into self entitlement, please spend a few hours in the ‘wiki’ which has a link at the top of this page. Most of your questions/concerns are resolved therein.
Instead of whining about everyone trying to sell you something, just accept it as part of modern life. After all, almost all websites, newspapers, TV shows, etc. have ads. Small FreePBX systems work just fine without any paid hardware or software. Of course, you can’t expect free phone service, though many trunking providers offer free trials sufficient for testing and evaluation.
What did you install? On-site or cloud? Bare metal or virtual?
What goes wrong? What have you already tried? Which softphone are you using?
@Stewart1 Cloud 2 processors, 8gb ram, trunking providers not specifically a concern was planning to use bulkvs that seemed very inexpensive hopefully they are legit, want to test with soft phones first…it’s a lot less than spending 1000$ for a computer module of some sort… soft phones I am not sure if I am using good ones… session talk sip phone on ios, linphone on windows… I am new to it and I can’t find the instructions as they are written I could keep reading ahead if it pieces together but I found a few books on asteriks I can read those since freepbx is built on top of it. I am unable to make the soft phone connect to each other… and not comfortable with how the system works…
@dicko ok thank you will try
Charles_Darwin ok thank you will have a look…
There is a reason people pay others to run their PBX. Even seasoned IT people groan at the thought of dealing with their own phone systems and are happy to pay someone else to do it very often. There’s a LOT to know and understand. A solid background in networking and a good understanding of security and firewalls is a must. If you don’t have that at least you’ve got a lot of learning ahead of you.
You keep mentioning money. Understand NOTHING is free. You either spend money or your time. If you spend more money, you generally will spend less time and vice versa.
The crosstalk solutions video series from FreePBX 15 is very good for a total beginner and will probably be your fastest way to a working system. If you’re goal is to spend no money at all be prepared to spend a lot of time and accept limitations.
Chris at Crosstalk is brilliant in my mind, why would a person who sells service and support for FreePBX create a video series showing people how to do it themselves??? Because he knows that it’s a lot tougher than it looks, even when given step by step instructions. When phones are down and people are screaming, people who do it professionally will get hired really quickly to get things sorted. And if the person dug their hole after watching his vids then he is the brand they know and most likely the one to get called to provide that service. And he is good at it.
Commercial softphones for the most part work much better than the free ones once you get beyond basic functionality. I haven’t touched Sangoma Connect since we switched to Clearly Anywhere but it was pretty solid back in the day. CA just worked better at the time and has given me no reason to change thus far.
FreePBX is fun and it is possible to do it yourself for a fraction of the cost of one of the big commercial systems like GoTo, 8x8 or some of the other big names, especially if you’re under 50 extensions. It’s not free but $$ cost savings are substantial. IF you can support it yourself. Time cost savings on the other hand…
OK, so where do you stand now? Do you have SSH access to the PBX? Web access? If not, post details (error messages, what you have already tried, etc.)
I assume that you created two extensions for your softphones. Do they show as available on the PBX (Reports → Asterisk Info → Peers)? If not, what errors appear on the softphones? If yes, what happens when you call *43 (echo test) from each device?
Im agree with others in this post, watching crosstalk youtube videos, along with having a networking background, should be sufficient resources to get a test environment up and rolling.
Sure, questions will arise, but if you are struggling beyond that point, I would advise seeking a hired consultant to gain some knowledge.
I have ssh access and also access to the GUI. There is no ssl certification on the gui at the moment was thinking to use the SSL certbot but for the moment it’s not necessary like you said connect the soft phones. I added the extensions but I don’t understand exactly how it works…
The extensions are not present in Asterisk. When you add a pjsip extension, you must Submit and then Apply Config. When you do those steps, do any errors appear? If not, please post screenshots of the Extensions page and the page for one of the Extensions you added.
If the softphone is on the same PC as you are using to connect (thus the same IP) and it’s making repeated bad login attempts, the active firewall will block the IP.
Since you are just setting this up/playing with it perhaps just leave the firewall off until you get things working.
Thank you everyone and sorry for being in the dark for a bit I took to heart all the comments and worked on it quite a bit making a bit of progress even as we speak today is my day in the sun so I will not see it until tonight or tomorrow…
the problem I see is that the endpoint where it goes to the sip server seems to be the extension and the endpoint that was configured does not seem to reach but maybe I am reading it wrong and it’s just not authenticating … I am not an expert we went from 0 to something…
