So, you’ve purchased your server, installed an operating system, and you’re ready to plunge head first into
Asterisk. Determining the “right way” to install Asterisk depends on your situation. If you just want to try
Asterisk out and are worried about messing up an existing system, the Live CD would likely be your best
route. If you are not too familiar with Linux installation, but are looking to set up a dedicated Asterisk
system, you may want to look at a CD distribution of Asterisk. If you are an experienced Linux
administrator and want to configure Asterisk to fit into a custom environment, you’ll likely just want to
compile it from scratch. Finally, if you are either a Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows user, and you just
want to use your existing operating system for an Asterisk install, you’ll likely just want to use the packages
for your operating system. Asterisk’s ability to be customized isn’t just limited to the final setup; it starts at
the installation phase of the system.You can easily make it fit almost any environment.
Using an Asterisk Live CD
Live CDs are bootable CDs that contain a complete operating system. After booting, your machine will run
the operating system from the CD without installing it to the hard drive. If something goes wrong, you can
turn off the computer, eject the CD, reboot, and boot back to the operating system installed on your hard
drive. Although this installation method is not recommended for most production environments, it is a perfect
way for a novice user to try out the features of an operating system without altering the boot machine in any
way. In this section, we’ll take a look at one of the more popular live Asterisk CDs: SLAST.
SLAST
SLAST (SLax ASTerisk) is an Asterisk-ready version of the Slackware-based SLAX
Live CD. Maintained by the Infonomicon Computer Club, SLAST was designed to
help educate people about the advantages of Asterisk and allow them to set up a
simple Asterisk server in the easiest way possible.
Getting SLAST
SLAST is available at http://slast.org.The ISO image is available from their download
page.The download size comes in at just a bit over 100MB, so any broadband
connection should make quick work of the download. Once the ISO is downloaded,
the disk image can be burned to a CD using the “image burn” feature of most popular
CD recording programs.
Booting SLAST
Booting SLAST is as simple as inserting the CD into an Intel-based machine, and
rebooting. Depending on how your machine is configured, you may need to press a
key during startup to instruct the machine to boot from a CD. Once the CD is
booted, the SLAST screen is displayed, as shown in Figure 2.4.
Once SLAST loads the system into memory, the login screen is displayed.The
login screen has a quick “cheat sheet” of sorts showing file locations of Asterisk configuration
files, Asterisk sounds, Asterisk modules and the SLAST documentation.
The root password is also displayed. Log in with the username root and the password
toor, and you will be presented with a root shell, as shown in Figure 2.5.
Configuring the Network
While a network connection isn’t specifically required for Asterisk, unless the target system has hardware to
connect it directly to a phone, some kind of network connection will likely be necessary if you want to
connect to something besides the local computer. SLAST, as with most live distributions, does a pretty
good job at detecting any and all hardware on the target system. If everything is plugged in and turned on,
SLAST should have no issues setting up the hardware. However, SLAST, like other Live CDs, may have
trouble detecting networks settings. If you’re running a DHCP server, Asterisk should automatically
configure your settings. However, if manual intervention is required to configure these settings, you may need
to rely on ifconfig, the InterFace Configurator. Running ifconfig without any arguments will display any
configured network interfaces on the system. Ethernet interfaces will be shown labeled by their abbreviations
ethX, where X is a number starting at 0 for the first interface. Next to the name will be fields for the IP
address labeled as “inet addr,” the broadcast address labeled as “Bcast,” the network mask labeled as
“Mask,” along with various statistics regarding the interface. See Figure 2.6.
The configure_network script allows the system’s network interface to be configured with minimal user
interaction.The user can run the script by entering configure_network at the prompt and pressing Enter.The
script will execute, prompting you for information regarding your desired network configuration, as shown in
Figure 2.7.
Asterisk. Determining the “right way” to install Asterisk depends on your situation. If you just want to try
Asterisk out and are worried about messing up an existing system, the Live CD would likely be your best
route. If you are not too familiar with Linux installation, but are looking to set up a dedicated Asterisk
system, you may want to look at a CD distribution of Asterisk. If you are an experienced Linux
administrator and want to configure Asterisk to fit into a custom environment, you’ll likely just want to
compile it from scratch. Finally, if you are either a Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows user, and you just
want to use your existing operating system for an Asterisk install, you’ll likely just want to use the packages
for your operating system. Asterisk’s ability to be customized isn’t just limited to the final setup; it starts at
the installation phase of the system.You can easily make it fit almost any environment.
Using an Asterisk Live CD
Live CDs are bootable CDs that contain a complete operating system. After booting, your machine will run
the operating system from the CD without installing it to the hard drive. If something goes wrong, you can
turn off the computer, eject the CD, reboot, and boot back to the operating system installed on your hard
drive. Although this installation method is not recommended for most production environments, it is a perfect
way for a novice user to try out the features of an operating system without altering the boot machine in any
way. In this section, we’ll take a look at one of the more popular live Asterisk CDs: SLAST.
SLAST
SLAST (SLax ASTerisk) is an Asterisk-ready version of the Slackware-based SLAX
Live CD. Maintained by the Infonomicon Computer Club, SLAST was designed to
help educate people about the advantages of Asterisk and allow them to set up a
simple Asterisk server in the easiest way possible.
Getting SLAST
SLAST is available at http://slast.org.The ISO image is available from their download
page.The download size comes in at just a bit over 100MB, so any broadband
connection should make quick work of the download. Once the ISO is downloaded,
the disk image can be burned to a CD using the “image burn” feature of most popular
CD recording programs.
Booting SLAST
Booting SLAST is as simple as inserting the CD into an Intel-based machine, and
rebooting. Depending on how your machine is configured, you may need to press a
key during startup to instruct the machine to boot from a CD. Once the CD is
booted, the SLAST screen is displayed, as shown in Figure 2.4.
Once SLAST loads the system into memory, the login screen is displayed.The
login screen has a quick “cheat sheet” of sorts showing file locations of Asterisk configuration
files, Asterisk sounds, Asterisk modules and the SLAST documentation.
The root password is also displayed. Log in with the username root and the password
toor, and you will be presented with a root shell, as shown in Figure 2.5.
Configuring the Network
While a network connection isn’t specifically required for Asterisk, unless the target system has hardware to
connect it directly to a phone, some kind of network connection will likely be necessary if you want to
connect to something besides the local computer. SLAST, as with most live distributions, does a pretty
good job at detecting any and all hardware on the target system. If everything is plugged in and turned on,
SLAST should have no issues setting up the hardware. However, SLAST, like other Live CDs, may have
trouble detecting networks settings. If you’re running a DHCP server, Asterisk should automatically
configure your settings. However, if manual intervention is required to configure these settings, you may need
to rely on ifconfig, the InterFace Configurator. Running ifconfig without any arguments will display any
configured network interfaces on the system. Ethernet interfaces will be shown labeled by their abbreviations
ethX, where X is a number starting at 0 for the first interface. Next to the name will be fields for the IP
address labeled as “inet addr,” the broadcast address labeled as “Bcast,” the network mask labeled as
“Mask,” along with various statistics regarding the interface. See Figure 2.6.
The configure_network script allows the system’s network interface to be configured with minimal user
interaction.The user can run the script by entering configure_network at the prompt and pressing Enter.The
script will execute, prompting you for information regarding your desired network configuration, as shown in
Figure 2.7.
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