Asterisk: The Future of Telephony

Appendix D. Configuration Files

Tip

This appendix contains a reference to the configuration files not covered in the previous appendixes. If you are looking for VoIP channel configurations, refer to Appendix A. For a dialplan reference, you’ll want to use Appendix B.

A configuration file is required for each Asterisk module you wish to use. These .conf files contain channel definitions, describe internal services, define the locations of other modules, or relate to the dialplan. You do not need to configure all of them to have a functioning system, only the ones required for your configuration. Although Asterisk ships with samples of all of the configuration files, it is possible to start Asterisk without any of them. This will not provide you with a working system, but it clearly demonstrates the modularity of the platform.

If no .conf files are found, Asterisk will make some decisions with respect to modules. For example, the following steps are always taken:

• The Asterisk Event Logger is loaded, and events are logged to /var/log/asterisk/event_log.

• Manager actions are registered.

• The PBX core is initialized.

• The RTP port range is allocated from 5,000 through 31,000.

• Several built-in applications are loaded, such as Answer(), Background(), GotoIf(), NoOp(), and Set().

• The dynamic loader is started—this is the engine responsible for loading modules defined in modules.conf.

This appendix starts with an in-depth look at the modules.conf configuration file. We’ll then briefly examine all the ...