Switching to VoIP

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Chapter 3: Linux as a PBX

Install the Software Components of Asterisk

Asterisk consists of several software components for Linux. These packages are not all

required, as some of them are drivers for Digium’s interface cards. If you aren’t plan-

ning to use Digium’s card, you’ll need to build only the last of the three, “Asterisk”:

LIBPRI

A driver module that supports Digium T1/E1 interface cards so that ISDN and

PRI trunks can be interfaced with Asterisk

ZAPTEL

A driver module that allows legacy telephone line interface cards to be used with

Asterisk

Asterisk

A modular software daemon that provides telephony, management, and call-

accounting features, including voice mail, SIP telephone support, dial-plan, and

so on

If you’re wondering about these technical terms, don’t worry. As you experiment

with Asterisk and learn more about VoIP, they’ll become very familiar. For now, just

compile and install all three of them.

Since you ran the CVS download, the source code for each of the Asterisk software

components is sitting in its respective directory in /usr/src. Let’s compile each soft-

ware component by issuing the following commands:

# cd zaptel

# make clean ; make install

# cd ../libpri

# make clean ; make install

# cd ../asterisk

# make clean ; make install

Again, zaptel and libpri need only ...