How to install Asterisk on Ubuntu 20.04/18.04 and Debian 10/9

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In this post, you will learn how to install Asterisk on Ubuntu / Debian

Asterisk in an Open Source Communication toolkit, It powers IP PBX Systems, Conference servers and VoIP Gateways and is used by call centres, enterprise businesses widely. It has many features and allows you to do calls using TCP/IP without any cost. Moreover, it has features like call recordings, Voice Response Menus, Voicemails etc. It can transform an ordinary computer into a IP PBX System. There are more than 1 Million Servers Setup using Asterisk Software.

Requirements :

  • Minimum 2GB of RAM (If using for a small home office setup), Or more than that depending upon the size of your office, enterprise etc.
  • Fresh Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 or Debian9/10 Machine with Root Access

Step 1 : Updating your Server

First step will be updating your VPS for any newer updates or any security update

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Step 2 : Installing Prerequisite Packages

apt install build-essential autoconf subversion pkg-config libtool wget git

Step 3 : Installing Asterisk on Ubuntu / Debian

We have to first clone the Asterisk Source Code Repository from the official site

sudo git clone -b 18 https://gerrit.asterisk.org/asterisk asterisk-18
cd asterisk-18

In the next step, We have to run a shell script which would download the required MP3 sources for the required MP3 Module for Asterisk

contrib/scripts/get_mp3_source.sh

This should give a following output:

A addons/mp3
A addons/mp3/MPGLIB_README
A addons/mp3/common.c
A addons/mp3/huffman.h
A addons/mp3/tabinit.c
A addons/mp3/Makefile
A addons/mp3/README
A addons/mp3/decode_i386.c
A addons/mp3/dct64_i386.c
A addons/mp3/MPGLIB_TODO
A addons/mp3/mpg123.h
A addons/mp3/layer3.c
A addons/mp3/mpglib.h
A addons/mp3/decode_ntom.c
A addons/mp3/interface.c
Exported revision 202.

Next, We have to run the install_prereq script to install the required dependencies for Asterisk and other utilities for it, This step will take a bit time.

contrib/scripts/install_prereq installs

After running this script, This will install the required dependencies and in the middle of the process you will be prompted to enter your telephone code number as shown in the following image

After the step, You will see the following prompt:

Step 4 : Building and Installing Asterisk

After installing the required dependencies and prerequisite packages, We can now move on to next step of building the Asterisk PBX from the downloaded files.

To check if all the required dependencies has been installed or not on the server run the following command

./configure
If the above command does not give you a Asterisk Logo at the end of the command run the following command
./configure --with-jansson-bundled

After running the above command, You will see Asterisk Logo on the screen like the ffollowing

Nex step is to select install the required modules and to compile the following as well. To acess the menu run the following command

make menuselect

We can use the arrows keys to navigate and press the enter key to select, First we have to select “format_mp3

You can also then select other core sound modules if you require them

After, Selecting the packages press Tab and Press “Save and Exit“, Now run the following command to build Asterisk, (Note this might take a while)

make

This will give a following output:

[CC] format_mp3.c -> format_mp3.o
[CC] mp3/common.c -> mp3/common.o
[CC] mp3/dct64_i386.c -> mp3/dct64_i386.o
[CC] mp3/decode_ntom.c -> mp3/decode_ntom.o
[CC] mp3/layer3.c -> mp3/layer3.o
[CC] mp3/tabinit.c -> mp3/tabinit.o
[CC] mp3/interface.c -> mp3/interface.o
........
+--------- Asterisk Build Complete ---------  +
+ Asterisk has successfully been built, and +
+ can be installed by running: +
+ make install +
+------------------------------------------------ +

Next step is to successfully install Asterisk, This step might also take a bit time depending upon your server network speed, CPU speed etc.

make install

You will see the following output:

Then, We can move on to installing samples and config files and basic-pbx config files

make samples
make config
make basic-pbx
ldconfig

Step 5 : Creating User and Starting Asterisk

It is always advised to create a non-root user for Asterisk, due to security and other various reasons. In this step, We will create a new user group which will run the Asterisk Services

adduser --system --group --no-create-home --gecos "Asterisk" asterisk

Edit the config file of Asterisk and uncomment the following two lines (Remove the # from behind it) It should look like the folowing

Removed the # from behind the last two lines

Add the asterisk user to the group:

usermod -a -G dialout,audio asterisk

Now, we have to change the ownership of the Asterisk files to the user:

chown -R asterisk: /var/{lib,log,run,spool}/asterisk /usr/lib/asterisk /etc/asterisk
chmod -R 750 /var/{lib,log,run,spool}/asterisk /usr/lib/asterisk /etc/asterisk

Now, We can finally start Asterisk 18 on our server by running the following command:

systemctl start asterisk

To check if asterisk is running run the following command

systemctl status asterisk

To enable asterisk on boot run the following command

systemctl enable asterisk

Run the following command to verify and to connect to Asterisk CLI

asterisk -rvv
Asterisk on Ubuntu / Debian
Asterisk on Ubuntu / Debian

If you see the following output this means that Asterisk 18 has been successfully setup on your VPS/Server. This tutorial was tested on Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 10 and is expected to work smoothly for Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 9 too.

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