asterisk hacking toolkit and live ccd

[...]... Hobbyists are using Asterisk to set up their own private telephone playlands, complete with voice conferences, voice-mail systems, and voice bulletin boards www.syngress.com 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 19 What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? • Chapter 1 19 Companies both large and small are using Asterisk to replace their current PBX systems and are saving themselves both time and money in... equipment, and better interfacing with Cisco’s SCCP VoIP protocol Also, as with any software project, this update addressed the bugs and issues found since the 1.2 release Asterisk Today Today, Asterisk is one of the most popular software-based VoIP PBXes running on multiple operating systems Asterisk handles most common PBX features and incorporates a lot more to boot It works with numerous VoIP protocols and. .. consulting for Asterisk installations and maintenance, and trains people for its Digium Certified Asterisk Professional certification Notes from the Underground… Digi-wha? Many companies spend millions of dollars with marketing firms to create a new name for their company When Bell Atlantic and General Telephone and Electric (GTE) merged in 2000, they thought long and hard about their new name, and when they... as a Private Branch Exchange Asterisk is, first and foremost, a PBX Some people seem to constantly tout Asterisk s VoIP capabilities, and while that is a major feature, they seem to forget that Asterisk www.syngress.com 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 8 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 8 Chapter 1 • What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? doesn’t need VoIP at all to be a PBX But even without VoIP, Asterisk has many advantages... the ability to handle VoIP Numerous Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) are jumping onto the VoIP bandwagon and setting it up to handle VoIP from the consumer side (or handle it internally) for either a value-added service or a cost-saving measure www.syngress.com 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 17 What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? • Chapter 1 17 Summary PBXes and VoIP have been... his company is the driving force behind Asterisk Asterisk’s current version, 1.4, boasts a load of new features over its predecessors What Can Asterisk Do for Me? Asterisk can be fit into both the large and small business environment, saving time and money in the workplace It can also be useful to the hobbyist Asterisk can replace your traditional hardware PBX and replicate most of its features It can... telephone companies, universities, and small businesses, just to name a few But what exactly is Asterisk? And what can it do? Let’s find out www.syngress.com 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 3 What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? • Chapter 1 3 What Is Asterisk? Asterisk is an open-source PBX that has VoIP capabilities However, this hardly explains what Asterisk is or what it does So let’s... merge What Can Asterisk Do for Me? Asterisk is so multifaceted it’s hard to come up with a general catchall answer for everyone asking what Asterisk can do for them When a friend and I tried to think up an answer that would fit this requirement, the closest thing we could come up with was Asterisk will do everything except your dishes, and there is a module for that currently in development.” Asterisk as... released As the versions progressed, more and more features were added by developers, gathering a following of users, conventions, and everything short of groupies along the way Asterisk s first major milestone was reached on September 23, 2004, when Mark Spencer released Asterisk 1.0 at the first Astricon, the official Asterisk user and developer’s conference Asterisk 1.0 was the first stable, open-source,... to dial a regular number and have Asterisk route it over the Internet rather than the PSTN letting the user save money without making an effort People have started using Asterisk to augment, and sometimes even replace, their existing telephone setup.Thanks to Asterisk, an abundance of cheap Internet-towww.syngress.com 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 13 What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? . Clark III Larry Chaffin and Johnny Long Technical Editors Asterisk Hacking Toolkit and LiveCD 428_Ast_HACK_FM.qxd 6/8/07 1:07 PM Page iii Elsevier, Inc., the author(s), and any person or firm involved. exactly is Asterisk? And what can it do? Let’s find out. www.syngress.com 2 Chapter 1 • What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? 428_Ast_HACK_01.qxd 6/7/07 4:40 PM Page 2 What Is Asterisk? Asterisk. 6/8/07 1:08 PM Page xii 1 What Is Asterisk and Why Do You Need It? Solutions in this chapter: ■ What Is Asterisk? ■ What Can Asterisk Do for Me? ■ Who’s Using Asterisk? Chapter 1  Summary 