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- Integrating Asterisk and Ekiga.net

Background:
*Asterisk* [1] is an open source telephone switch (PBX). Although it can be  
used in complex environments, it can also be deployed for simple home use.

I was planning on Describing the set up and configuration for my Asterisk  
server, but I found that there are many good tutorials that already cover the  
general steps. For example, this one from our fellow KWLUGer and Linux  
trainer extraordinaire rpjday
http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Asterisk_on_Kamikaze [2]

Normaly you use Asterisk with a telephony provider such as *Unlimitel* [3],  
*Voip.ms* [4], *MyDivert.com* [5] and many others; from which you can get a  
real telephone number.

*Ekiga.net* [6] is a free VoIP provider. It does not give you a phone number,  
but an account name. Very similar to MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger or  
Skype, the main difference is that you can associate that account with your  
Asterisk phone system.

*Why?*
I know that we enjoy being in front of our computers all day, but, when we  
are away from the computer, it is quite convenient to have the phone ring and  
receive an ekiga call even when the computer is turned off.

*Ekiga* [7] is also the name of a free Softphone application provided by  
Ekiga.net and available in the repositories of most Linux distributions.  
There is also a Windows version for those friends and family which you  
haven't converted. During the set-up it will allow them to create a new ekiga  
account.

So assuming that you have an Asterisk server installed and you are able to  
call from extension to extension inside your network, I'll proceed to explain  
the simple steps to integrate with Ekiga.net

First, Here is my target physical architecture for this simple configuration:

While the Ekiga Wiki has good information regarding the integration, It  
assumes an Internet facing server. If your Asterisk server faces the  
internet, just follow the instructions. If like me, your server is behind a  
firewall, you'll need some extra steps.

Ekiga as an Asterisk client explains how to use Ekiga as a SoftPhone (phone  
extension) registered to your Asterisk Server. I  
http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Ekiga_as_an_Asterisk_client
There is no problems with these instructions. Just follow them

Connecting Asterisk to ekiga.net explains how to configure Asterisk to send  
and receive calls through the Ekiga network
http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Connecting_Asterisk_to_ekiga.net
Given that my server is behind a firewall as you can see in the diagram, and  
that I do not have a static IP; after following those instructions I had to  
do the corresponding adjustments to *sip.conf*

*No Static IP, server Behind a firewal*
To overcome this problem I registered for a free DNS name at
DynDNS
, this way even when my IP address changes I still have the same domain name.  
Most routers these days have an option to configure a DynDNS account. If  
that's not your case, you can still run a daemon on the server that will  
synchronize your IP address and domain name at regular intervals.

Once I had my DynDNS I added the following lines to the [general] section of  
*sip.conf* as explained at voip-info.org [8]
externip=<my dynDNS domain name>
localnet=<IP base for my network>/255.255.255.0

e.g.
externip=mynetwork.homeip.net
localnet=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0

and added the following line to the [ekiga] section of *sip.conf*
nat=yes

I restarted Asterisk
$ sudo /etc/init.d/asterisk restert

*Firewall port forwarding*
The final step is to forward UDP ports 5000 - 5100 on your firewall to go to  
your Asterisk server.

And that is it, you will be able to send and receive calls to and from other  
Ekiga users, just don't forget to use the corresponding prefix. (e.g. 9 in  
our example).

Read more http://kwlug.org/node/811

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[1] http://www.asterisk.org/
[2] http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Asterisk_on_Kamikaze
[3] http://www.unlimitel.ca
[4] http://www.voip.ms
[5] http://www.mydivert.com
[6] https://www.ekiga.net/
[7] http://ekiga.org/
[8] http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+SIP+externip