Connecting audio devices with PortAudio

Many of us have a USB headset or a sound card in our laptops or desktop computers. In most cases, FreeSWITCH can utilize these audio devices. Usually this is done for basic troubleshooting or to feed an external audio source into FreeSWITCH. It is also handy when you wish to use FreeSWITCH as a softphone, which is demonstrated later in this chapter.

Getting ready

The mod_portaudio module is already compiled for Windows users when using the Visual Studio 2008/2010 solution files with the FreeSWITCH source code. Linux and Mac OSX users will need to enable mod_portaudio in their FreeSWITCH installation. Follow these steps:

1. Open modules.conf in the FreeSWITCH source directory and remove the comment on the #endpoints/portaudio line. Save the file and exit.

2. Compile mod_portaudio using the following command:

   make mod_portaudio-install
   

3. If you want to have mod_portaudio load automatically each time you start FreeSWITCH then edit conf/autoload_configs/modules...