Preface

TrixBox is a telephone system based on the popular open-source Asterisk PBX (Private Branch eXchange) software. TrixBox allows an individual or organization to set up a telephone system with traditional telephone networks as well as Internet-based telephony or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

This book guides the reader in the setup of this system and how to manage the telephone system. The book begins by introducing telephony concepts before detailing how to plan a telephone system and moving on to the installation, configuration, and management of a feature-packed PBX.

This book provides examples of a well laid-out telephone system with accompanying spreadsheets to aid the reader in building stable telephony infrastructure.

What This Book Covers

Chapter 1 introduces the essential telephony and IP telephony concepts to give the reader the necessary background.

Chapter 2 gives an overview of Asterisk, the PBX software at the core of TrixBox, and gives the reader a feel of the features of a powerful VoIP telephone system.

Chapter 3 explains the relationship between Asterisk and TrixBox and introduces the enhancements and power the combination of these tools provides.

Chapter 4 walks the user through planning a telephone system with accompanying spreadsheets to fill in, in order to properly plan for the installation and configuration of the system.

Chapter 5 gives the reader details on how to install TrixBox and how the basic administration components are used.

Chapter 6 applies the previous planning to the configuration of TrixBox to provide the features the reader requires from their telephone system.

Chapter 7 covers the telephone system from the point of view of the telephone handset and how the user of the telephone system can interact with it.

Chapter 8 looks at more advanced configuration options and different types of telephone line that can be managed with TrixBox.

Chapter 9 briefly introduces the SugarCRM customer relationship management tool, integrated with TrixBox.

Chapter 10 shows the reader how to secure and backup TrixBox to ensure the reliability of their system.

Appendix A has some acronyms and terms used throughout this book, which are also common terms in Telephony. This can be used as a quick reference to the terms when reading the book or configuring the TrixBox system.

What You Need for This Book

In order to install TrixBox, you need a machine that has at least a PIII 500 MHz system with 384-MB RAM and a 10-GB hard drive. Higher specifications would be necessary for production use. The machine will need a keyboard and a monitor and the ability to boot from CD-ROM initially for setup, but these won't be necessary afterwards.

For network connectivity, you will require a network card compatible with your system such as a PCI or USB network interface card. If you want to connect phone lines to your TrixBox, you will need a PCI card compatible with your connection type. We cover various connection types and list some card vendors in the book.

In order to connect to the TrixBox machine with a software-based telephone, you will need a desktop or laptop machine running a general-purpose OS such as OSX/Linux/Windows/BSD/etc. You will also need headphones and a microphone.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

There are three styles for code. Code words in text are shown as follows: "Once you have logged into the system, run the genzaptelconf script by typing genzaptelconf on the command line."

A block of code will be set as follows:

my $custpath = "city/ny";
my $filename = "new_york.txt"

Any command-line input and output is written as follows:

[root@asterisk1 ~]# genzaptelconf

New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "When we are ready, we need to go to the System Recordings module to record our prompts".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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