Home Box to Trixbox

After I had all the necessary software downloaded, updated, installed and configured, the phone system had all of its modules up to date and was ready for configuration. From the FreePBX browser window, I selected Setup from the top menu (Figure 4). Down the left are the menu items associated with many of the modules that were loaded. First, I changed the General Settings by selecting that menu item. One very useful feature of the FreePBX interface is that many of the items on the screens have pop-up windows associated with them to provide information for those items. I like to drop the r from the Dial command options to generate ringing tones to the caller only “when appropriate” and add w to the Dial command options and W to the Outbound Dial command options to allow our internal extensions to record calls in either direction by pressing *1 during the call. I also like to be able to transfer outbound calls between extensions if desired, so I add T to the outbound options. Finally, I changed the ring time to 20 seconds to give us more time to answer a phone. Figure 5 shows the final state of our General Settings.

Figure 4. The FreePBX Browser Window

Figure 5. General Settings for FreePBX

The next addition to the system was Trunks, which are where calls come in to or go out of the system. Selecting Trunks from the left-side menu displays the Add a Trunk screen (Figure 6). The trunk ZAP/g0 is created at installation, and it refers to all the sockets on the Digium interface card that connect to the phone company. In my case, that is only socket 4. I did not modify the default configuration of that trunk (Figure 7). One could set the Outbound Caller ID, but I leave that for the phone carrier to set. This trunk will be used for most calls through our system.

Figure 6. Using the FreePBX Interface to Add Trunks

Figure 7. Edit the ZAP Trunk

Another trunk I defined is an IAX2 trunk that connects to the office PBX, so I can receive calls sent to my work extension and make calls through the office account. Starting from the Add a Trunk screen (Figure 6), I selected Add IAX2 Trunk and filled in the configuration page for the trunk. Figures 8 and 9 show the configuration of that trunk. The PEER Details, USER Details and Register String have been changed to remove the IP address and passwords for the work system, but all these settings are present by default when the trunk is created. Usually only the address, user name and secret need to be changed. Two things to note here:

Figure 8. Edit the IAX2 Trunk

Figure 9. Configuration of the IAX2 Trunk

Once I filled in all the parameters, I selected the Submit Changes button to create the trunk. Then, as with all changes to the configuration, the interface displayed the red bar at the top of the screen for committing the changes to the system. With the trunks defined, there is now a way for calls to arrive in to and depart from the system.