VoIP with CommuniGate Pro

Setting up your CommuniGate Pro (CGP) VoIP phone system is as simple as just installing the program. VoIP functionality is part of the base product, so there is no special configuration or licensing necessary. After you have initially downloaded and installed the platform package of your choice ( www.communigate.com/download), you simply need to start the CommuniGate Pro server. To do this, at a UNIX prompt on your server, type /etc/init.d/CommuniGate start.

Once you have the CommuniGate Pro server up and running, you need to locate the randomly generated postmaster password from the postmaster accounts settings file. For most Linux platforms, the default location is /var/CommuniGate/Accounts/postmaster.macnt/account.settings. cat this file to obtain the predefined random postmaster password.

When you have found your postmaster password, open a Web browser of your choice and connect to the CommuniGate Pro Web-Administration Interface at either of these locations (where mail.example.com is the name of your new CGP system in DNS): http://mail.example.com:8010 or https://mail.example.com:9010.

The next step is setting up users on the CGP server. To do this, in the Web-Admin Interface, select the Users tab along the top of the window. CommuniGate Pro will ask you to authenticate—do so as postmaster, with the password you obtained from the postmaster accounts settings file. Next, select the Domains, sub-tab. Select the domain name corresponding to the domain where the new user(s) will be added. Find the button labeled Create Account (Figure 1). Enter the login for a new user in the field to the right of the button. Now, click Create Account.

Figure 1. Create the account.

After the account has been created, a Settings page for this new user is displayed. Enter a Real Name for the account, as well as a password. This will be the new user's password for all client applications, such as e-mail, voice and video. Scroll down to the field labeled Aliases. In order to assign an “extension” to the new user, enter the desired extension in the Aliases field. All extensions are really just CGP aliases for an account. Finally, click the Update button located right under the Aliases field. The new user has now been provisioned and already has access to all services, by default, including VoIP.

Repeat the provisioning process above for additional users by clicking the Objects tab located near the top of the tabs. Enter the login for the next new user and so on.

Now that users are provisioned on the CGP server, the next step is to install and configure a device or service known as a VoIP-to-PSTN gateway. The function of such a device or service is to route inbound and outbound telephone calls through the gateway and convert signaling from IP to PSTN and back.

There are numerous PSTN gateway devices supported by CommuniGate Pro, including Cisco Routers with SIP module, AudioCodes Mediant, Mediatrix, VegaStream and Sipura. Also, a number of gateway services are available that CGP supports, such as VoicePulse, Voxeo and Tario.

Suppose, for example, you elect to purchase the Sipura 3000. This device provides decent quality, is well valued and supports three ports:

Note: if you're using a PSTN device such as those listed above, you need to pay for a PSTN line to your location. The smaller devices (such as Sipura and Mediatrix) can use RJ-11 analog lines as input. The larger devices typically require a dedicated T1 PRI to your site.

To configure the Sipura 3000 to work with CGP, follow these steps:

The Sipura 3000 uses a tabbed administration interface much like CGP. The Info tab displays the current configuration. The System tab (Figure 2) should be configured for a hostname and any other relevant information to your site (DHCP, Domain, DNS and so forth).

Figure 2. Use the Web interface to set up the Sipura 3000.

If you are just using the PSTN and Ethernet ports, then the only other configuration changes that need to be set are on the PSTN Line tab. These changes include the following for a very simple setup. Note that no security restrictions have been added here, so any system that can route SIP traffic to the Sipura device will be able to initiate outbound calls to the PSTN:

PSTN Line
Line Enable: yes
NAT Mapping Enable: no
SIP Port: 5060

Proxy and Registration
Proxy: cgpserver.domain.com (fill in correct host)
Use Outbound Proxy: yes
Outbound Proxy: cgpserver.domain.com (or IP address)
Register: no
Display Name: Sipura3000
Use Auth ID: no

Dial Plans
Dial Plan 1: S0<:pbx@cgpserver.domain.com>
Dial Plan 2: (xx.<:@gw0>)


VoIP-to-PSTN Gateway Setup
VoIP-to-PSTN Gateway Enable: yes
VoIP Caller Auth Method: none
One Stage Dialing: yes
VoIP Caller Default DP: 2

PSTN-To-VoIP Gateway Setup
PSTN-to-VoIP Gateway Enable: yes
PSTN Caller Auth Method: none
PSTN Caller Default DP: 1

The dial plans are required with the Sipura device to select a routing destination. Many PSTN gateway devices do not require specific dial plans, as the default VoIP-to-PSTN and PSTN-to-VoIP directions are relatively straightforward. The above dial plans should be entered exactly as listed, except for the hostname of your CommuniGate Pro server. Note too the pbx account name—if you used a different name as the pbx account on your CommuniGate Pro server, it should be used here instead. Now, all incoming calls from the PSTN line will be routed to the LAN network with a destination of this account on the CommuniGate Pro server.