Development [LWN.net]

Asterisk - the Open-Source PBX

November is shaping up to be a month of important Linux Telephony releases. Two weeks ago, we examined the GNU Bayonne 2 Telephony Application Server. This week, we look at Asterisk, an open-source PBX (Private Branch eXchange).

[Asterisk] The Asterisk description states:

Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux, BSD and MacOSX and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. Asterisk does voice over IP in many protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware.

Version 1.2 of Asterisk was released at the IP.4.IT Conference this week: "Asterisk 1.2 is the first major revision to Asterisk since the release of Asterisk 1.0 in September 2004, and includes over 3,000 feature additions and improvements to the overall performance and efficiency of memory usage."

The original author of Asterisk is Mark Spencer, president of Digium, Inc. Digium is a supplier of PC telephony cards and telephony systems, and is sponsoring Asterisk development. The company also sells Asterisk Business Edition, a commercial version of the software. The software is being developed by a wide variety of programmers, using the standard open-source development model. Asterisk has been licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Asterisk's feature set and list of supported protocols is lengthy. A few highlights include:

Architected as a central PBX core with loadable module APIs.
Works as a traditional PBX on standard telephone lines.
Supports Voice over IP (VoIP).
No special hardware is required for VoIP use.
Supports switching between all of the supported interfaces.
Supports connection to other Asterisk PBX instances for scalability.
Supports both U.S. and European standard signaling protocols.
Runs on Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X.
Works with a wide variety of telephony hardware.
Has free and commercial customer support options.

Asterisk looks like a fun and active open-source project, those with needs for both simple and complex PBX systems would be advised to give it a try. The code is available for download here.

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