Asterisk Front End

From Luke Jackson

AsteriskNow

• http://asterisknow.com/

FreePBX

• http://freepbx.org/

!!!FREE!!!

This one is my favorite. Checkout the trixbox website here -> http://www.trixbox.org/ It comes with everything configured and ready to go in an .ISO package.

ThirdLane

• http://www.thirdlane.com/

Some of the modifications made to Asterisk by ThirdLane require a restart and contrary to FreePBX. ThirdLane feels it is better to do a 'restart now' rather than a 'restart gracefully'. Thus once the operator clicks the restart button the system will 'restart now' dropping all channels. Where the 'restart gracefully' waits for all channels to be free before restarting. 'restart gracefully' would work for simple installs but not in a large locations where it is likely for channels to constantly be in use.

If the operator finds the changes they make, in a given session to require a restart, it is possible to wait until after business hours to restart. There is no time constraint on when it needs to be restarted. Only in order for the changes to take effect a restart of the asterisk process needs to complete.

It is good practice to make all of your changes and then perform the restart/reload. There is no need to perform this after every single change.

So in summary before I get too geeky...

• Reload will NOT drop channels
• Reload is required basic changes
• Restart is required for advanced changes
• Restart WILL drop all channels
• Restart has no time constraint
• Make all changes and restart or reload only once