9 ms·

Ah good memories! Even though I knew nothing about VoIP I installed, years ago, one at my wife's little SME using "RasPBX" (a distro made of Raspbian + FreePBX

Ah good memories! Even though I knew nothing about VoIP I installed, years ago, one at my wife's little SME using "RasPBX" (a distro made of Raspbian + FreePBX + Asterisk) running on a... Raspberry Pi 1 (maybe a Pi 2 but I'm pretty sure it was a 1). The Pi was booting from the SD card but everything was running on an external HDD. I did put six Cisco VoIP phones and all was working fine as long as no more than four phones were used simultaneously (which never happened). It worked for years like that and wife ended up selling her SME with these VoIP phones still hooked to the RPi 1. We warned them that that thing was kinda a hack ; ) For anyone hesitating: it's not hard to set up. Find a provider to get a SIP trunk, configure the thing, backup the config (I just imaged the entire drive), and you're good to go for a very long time. It's simple, reliable, stuff that usually won't move under your feet.

jamesmstone 3y ago
I have a tangentially related problem I have been battling with that you may be able to help me with. I'm moving overseas (Australia to Denmark) and would like to keep my current mobile phone number working for calls and SMS , but use it from afar. I would be able to leave a raspberry pi at a friend's house. Can you use this setup without a SIP provider? Would you need to buy a modem for the raspberry pi?what would you do?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I've never done it, but look into chan_mobile and a bluetooth dongle to connect a mobile (with your SIM) to asterisk running on a Pi at your friend's place.
- sgc 3y ago
  I would just port my number to twilio and use/write a really basic twilio mobile app. It's a bit risky to rely on a slightly cobbled hardware/software setup that is sitting across the world with no physical access.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    Note that one problem with voip providers is the numbers/lines often won't be recognized as valid by snake oil 2FA and the like. So porting to a voip provider only works if your goal is receiving SMS/calls from actual humans or just parking the number for later. But if you're doing it to avoid having to change your number for every service that has an SMS nagwall, it likely won't work. You can get a modem that will do SMS (eg a Sierra Wireless card), but I don't know if/how they do voice. Also, I'd shy away from the RPi based on the unreliability of SD cards. It would/will be pretty annoying for your host to go down and you have to travel back to fix it. I suppose if your friend is halfway handy you could keep an image of the machine as installed. Or even take new images remotely (rsync from the raw device a few times in a row?). If the root filesytem goes wonky, have your friend pull the SD card and reimage it.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
      I've been using a voip number for all my sms 2fa needs for the last 5 years while living abroad. I have a dozen banks and other financial institutions plus the irs happily accepting it. Some companies, like openai, wont accept it, for those I just buy single use SMS numbers.
      - mindslight 3y ago
        I've had problems with a bunch of places, so it's at least YMMV then. And I'd be wary of transferring an existing number in (as opposed to getting a new voip number and then setting it up). I'm sure specific services are hit or miss - there really shouldn't be a problem sending SMS to whatever number a user enters, but paternalistic snake oil salesmen gonna be paternalistic. I've had the least difficulty with Google Voice (I believe it's impossible to tell "Google Voice" usage from bona fide Fi usage where it's really the users' only phone number). Voip.ms has worked very little for me, to the point of that I don't even try it. Heck I even used a voip.ms number for some online classifieds, and another person using Comcast/Xfinity mobile couldn't text me. I'm not saying this as a slight against Voip.ms itself, from what I've gathered most voip providers will be treated similarly. One of these days when I get around to it I plan on setting up a wireless modem on a $3/mo paygo plan for my SMS nag needs. With a script that automatically brings the number as close to my paste buffer as possible. What single use SMS service do you use? I haven't really investigated those.
- pseudostem 3y ago
  I have setup a PRI to SIP channel before using elastix (now discontinued and bought by 3CX I think). This needs investigation, but - Over the top of my head, I think you could probably have some kind of a 4G/5G modem hooked on to an SBC (Pi, APU, etc.) and then forwarded to your SIP line which you can pick over IP (Internet), this should work. One of the child comments mentioned DID (Direct Inward Dialling). I am no expert, but if your Australian provider supports something similar, you will get the number (friend) who is dialling in, instead of your own Australian number dialling in to your receiver phone. This is useful for caller ID, otherwise it's just like a forwarded call. Hope this helps.
- singpolyma3 3y ago
  This is pretty much exactly the problem that we originally created https://jmp.chat https://jmp.chat to solve, no sip or complex setup needed these days for that use case.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    I heard about you ages ago and wanted to use your service ever since. The only problem I don't need it for anything. But I'm glad you you are still there.
- monkey26 3y ago
  I use Callcentric for this. Ported a land line over years ago. It now has SMS which I can do using the Callcentric app. And it forwards voicemails to me with email. Otherwise I don’t use that line for actual calls anymore.
kunwon1 3y ago
I've been working with bespoke VOIP/asterisk systems for a decade, I have one bit of advice to add - consider toll fraud. Especially for a system accessible from the internet. If an attacker can figure out how to make calls through your PBX, they can rack up tens of thousands of dollars in tolls over the course of a night. Most of the integrated FOSS solutions come with fail2ban already configured, it is essential. If you want more peace of mind, a prepaid trunk helps. That means you charge up your sip trunk account, and if someone drains it, it just stops working instead of continuing to drain your bank account. You can also limit international calling on your trunks, which effectively nullifies the financial drain of this kind of attack (though it's still obviously bad if an attacker can access your system in any way)
revskill 3y ago
It's surprising that you could configure everything without hardware/software compatability issues.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  Well I basically used a a Linux distribution made precisely for this: it was called "RasPBX" back then, IIRC. The hardware was simple: a Pi 1, an external HDD hooked through USB to the Pi and Cisco VoIP phones. That Linux distro already took care of picking software components/versions all working fine together and it was tailor made for the Pi. It was pretty plug and play from what I remember. I'm a software dev, not a sysadmin, but I can find my way around configure Linux machines. I don't remember it as being particularly complicated. What I do remember for sure though is that once it worked, it worked flawlessly for years.
windexh8er 3y ago
I believe they're still related but the guys at Nerd Vittles [0] are still doing a PBX in a Box style deployment. Looks like it's called Incredible PBX [1] now. But the last time I ran it it took a lot of considerations around running SIP securely and brought a few of the pieces together. Probably worth a look if you're interested in self-hosting at home or for SMB. [0] https://nerdvittles.com/ https://nerdvittles.com/ [1] https://wiki.incrediblepbx.com/ https://wiki.incrediblepbx.com/
- NerdUno 3y ago
  Nerd Vittles is alive and well. And Incredible PBX now offers dozens of free, turnkey platforms. Have a look at wiki.incrediblepbx.com for suggestions.

jamesmstone 3y ago

I have a tangentially related problem I have been battling with that you may be able to help me with. I'm moving overseas (Australia to Denmark) and would like to keep my current mobile phone number working for calls and SMS , but use it from afar. I would be able to leave a raspberry pi at a friend's house. Can you use this setup without a SIP provider? Would you need to buy a modem for the raspberry pi?what would you do?

sokoloff 3y ago
I've never done it, but look into chan_mobile and a bluetooth dongle to connect a mobile (with your SIM) to asterisk running on a Pi at your friend's place.
sgc 3y ago
I would just port my number to twilio and use/write a really basic twilio mobile app. It's a bit risky to rely on a slightly cobbled hardware/software setup that is sitting across the world with no physical access.
- mindslight 3y ago
  Note that one problem with voip providers is the numbers/lines often won't be recognized as valid by snake oil 2FA and the like. So porting to a voip provider only works if your goal is receiving SMS/calls from actual humans or just parking the number for later. But if you're doing it to avoid having to change your number for every service that has an SMS nagwall, it likely won't work. You can get a modem that will do SMS (eg a Sierra Wireless card), but I don't know if/how they do voice. Also, I'd shy away from the RPi based on the unreliability of SD cards. It would/will be pretty annoying for your host to go down and you have to travel back to fix it. I suppose if your friend is halfway handy you could keep an image of the machine as installed. Or even take new images remotely (rsync from the raw device a few times in a row?). If the root filesytem goes wonky, have your friend pull the SD card and reimage it.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    I've been using a voip number for all my sms 2fa needs for the last 5 years while living abroad. I have a dozen banks and other financial institutions plus the irs happily accepting it. Some companies, like openai, wont accept it, for those I just buy single use SMS numbers.
    - mindslight 3y ago
      I've had problems with a bunch of places, so it's at least YMMV then. And I'd be wary of transferring an existing number in (as opposed to getting a new voip number and then setting it up). I'm sure specific services are hit or miss - there really shouldn't be a problem sending SMS to whatever number a user enters, but paternalistic snake oil salesmen gonna be paternalistic. I've had the least difficulty with Google Voice (I believe it's impossible to tell "Google Voice" usage from bona fide Fi usage where it's really the users' only phone number). Voip.ms has worked very little for me, to the point of that I don't even try it. Heck I even used a voip.ms number for some online classifieds, and another person using Comcast/Xfinity mobile couldn't text me. I'm not saying this as a slight against Voip.ms itself, from what I've gathered most voip providers will be treated similarly. One of these days when I get around to it I plan on setting up a wireless modem on a $3/mo paygo plan for my SMS nag needs. With a script that automatically brings the number as close to my paste buffer as possible. What single use SMS service do you use? I haven't really investigated those.
pseudostem 3y ago
I have setup a PRI to SIP channel before using elastix (now discontinued and bought by 3CX I think). This needs investigation, but - Over the top of my head, I think you could probably have some kind of a 4G/5G modem hooked on to an SBC (Pi, APU, etc.) and then forwarded to your SIP line which you can pick over IP (Internet), this should work. One of the child comments mentioned DID (Direct Inward Dialling). I am no expert, but if your Australian provider supports something similar, you will get the number (friend) who is dialling in, instead of your own Australian number dialling in to your receiver phone. This is useful for caller ID, otherwise it's just like a forwarded call. Hope this helps.
singpolyma3 3y ago
This is pretty much exactly the problem that we originally created https://jmp.chat https://jmp.chat to solve, no sip or complex setup needed these days for that use case.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  I heard about you ages ago and wanted to use your service ever since. The only problem I don't need it for anything. But I'm glad you you are still there.
monkey26 3y ago
I use Callcentric for this. Ported a land line over years ago. It now has SMS which I can do using the Callcentric app. And it forwards voicemails to me with email. Otherwise I don’t use that line for actual calls anymore.

kunwon1 3y ago

I've been working with bespoke VOIP/asterisk systems for a decade, I have one bit of advice to add - consider toll fraud. Especially for a system accessible from the internet. If an attacker can figure out how to make calls through your PBX, they can rack up tens of thousands of dollars in tolls over the course of a night. Most of the integrated FOSS solutions come with fail2ban already configured, it is essential. If you want more peace of mind, a prepaid trunk helps. That means you charge up your sip trunk account, and if someone drains it, it just stops working instead of continuing to drain your bank account. You can also limit international calling on your trunks, which effectively nullifies the financial drain of this kind of attack (though it's still obviously bad if an attacker can access your system in any way)

revskill 3y ago

It's surprising that you could configure everything without hardware/software compatability issues.

TacticalCoder 3y ago
Well I basically used a a Linux distribution made precisely for this: it was called "RasPBX" back then, IIRC. The hardware was simple: a Pi 1, an external HDD hooked through USB to the Pi and Cisco VoIP phones. That Linux distro already took care of picking software components/versions all working fine together and it was tailor made for the Pi. It was pretty plug and play from what I remember. I'm a software dev, not a sysadmin, but I can find my way around configure Linux machines. I don't remember it as being particularly complicated. What I do remember for sure though is that once it worked, it worked flawlessly for years.

windexh8er 3y ago

I believe they're still related but the guys at Nerd Vittles [0] are still doing a PBX in a Box style deployment. Looks like it's called Incredible PBX [1] now. But the last time I ran it it took a lot of considerations around running SIP securely and brought a few of the pieces together. Probably worth a look if you're interested in self-hosting at home or for SMB. [0] https://nerdvittles.com/ https://nerdvittles.com/ [1] https://wiki.incrediblepbx.com/ https://wiki.incrediblepbx.com/

NerdUno 3y ago
Nerd Vittles is alive and well. And Incredible PBX now offers dozens of free, turnkey platforms. Have a look at wiki.incrediblepbx.com for suggestions.