How to connect to Asterisk

The first thing you should do after installing Visual Dialplan is to set up the connection to your Asterisk server and that way benefit from the full potential of this software. After establishing the connection Visual Dialplan will collect Asterisk server configuration information, pre-populate library components with configuration data and that way significantly easier your dial plan development. It will also validate the dial plan against Asterisk configuration objects (SIP peers, IAX peers, voicemail boxes etc.) and warn you if you use objects that are not configured.

To set up connection to your Asterisk server open Preferences dialog (Edit –> Preferences … from the main menu) and fill in the fields listed below.

Note: In case you already configured connection to your Asterisk server and you want to configure another connection (to another Asterisk server) you would need to click on the plus icon at Preferences dialog (above the list of already configured connections) to configure new connection.

1. Name
The name of your Asterisk server.

2. Asterisk server version
Select Asterisk server version or leave this field and proceed with next fields if you are not sure about the Asterisk version.

3. Local or Remote
Select the server location – Local (installed at the same machine where Visual Dialplan is installed), or Remote (installed at remote machine).
For the purpose of this tutorial we will assume you server is remote.
So, select Remote server (SSH) radio button and enter Asterisk server access parameters:
Server – server URL or IP
Port – default port is 22, leave it as it is if you are not sure about the port
Username – username of user with enough privileges to log-in remotely to Asterisk server via SSH
Password – password of user with enough privileges to log-in remotely to Asterisk server via SSH
Config file – Visual Dialplan needs to access Asterisk server configuration file (asterisk.conf) to read configuration parameters. Default path to this file is /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf but depending on your Asterisk installation this file may be at some other location.

Now you are ready to test the connection to your remote Asterisk server – click on the Test connection button and you should receive confirmation message that the connection is established successfully.

4. Asterisk server version, again
Are you sure about your Asterisk server version?
You have established connection between Visual Dialplan and Asterisk server and the easiest way to make sure you have selected correct Asterisk server version is to let the Visual Dialplan do the job for you – click on the ‘Detect’ button (upper right part of the Preferences dialog) and Visual Dialplan will connect to the Asterisk server, check the server version and set it in the drop-down box.

5. Asterisk server type
The last step is to select appropriate type of your Asterisk server (Plain Asterisk, Elastix, trixbox etc.) from the ‘Asterisk server type’ drop down box.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
It is very important to set the appropriate type of the server in order to instruct Visual Dialplan to deploy the dial plan appropriately.

You are done.
Click on the OK button and close the Preferences dialog.

After setting up the connection to Asterisk server you may proceed with the dial plan development but you may also want to check the server configuration data.

Please note that with Visual Dialplan you got number of dial plan examples that may help you when you develop you own dial plan.