Getting started with VoIP and Asterisk

Presented at May Contain Hackers (MCH2022), July 24, 2022, 1 p.m. (90 minutes)

Want to get your hands dirty with Asterisk? Want to learn about how VoIP works? Then this is the workshop for you. In this workshop, you will learn how VoIP works and how you can quickly get started with the popular phone system Asterisk. Before you know it, you will be making and receiving calls and have a starting point for further tinkering.

Asterisk is the 'swiss army knife' of Telephony. But getting started can be pretty daunting. So many config files, so much documentation, so little time...

In this workshop you will get a grasp on the basics of VoIP protocols and how you can configure Asterisk to quickly get up and running. Before you know it, you will be making and receiving calls with your own Asterisk phone system. After that, the possibilities are endless: start sending/receiving faxes, harass telemarketers or create hidden menus.

To participate in the workshop part, you will need some sort of VoIP phone. This can be hardware, but a VoIP phone on your PC will be more practical (a so-called 'softphone'). Recommendations for this are MicroSIP on Windows, Telephone on macOS or LinPhone on Linux distros.

You will be provided with a trunk account, phone number and Debian VPS with root access. Keep in mind that these will become inactive one day after the workshop. I will assume that you know how to navigate in a Linux shell and edit text files.


Presenters:

  • Nick Bouwhuis
    Hi! I'm Nick. I'm a part-time entrepreneur and NOC engineer at Speakup, a VoIP provider based in Enschede. In my role as NOC engineer role I am responsible for Speakup's phone and IP-network. As a part-time entrepreneur I run a freelance IT and Managed Hosting business.

Links:

Similar Presentations: