Note: This cookbook is based on building Asterisk 1.2.10 on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Server somewhere as of August 15th, 2006. It should work for Tiger client as well, but I definitely won’t guarantee it.

Disclaimer

This cookbook is intended for those that are atleast slightly familiar with building and configuring unix applications on Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. No support is offered and the author is not responsible for any lost data due to following these steps or mistakes made while attempting to follow these steps.

With that in mind, these steps did work for the author and will provide a quick copy & paste solution for those that don’t want to figure out all the steps themselves (although this is a really easy one).

Caveats

Although Asterisk compiles cleanly and functions pretty well on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (Client & Server), you will have to configure and administer it from using CLI as there is no easy-to-build GUI or web interface.

Also, due to a lack of support for Zaptel (and other) drivers and hence support for hardware PCI cards, some functionality that requires timing interrupts from PCI cards will not work properly (if at all). Including:

• IAX2 “Trunking”
• Music-on-Hold
• Conferencing using MeetMe

However, if you’re running a smaller Asterisk setup and don’t need conferencing or Music-on-Hold, then you should be fine and experience few issues.

The author suggests that you keep an eye on OpenPBX, which was forked from Asterisk 1.2, as it is being developed specifically to address these types of issues and promote platform neutrality.

Preparing the Build Environment

cd ~/Desktop
mkdir asterisk-build
cd asterisk-build

Building & Installing Asterisk 1.2

curl -O http://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/releases/asterisk-1.2.10.tar.gz
tar -xzf asterisk-1.2.10.tar.gz
pushd asterisk-1.2.10
make clean
sudo make install
sudo make samples
popd

Allowing Communication with the Outside World

Open the following ports in the firewall (via Server Admin.app):

• “iChat – Session Initiation Protocol” (UDP port 5060)
• “iChat – audio/video RTP & RCTP” (UDP ports 16384-16403)
• “IAX – Inter-Asterisk eXchange” (UDP port 4569; you’ll need to add this one to the list)

Starting Asterisk

If not using a Startup Item, you can manually (or using your own scripts) run the following command to start the asterisk daemon:

sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk

Stopping Asterisk

If not using a Startup Item, you can use one of the following commands to manually shut down asterisk gracefully (see asterisk help for other less-than-graceful options):

sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx 'stop when convenient'

sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx 'stop gracefully'

Reference

• http://www.asterisk.org/downloads
• http://www.digium.com/en/docs/asterisk_handbook/downloading_compiling.html
• http://www.digium.com/en/supportcenter/documentation/viewdocs/asterisk_handbook
• http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/index.php?page=Asterisk
• http://www.asteriskguru.com/

Download This Cookbook as Text:

Cookbook – Asterisk 1.2 on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Server.txt – 2006-12-22