[Asterisk-doc] Running Asterisk at boot time and loading modules

[Randy Resnick]

By the way, you may like to add Slackware 9.1 to the distros tested with 
Asterisk, I have been running it in production with no issues for three 
months.

I think you *should* include general information in the book in spite of 
the argument that "... we can leave it to the users own device to learn 
how to load modules at startup on their own systems." It doesn't waste 
much space to include a paragraph very useful information to help hook 
users on Asterisk, especially if they need to get running quickly.

-----------
Installing Asterisk ->
   Loading Drivers ->
     Using "modprobe", Adding zaptel modules to your startup file
-----------

See also : Starting Asterisk using safe_asterisk

Once you are satisfied with the operation of Asterisk on your machine, 
you will usually want to automatically run it when the box boots up. You 
should look at the /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk script and understand what it 
does and then insert a call to it in a local startup config file. These 
are usually in the /etc/rc.d directory.

Example from a Slackware 9.1 installion of Asterisk

/etc/rc.d/rc.local
----------------------
# Loading hardware drivers for Asterisk
modprobe zaptel

# Wildcard X100
modprobe wcfxo

# TDM400
modprobe wcfxs
sleep 1

# configure the modules for asterisk
# see /etc/zaptel.conf
ztcfg -vv
sleep 1

# start the pppoe connection if needed
# since Asterisk won't work too well with no Internet connection
#/usr/sbin/adsl-start
# start firewall etc

# Start Asterisk with a console on tty9
/usr/local/sbin/safe_asterisk

#
#Insert less urgent stuff here like numlock
#
-------------

On most distros, Alt/F9 will switch you to the terminal running 
Asterisk. Some typical things you may want to see when Asterisk first 
boots might be the state of SIP and/or IAX clients or the registry:

*CLI> sip show peers
*CLI> iax2 show peers
*CLI> sip show registry
*CLI> iax2 show registry

The system console will be a constant source of information on the state 
of things in Asterisk. When clients become unreachable or "too lagged" 
you will learn of it here. If users try to log in with bad passwords you 
will see the event on the console. You will also see all dialing and 
arriving call activity. Many messages will help you see why a call is 
not working out. Naturally, this is also the way you will debug 
extensions, macros and your own applications.