[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk(OS X) & X-Lite

[Kenton Powell]

> If you have used the FWD Assistant, it will have configured your
> Asterisk server to use FWD through IAX, not SIP. Since you seem to be
> behind NAT and a firewall, using IAX is a good idea anyway. IAX is NAT
> friendly, SIP is not.

I have decided to use the IAX protocol enabled by the FWD Assistant 
instead of SIP because of the compatibility issues.

> As far as your X-Lite connecting to Asterisk goes, I presume X-Lite
> and Asterisk are running on different Macs, is that correct?

That actually is incorrect. I am trying to setup the Asterisk server 
and softphone on the same machine with the hope of extending extensions 
to other computers or phones after I test the configuration.

> If so, you need to find out if that wireless bridge you're talking
> about uses NAT between your X-Lite Mac and your Asterisk Mac. SIP
> doesn't work well with NAT and that is probably the reason why you
> can't get through to your Asterisk Mac. You could download iaxComm (an
> IAX softphone - link on the MacOSX page of the Wiki at
> www.voip-info.org) and again use IAX instead of SIP.

The switch I have is not using NAT since it is not functioning as a 
DHCP server. In the future that may become an issue if the school's 
switches are using DHCP but I will cross that bridge when I get there. 
As a proactive measure I have decided to use the IAX protocol iaxComm 
softphone to hopefully avoid NAT problems.

> In any event, if you want to use Asterisk as a "VoIP Hub" instead of
> connecting to FWD directly from your softphone, then the chain would
> be like this ...
>
> [softphone]---internal extension--->[asterisk]---FWD number--->[FWD]

That is the plan.

> Wherever there is NAT between two points in the chain, you are saving
> yourself a lot of trouble if you use IAX instead of SIP for that
> particular connection, but you don't necessarily have to use the same
> protocol all the way. Asterisk can translate between SIP and IAX for
> you.

That is interesting and good to know.

In any event, although I have made progress in planning the network and 
have installed iaxComm but I still can't get it to connect to the 
server. I have established accounts with the New Extension Assistant 
based on the following

Account Name (This is based on personal preference correct?)
Host is the IP address of the asterisk server. (Can the client and 
server run on the same machine?)
Username is your username on the remote asterisk server. (Based on the 
users created in the New Extension Assistant, correct?)
iaxComm uses MD5 authentication. If the remote server doesn't like your 
password, make sure it's not misconfigured to use plaintext 
authentication. (How can I check this, would this be an issue?

Thanks again for your quick and helpful response.

Kenton