[Asterisk-Users] Re: Getting Polycom IP500 to talk to Asterisk - um... Newbie question :)

[Noah Miller]

> Hmmm... I have this aweful feeling that I'm choosing the exact wrong
> time to ask a "newbie question" :)  Oh well, here it goes.

You're obviously literate, and you've put forth effort, so hopefully no 
one here will step on your toes.


> The quick question is : "How do I dial an extension?"  (answer is
> probably - "you don't" in which case:)
> "How do I dial my asterisk box?" - I have no outside line, I just want
> to start testing things like voicemail internally.
>
> The details:  I am not connected to the outside world yet, I have a
> couple of phones in-house and I'm trying to set up an Asterisk internal
> office phone network just to get my head wrapped around the system.  I 
> have
> - my linux box set up
> - the phones ftp'ing their latest firmware and config files
> - I can call one phone from the other using the IP address (no asterisk
> required)
> - I have installed zaptel, libpri, asterisk, asterisk samples
> - I have added my 2 phones to the sip.conf file (see below)
> - I see the two phones if I do a "sip show peers" with the correct IP
> addresses
> - I've tried to set up the phones as described at
> "http://www.csh.rit.edu/~adamf/IP500.html"
>
> *CLI> sip show peers
> Name/username    Host            Dyn Nat ACL Mask             Port
> Status
> 176polycom       192.168.0.176               255.255.255.255  5060
> Unmonitored
> 175polycom       192.168.0.175               255.255.255.255  5060
> Unmonitored
>
>
> Added to sip.conf:
>
> [175polycom]
> type=friend
> host=192.168.0.175
> defaultip=192.168.0.175
> dtmfmode=inband
> mailbox=175
> context=sip
> callerid="I am Don"
> progressinband=no ;polycom's seem to have trouble with the default
> progressinband=never
>
> [176polycom]
> type=friend
> host=192.168.0.176
> defaultip=192.168.0.176
> dtmfmode=inband
> mailbox=176
> context=sip
> callerid="I am a jerk"  (Hey, no self-deprecation allowed!)
> progressinband=no ;polycom's seem to have trouble with the default
> progressinband=never

You'll want to add something like this to extensions.conf

[sip]
exten => 175,1,Dial(SIP/175polycom,20)
exten => 175,2,Hangup

exten => 176,1,Dial(SIP/176polycom,20)
exten => 176,2,Hangup

This should allow your phones to dial one another.  Later you may want 
to add voicemail, then your dialplan for the sip phones would look 
something like this:
exten => 175,1,Dial(SIP/175polycom,20)
exten => 175,2,Voicemail(u175)
exten => 175,102,Voicemail(b175)
exten => 175,103,Hangup

(You'll also need to add the appropriate config to voicemail.conf)

Later, if you want to make all the lines on your Polycom phones work in 
a logical manner, you may want to disable the built-in call-waiting 
"feature."  Look up CheckGroup and SetGroup for that.  But that's down 
the road a bit.


> Yet I can find nothing about extensions
> in any of the Polycom documentation, phone buttons and menus, etc, and 
> I
> am beginning to think that the concept of an "extension" is an analogue
> phone thing and just doesn't make sense for IP phones.

Extensions are what asterisk uses to allow one device to talk to 
another.  You can assign an extension to do just about anything, 
including dialing another device like a sip phone or a PSTN line.