[asterisk-users] soft ATA on linux with zaptel?

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009, Brian J. Murrell wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:02:01 -0500, Steve Totaro wrote:
>>
>> Why not just get a softphone and use a USB soundcard or even the onboard
>> sound card as your ATA?  Like a MagicJack and SJphone or Xlite or
>> whatever it is that works with it.
>
> Please forgive my ignorance but I am not following you.
>
> My problem is this... I have a copper POTS line coming into the house and
> I have an Asterisk server which is incapable of accepting a PCI zap card
> as it has no PCI slots.
>
> I do have a PCI zap card though and I have a Linux machine I could put
> that in to.
>
> So now how do I use a USB soundcard and softphone to bridge the copper
> POTS line to the Asterisk server given that I only have an IP connection
> between the Asterisk server and the machine that has the zap card in it?
>
> b.

You cannot.  But truly your best bet is to actually use asterisk as your 
"soft ATA".  That of course begs the question why have another one.  Your 
"bridge" is already running Linux, has the FXO card in it, and is 
presumably on your home network.  Why are you against running asterisk on 
this box?

You are basically asking "what software will act as a soft-ATA on my Linux 
box that will take calls off the FXO port and send them via SIP to my 
asterisk box, which has no card slots".  Well, asterisk is just such a 
beast!

I suspect you just want to run on the separate box as an exercise, which 
is fine, and it would be that much more challenging to install it on both 
and trunk them together over ethernet :)

j