Today we are going to discuss the basics of using Asterisk as a voicemail server. Voicemail is an extremely easy to learn and use command in Asterisk.

First of all, we need to add it to our dialplan. If you wanted to use it as only voicemail, you can set it to something like this.

exten => 33,1,Answer()
exten => 33,2,Wait(2)
exten => 33,3,Voicemail(225)

First off, we have to answer the call, obviously, then to let Asterisk catch up with answering, we set it to wait for 2 seconds, then we send it to the voicemail application, specifically box 225.

Next we have to edit Voicemail.conf which you will find in the /etc/Asterisk directory, in linux anyway. If you have the default .conf files, you will have a huge garble of information to search through to find the options that you are looking for. From Voip-info.org I have garnered this sample for you guys.

[default]
1234 => 1234,Some User,email@address.com,pager@address.com,saycid=yes|dialout=fromvm|callback=fromvm

You will want to look for the default context. In the default files, this is where the VMB’s are stored. Before we move along, take a look at the above example and see if you can figure it out on your own.

I’m sure that there might have been one or two things that didn’t make sense, so let’s explain it all. First, we need a box number, that is what is the introduction into that line of code. The first 1234, is the box number. After that we need the => again and a passcode, which is also 1234 in this example. After that we can set the different arguments and variables and such.

First we have the name of the user for this box, afterwards, their email so that is you have sendmail set up, Asterisk will automatically send an email to the user to notify them of the voicemail.

Then is the pager’s email to send it to. You could also use the email your cell phone provider gives you, which is usually 8527382956(phonenumber)@cellprovider.com, ask your provider for more information on that.

Then saycid which will give the CID of the person who calls to the user when they check their messages.

Next, we have an option that allows the user to call out from their VMB. I don’t personally like to enable this.

You can also allow people to call the voicemail’s leaver (I don’t know what to call it) back, which is obviously the next option.

To disable any of these options, just don’t put it in. There are a ton more options to add or take out of this, but these are the most common. Check out www.Voip-Info.org for more information on the Voicemail feature.

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+config+voicemail.conf

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/index.php?page=Asterisk+cmd+VoiceMail

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