3.5. Compiling Asterisk
Once you've compiled and installed the
zaptel and libpri packages (if you need them), you can
move on to Asterisk. This section walks you through a standard
installation and introduces some of the alternative make
arguments that you may find useful. We'll also look at how you can
edit the Makefile to optimize the
compilation of Asterisk.
3.5.1. Standard Installation
Asterisk is compiled with gcc through the use of the GNU make program. Unlike many other programs,
there is no need to run a configuration script for Asterisk. To get
started compiling Asterisk, simply run the following commands
(replace version with your version of
Asterisk):
# cd /usr/src/asterisk-version
# make clean
# make
# make install
# make samples
Be aware that compile times will vary between
systems. On a current-generation processor, you shouldn't need to
wait more than five minutes. At Astricon, someone reported
successfully compiling Asterisk on a 133-MHz Pentium, but it took
approximately five hours. You do the math.
Run the make samples command to install
the default configuration files. Installing these files (instead of
configuring each file manually) will allow you to get your Asterisk
system up and running much faster. Many of the default values are
fine for Asterisk. Files that require editing will be explained in
future chapters.
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If you already have configuration files
installed in /etc/asterisk/ when
you run the make samples command, .old will be appended to the end of each of
your current configuration filesfor example, extensions.conf will be renamed extensions.conf.old. Be careful, though,
because if you run make samples more than once you will
overwrite your original configuration files!
The sample configuration files can also be found
in the configs/ subdirectory
within your Asterisk sources directory.
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If you're using a system that makes use of the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/ or /etc/init.d/ directories, you may wish to run
the make config command as well. This will install the
startup scripts and configure the system (through the use of the
chkconfig command) to execute Asterisk automatically at
startup.
3.5.2. Alternative make Arguments
There are several other make arguments
that you can pass at compile time. While some of these will be
discussed here, the remainder are used internally within the file
and really have no bearing or use for the end user. (Of course, new
functions may have been added, so be sure to check the Makefile for other options.)
Let's take a look at some useful make
arguments.
3.5.2.1. make clean
The make clean command is used to
remove the compiled binaries from within the source directory. This
command should be run before you attempt to recompile or, if space
is an issue, if you would like to clean up the files.
3.5.2.2. make update
This command is used to update the existing code
from the Digium CVS server. If you downloaded the source code from
the FTP server, you will receive an error stating so.
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A common problem that you may find if you update
with the cvs update command is that when you then do a
show version at the Asterisk command-line interface (CLI),
your version does not appear to have been updated. This problem can
be resolved by removing the hidden .version file within the Asterisk source code
directory before recompiling, or by using the make update
command (which will remove the file for you).
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3.5.2.3. make upgrade
If you run the make install command to
install Asterisk after using the make update command to
update from CVS, the .version file
will not be updated. If you do not want to manually delete the
.version file before running
make and make install, you can use the make
upgrade command instead.
3.5.2.4. make webvmail
The Asterisk Web Voicemail script is used to
give a graphical interface to your voicemail account, allowing you
to manage and interact with your voicemail remotely from a web
browser.
When you run the make webvmail command,
the Asterisk Web Voicemail script will be placed into the
cgi-bin/ directory of your HTTP
daemon. If you have specific policies with respect to security, be
aware that it uses a setuid root Perl script. This command
will install only on a Red Hat or Fedora box, as other
distributions may have different paths to their cgi-bin/ directories. (This, of course, can be
changed by editing the Makefile.)
3.5.2.5. make progdocs
This command will create documentation using the
doxygen software from comments
placed within the source code by the developers. You must have the
appropriate doxygen software
installed on your system in order for this to work. Note that
doxygen assumes that the source
code is well documented, which, sadly, is not always the case.
3.5.2.6. make mpg123
Asterisk uses the mpg123 program to stream MP3s during the use
of Music on Hold (MoH). Because Asterisk only works with
mpg123 v0.59r, this shortcut will
determine if the correct version of mpg123 is installed on your system and, if
not, will attempt to download, extract, and compile it for you. Be
aware that newer versions will not work, and some distributions
even symbolically link mpg321 and
mpg123, which are entirely
different programs. If you run the make install command
after running this command, Asterisk will detect the directory and
install it for you as well.
3.5.2.7. make config
The make config command will install
Red Hat-style initialization scripts ,
if the /etc/rc.d/init.d or
/etc/init.d directories are found
to exist. If they do exist, the scripts are installed with file
permissions equal to 755. If the script detects that
/etc/rc.d/init.d/ exists, the
chkconfig add asterisk command will also be run to cause
Asterisk to be started automatically at boot time. This is not the
case, however, with distributions that only use the /etc/init.d/ directory. Running make
config will not do anything to an already running Asterisk
process, or start one if it's not running.
This script currently is only really useful on a
Red Hat-based system, although initialization scripts are available
for other distributions (such as Gentoo, Mandrake, and Slackware)
in the ./contrib./init.d/
directory of your Asterisk source directory.
3.5.3. Editing the Makefile
At the top of the Makefile contained within the Asterisk source
directory are several options for optimizing the compilation of
Asterisk. You can enable GSM codec optimizations (with the use of MMX instructions ), disable configuration file overwrites, add
extra debugging information, change Asterisk's installation and
staging directories, and modify which type of processor you are
compiling for. While you may never edit or require any of these
options, they are mentioned here for completeness.
3.5.3.1. Enabling GSM
optimizations
Uncomment the following line in your Asterisk
Makefile to enable GSM codec
optimizations on x86 CPU architectures that support MMX
instructions:
#K6OPT = -DK6OPT
This includes newer Pentium processors, Pentium
Pros, and the AMD K6 and K7 processors; however, you may not want
to enable MMX support unless you have a true Intel processor, as
problems have been reported with the MMX instructions on non-Intel
processors.
3.5.3.2. Disabling configuration file
overwrites
By default, Asterisk will overwrite your
configuration files if you run make samples more than
once. To change this behavior, change the y in the line
below to n:
OVERWRITE=y
3.5.3.3. Enabling debug profiling
information
Debug symbols allow you to do symbolic
debugging. The profiling information (-pg) flag will
produce a file when you run Asterisk that can be processed in order
to obtain information about how long (relatively) Asterisk spends
in each function. Use of the -pg flag is not recommended
for a normal build, but it may be useful during development. To
enable profiling information, replace the -g in the
following line with -pg:
DEBUG=-g
3.5.3.4. Specifying where to install
Asterisk after compiling
You can change the directory where Asterisk is
installed by specifying a path on the following line:
INSTALL_PREFIX=
3.5.3.5. Changing the staging
directory
The staging directory is where Asterisk
temporarily copies its files during the install process. You may
want the files to be copied to a directory such as /tmp/asterisk/. If no staging directory is
specified (the default), Asterisk will use the source directory. To
specify a staging directory, enter the desired directory on this
line:
DESTDIR=
3.5.3.6. Compiling on VIA
motherboards
On VIA-based motherboards, you need to set the
processor to i586. If Asterisk detects the processor as i686, you
may get random core dumps. To force Asterisk to compile using i586,
remove the comment from the following PROC line in the
Makefile (line 81, at the time of
this writing):
# Pentium & VIA processors optimize
# PROC=i586
3.5.4. Using Precompiled Binaries
While the documented process of installing
Asterisk expects you to compile the source code yourself, there are
Linux distributions (such as Debian) that include precompiled
Asterisk binaries . Failing that, you may be able to install
Asterisk with the package managers
that those distributions of Linux provide (such as apt-get for Debian and portage for Gentoo). However, you may also
find that many of these prebuilt binaries are quite out of date and
do not follow the same furious development cycle as Asterisk.
Finally, there do exist basic, precompiled
Asterisk binaries that can be downloaded and installed in whatever
Linux distribution you have chosen. However, the use of precompiled
binaries doesn't really save much time, and we have found that
compiling Asterisk with each install is not a very cumbersome task.
We believe that the best way to install Asterisk is to compile from
the source code, so we won't discuss prebuilt binaries very much in
this book. In the next chapter, we'll look at how to initially
configure Asterisk and several kinds of channels.
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