Network Connections for Your Node

However you connect your Asterisk server to the network it is your responsibility to configure its internal firewall for good security practices. The internal Linux firewall is not activated by the installation script. Though this might be acceptable if the unit is on a network behind another firewall it is not a good idea if the server is connected directly to the Internet.

Your node can be directly connected to the Internet however most nodes will be installed to a LAN that is connected to the Internet via a Network Address Translation (NAT) Gateway and Router.

Our favorite little router is the Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT firmware installed.

Whatever router you use, you must configure it so the IAX2 port used on your Asterisk server is forwarded from the Internet (WAN) to the Asterisk server.

The IAX2 standard port number is 4569. However this can be changed to another port number in the server's iax.conf file. Just make sure that the selected non-standard port number is used in all connections and registered with the AllStar Link master server.

For example, assume we are connecting our Asterisk server to our home network. We have a DSL based Internet Service Provider (ISP). Our equipment consists of a DSL Modem connected to a Linksys WRT-54G combination wireless access point (WAP) and router. This device takes the unique worldwide Internet Protocol (IP) Address assigned to our connection by the ISP (e.g. 68.25.xxx.xxx) and using Network Address Translation (NAT) and Dynamic Host Connection Protocol (DHCP) assigns IP Addresses in the 192.168.1.xxx range to our home computers as they are connected. Our Linux/Asterisk computer is one of those computers.

You must log into the Linux/Asterisk computer as root and enter the command "ifconfig" to determine its assigned IP address on your Local Area Network (LAN).

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