How to Install DAHDI for Asterisk

Note: This is a non-Blogger related post

Some of my friends have asked me how to install DAHDI on Linux based system. I was thinking of writing an email, but decided to immortalize the information by blogging about it instead. Back to the actual story. You'd need DAHDI modules installed on your linux machine to make Asterisk's audio conferencing feature work. The Debian virtual disk image that you guys have copied from campus network does not come with DAHDI pre-installed. In this post, I'm gonna show you guys how you can install DAHDI on your Debian. I've tried the installation on Fedora 16, and it works fine as well. Feel free to try it on other Linux distribution.

Step 1:

Launch your Debian, and make sure you have internet access. You can check this by firing up a browser and see if you can search something. If you're already connected to the internet, skip to Step 4. If you can't connect to the internet, on your VirtualBox, go to:

Machine - Settings - Network - Attached to - NAT - OK.

Step 2:

Next, configure your IP address. Make sure it is not set to 'Manual' or anything like that. To configure your IP:

Right click on your network connection (Top Right) - Edit Connections - Choose your connection's name - Edit - IPv4 Settings - Automatic (DHCP) - Apply.

Step 3:

Click on your Network Connections - Disconnect from your current connection - Connect to the connection that you've chosen above. Even if you're already connected to the connection above, you still need to disconnect from it and reconnect again, if you want your machine to get a NAT'd IP.

Now, launch a browser in Debian and verify that you're connected to the internet.

Step 4:

Fire up your Terminal, and go into super user mode by typing the command below.

su‌

Step 5:

Type in (or copy and paste) the command below to get the complete DAHDI package from Digium's server.

wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/dahdi-linux-complete/dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0-rc1+2.6.0-rc1.tar.gz

Your download should start automatically when you press Enter.

Step 6:

Type in the following command to 'untar' your DAHDI package:

tar xvfz dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0-rc1+2.6.0-rc1.tar.gz

Step 7:

By now you should be familiar with entering Terminal commands. Enter the following lines, ONE AT A TIME.

ln -s dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0-rc1+2.6.0-rc1 dahdi
cd dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0-rc1+2.6.0-rc1
make
make install
make config

The last three lines will take awhile to install.

Step 8:

If you've done everything right, you should have successfully installed the complete DAHDI package, and your Asterisk audio conferencing should work fine. To verify your installation, type the command below. If you don't see any errors, that means you're fine. Otherwise, you're screwed.

/etc/init.d/dahdi start

One more IMPORTANT thing. Reverse what you've done in Steps 1 and 2, otherwise you won't be able to ping your local machines.

Good luck for your assignments, and happy holidays!