How to – Create an IVR for inbound calls

In this article I am going to over how to create an inbound call menu or IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for ViciDial which will help reduce your drop percent to help you legally within the 3% drop rate for the USA or 5% drop rate for Canada, by way of the FCC guidelines.

Step 1 – Create the call menu

Login to the admin GUI for ViciDial and click “inbound” then “add a new call menu” as shown below., then name your call menu. (For this example, I named it IVR)

Step 2 – Setup your basic IVR options

Now we are going to setup the top portion on the call menu/IVR. Assuming you have already created your audio recording for your IVR and added it to the audio store, select that file at the “Menu Prompt” option. You can also fill out your timeout prompt, invalid prompt and other options as shown below:

Step 3 – Create your IVR options

Now we will select a few common IVR options to add to your call menu. For this example I have given options to 1) leave a voicemail message, 2) be transferred to a live agent, 3) Be added to the Do Not call list or #) to play the options again. See below:

Step 4 – Route unanswered Inbound calls to IVR

The final step is to add this IVR/Call menu to your inbound calls when your agents aren’t available. For this you need to go to your inbound ingroup and change your “call time” and no agent queueing/after hours options to reflect the picture below:

This articles assumes you know how to already setup the other parts needed for this such as creating audio recordings, uploading them to the audio store and setting up inbound groups. If you have any questions feel free to visit our skype live chat. Hopefully this helps some of you that have been asking me about this.

-Chris aka carpenox

How to – Setup Email for ViciDial reports and voicemail

This article will go over how to setup your email configuration on your server in order to get reports from ViciDial or to receive voicemail to email notifications and recordings. Gmail recently changed the way their security is handled so some changes need to be made in order for your emails to go through. You can alter the config below for any email service you may use.

Step 1 – Edit your postfix config file

Ok so first you need to edit your postfix configuration by editing main.cf and adding a few lines to the bottom of it.

nano /etc/postfix/main.cf
### Now paste the following lines to the bottom: ###
relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = lmdb:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = plain
smtp_use_tls = yes

Step 2 – Create a Gmail APP Password

1. Go to Gmail and log in to your account.
2. Now, in the upper-right corner, click the Home Account icon. In the open wizard, click “Manage my Accounts.”
   

1. You will be redirected to Gmail Settings. In the left tab, click Security, and then click ‘2-step verification’ in the ‘Signing into Google’ section.
2. The 2-step verification window will appear on the screen, click ‘Get started.’
3. In the next step, Google will ask you to use your phone as your second sign-in step. Click ‘Try it Now’ to move ahead. You will be asked to log in to Gmail again, and a notification will appear on your phone screen to confirm the sign-in, click Yes.
4. After giving access from your phone, Google will ask you to add a backup option, enter your phone number, and click Send.
5. A code will be sent to your phone to confirm the login, enter the code in the opened window and click ‘Next.’

2-step verification has been enabled. Now, you can easily create an App Password to login to third-party apps.

Creating App Passwords

1. To create the App Password after enabling 2-step verification, go to ‘Manage your Account’ from the home tab.
2. Now, in managing accounts, click the Security tab in the left pane, and then scroll down to ‘Signing to Google.’
3. Here, you’ll see the App Passwords option, click over it. You will be asked to sign in again to your Gmail account.
4. After signing in, select the type of app and device for which you want to generate an app password and click Generate.
5. The App Password will be created; you can copy it to the clipboard, and click ‘Done.’

That’s how you can create App Password for your Gmail account. Now, you can use this Password to login to Gmail with your ViciDial server.

Step 3 – Edit your sasl_password file

Now you need to edit your sasl_password file as shown below:

nano /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
### Alter the line below with your username and password ###
[smtp.gmail.com]:587 youremail@gmail.com:password

That’s all there is to it, now set your email account on your voicemail boxes or automated reports in ViciDial and you should be good to go.

I hope this helps.

-Chris aka carpenox

How to – Use CID groups

This article is going to go over the method to best setup CID groups and the different ways to configure each option available for them including statefill, statelookup and creating auto rotators. This will assume you know how to add DID’s to the system which is fairly easy. So the first thing you need to do is create the CID group as defined below:

Step 1 – Create CID group

Within the ViciDial admin gui go to the Admin section then to CID groups

Once you are here, just click “Add a CID Group”:

The first one we will create is for state lookup method, define “AREACODE” as the group type like shown below:

hit submit and you’ll see it looking like the below picture

Step 2 – Add the DID’s to the CID Group

Next, we will be using the admin utilities to add your DIDs to the CID Group. Go to the “Reports” page and scroll down to the bottom to click on “Admin utilities” then click on “Admin bulk Tools”

Now scroll down to “CID Groups and AC-CID Bulk Add” and add your DID’s, selecting “state lookup” will assign each number with its area code to the proper state its from, selecting “statefill” will automatically add every area code for each state you have a DID for with separate entries for each area code which is a really nice option to ensure local presence in some fashion even if you don’t own DID’s from every area code.

When you choose statefill youll see the same number submitted many times, this is normal

After doing this you’ll notice it filled it every area code for this example I did it for Florida, and even though I only entered 5 area codes, it filled in these 5 numbers for every area code in Florida:

Step 3 – Assign CID group to your campaign

Now you just have to assign the newly created CID group to the detail view of your campaign as shown below, make sure you set “Custom CallerID:” to Y

Now I will show you how to create an auto rotating CID group which will rotate all the DID’s added to this group based on intervals you can choose. Complete step one again but choose “None” for the “CID Group Type” as shown below”

Once your hit submit, choose how often you want the DID’s to change, a good starting point is every 5 minutes or 35 calls as shown below:

Go back and complete step 2 again using the “state lookup” method and assign the CID Group to the campaign, now your DID’s will auto rotate, I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and like always, if you have any questions, feel free to join our Live Support on Skype.

I hope this helps

-Chris aka carpenox

How to – Add conferences for add on servers to a cluster

This article will show you how to add additional servers to your cluster and make sure all the conferences are also added. Its just a few simple steps needed to have it done for you.

Step 1 – Adding the second server(or 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever)

There is a SQL script already created that does all the hard work for you, just follow the commands below:

mysql -A asterisk
\. /usr/src/astguiclient/trunk/extras/second_server_install.sql

Step 2 – Updating the IP from 10.10.10.16 to your new server IP

For this part, there is a perl script that will update the conferences and vicidial conferences as well as the new server that was added to your GUI as “TESTast”. Just copy and paste the following line into your Linux CLI:

/usr/share/astguiclient/ADMIN_update_server_ip.pl --old-server_ip=10.10.10.16

Then make sure you add your IP to the third question it asks you as shown below:

Step 3 – Run the install.pl script

Now we need to run the install.pl script to connect the second server to DB server

cd /usr/src/astguiclient/trunk
perl install.pl

Make sure when you get to the DB server question you input your DB server IP(where the blue arrow is)

Step 4 – Change the name of the server in the ViciDial GUI

Make sure to change the name of your server and update the Asterisk version and trunks

Thats all there is to it, you should now have your second server added to your cluster. IF you have any questions feel free to comment here or stop by our Skype Live support

How to – Setup a slave DB for a scratch installed ViciDial

This Article will go over how to setup a slave database server for your ViciDial cluster when using a scratch installed server bunch. For this particular example I have used Alma Linux 8.5 which installs Mysql 10.3.28, if you followed my scratch instructions. This process was a pain in the arse, but after much trial and error I was able to get it done and here is how I did it:

Step 1 – Edit the MySQL config file

Add these lines to /etc/my.cnf below [mysqld] on both the master and slave database:

log_bin=/var/lib/mysql/mysql-bin
relay_log=/var/lib/mysql/mysql-relay-bin
binlog_format=mixed
binlog_direct_non_transactional_updates=1
datadir = /srv/mysql/data
log-bin=mysql-bin
server-id       = 1
slave-skip-errors = 1032,1690,1062
replicate-ignore-db=mysql
replicate-do-db=asterisk
slave_parallel_threads=40
slave-parallel-mode=optimistic
slave_parallel_max_queued=5242880

Step 2 – Create the slave user on both servers

Go into MySQL and create the slave user and do this on both servers

CREATE USER 'slave'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'slave1234';
CREATE USER 'slave'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'slave1234';
GRANT SELECT, CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, ALTER, DROP, INDEX on asterisk.* TO slave@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'slave1234';
GRANT SELECT, CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, ALTER, DROP, INDEX on asterisk.* TO slave@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'slave1234';
grant replication slave on . to slave@'%' identified by 'slave1234';
grant replication slave on . to slave@'localhost' identified by 'slave1234';
flush privileges;

Step 3 – Change some setting on the slave DB

Now we need to change some of the settings for the slave DB and add a couple more lines. Change the server-id to 2 instead of 1 in /etc/my.cnf and add the read_only=1 and report-host=whatever the slave DB host is

server-id=2
# read only yes
read_only=1
# define own hostname
report-host=slavedb.yourserver.com

Step 4 – Restart the MySQL services on both servers

Run the following command on both servers:

service mysql restart

Step 5 – Create the MySQL dump to send over to the slave DB from the master

We need to create the MySQL dump and send it over to the slave using the scp command like so:

mkdir /home/mariadb_backup
mariabackup --backup --target-dir /home/mariadb_backup -u root

Once thats done go ahead and zip up the files and send the file over by typing the following:

cd /home/mariadb_backup
zip -r mysqldump.zip *
scp mysqldump.zip 192.168.1.10:/root/

Why we are here, lets lock the MySQL tables on the master:

mysql
FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;
exit

Step 6 – Connect to Slave DB and extract the files and load it into the slave

ssh into your slave db server and change directory to /root then create the folder and extract the files like so:

cd /root
mkdir mariadb_backup
mv mysqldump.zip mariadb_backup/
cd mariadb_backup/
unzip mysqldump.zip
systemctl stop mariadb
rm -rf /var/lib/mysql/*

Now run the following commands that are BOLD to import the MySQL dump and set its position to match that of the master.

# run prepare task before restore task (OK if [completed OK])
[root@node01 ~]# mariabackup --prepare --target-dir /root/mariadb_backup
mariabackup based on MariaDB server 10.3.28-MariaDB Linux (x86_64)
mariabackup: cd to /root/mariadb_backup/
.....
.....
2019-11-29 19:38:20 0 [Note] InnoDB: Starting crash recovery from checkpoint LSN=1630833
Last binlog file , position 0
191129 19:38:21 completed OK!

# run restore
[root@node01 ~]# mariabackup --copy-back --target-dir /root/mariadb_backup
mariabackup based on MariaDB server 10.3.28-MariaDB Linux (x86_64)
191129 19:39:21 [01] Copying ibdata1 to /var/lib/mysql/ibdata1
191129 19:39:21 [01]        ...done
.....
.....
191129 19:39:21 [01] Copying ./xtrabackup_binlog_pos_innodb to /var/lib/mysql/xtrabackup_binlog_pos_innodb
191129 19:39:21 [01]        ...done
191129 19:39:21 completed OK!

[root@node01 ~]# chown -R mysql. /var/lib/mysql
[root@node01 ~]# systemctl start mariadb
# confirm [File] and [Position] value of master log
[root@node01 ~]# cat /root/mariadb_backup/xtrabackup_binlog_info
mysql-bin.000001        642     0-101-2

# set replication
[root@node01 ~]# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 10
Server version: 10.3.28-MariaDB-log MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> change master to 
    -> master_host='10.0.0.31',             # Master Host IP address
    -> master_user='repl_user',             # replication user
    -> master_password='password',          # replication user password
    -> master_log_file='mysql-bin.000001',  # [File] value confirmed above
    -> master_log_pos=642;              # [Position] value confirmed above
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.58 sec)

# start replication
MariaDB [(none)]> start slave; 
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

# show status
MariaDB [(none)]> show slave status\G 
*************************** 1. row ***************************
                Slave_IO_State: Waiting for master to send event
                   Master_Host: 10.0.0.31
                   Master_User: repl_user
                   Master_Port: 3306
                 Connect_Retry: 60
               Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000001
           Read_Master_Log_Pos: 642
                Relay_Log_File: mariadb-relay-bin.000002
                 Relay_Log_Pos: 555
         Relay_Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000001
              Slave_IO_Running: Yes
             Slave_SQL_Running: Yes
               Replicate_Do_DB:
           Replicate_Ignore_DB:
            Replicate_Do_Table:
        Replicate_Ignore_Table:
       Replicate_Wild_Do_Table:
   Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table:
                    Last_Errno: 0
                    Last_Error:
                  Skip_Counter: 0
           Exec_Master_Log_Pos: 642
               Relay_Log_Space: 866
               Until_Condition: None
                Until_Log_File:
                 Until_Log_Pos: 0
            Master_SSL_Allowed: No
            Master_SSL_CA_File:
            Master_SSL_CA_Path:
               Master_SSL_Cert:
             Master_SSL_Cipher:
                Master_SSL_Key:
         Seconds_Behind_Master: 0
 Master_SSL_Verify_Server_Cert: No
                 Last_IO_Errno: 0
                 Last_IO_Error:
                Last_SQL_Errno: 0
                Last_SQL_Error:
   Replicate_Ignore_Server_Ids:
              Master_Server_Id: 101
                Master_SSL_Crl:
            Master_SSL_Crlpath:
                    Using_Gtid: No
                   Gtid_IO_Pos:
       Replicate_Do_Domain_Ids:
   Replicate_Ignore_Domain_Ids:
                 Parallel_Mode: conservative
                     SQL_Delay: 0
           SQL_Remaining_Delay: NULL
       Slave_SQL_Running_State: Slave has read all relay log; waiting for the slave I/O thread to update it
              Slave_DDL_Groups: 0
Slave_Non_Transactional_Groups: 0
    Slave_Transactional_Groups: 0
1 row in set (0.000 sec)

Step 7 – Unlock the Master DB

Now go back into the master DB and unlock the tables:

mysql
unlock tables;

Step 8 – Set the Slave DB in ViciDIal

Now you can set the slave server info in ViciDial by going into the admin GUI and going into system settings. Set the slave DB server IP and choose which reports you want to display from it.

Well, this has been quite the nightmare to get it done and hopefully I can save some of you some time with this article. If you have any problems feel free to join our Skype Live Support Channel and someone will be willing to help.

-Chris aka carpenox

How to – Setup an archive server

This article is going to go over how to “scratch” install an archive server on CentOS 8, Rocky Linux or Alma Linux. You can pretty much follow it for OpenSuSe as well but there would be some small variations for installing vsftpd.

Step 1 – Install and setup vsftpd

The first thing we have to do is install and properly configure vsftpd.

yum install vsftpd
nano /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
paste the following at the very bottom:

allow_writeable_chroot=YES
userlist_deny=NO
pasv_min_port=30000
pasv_max_port=31000
userlist_enable=YES
userlist_deny=NO
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd/user_list
allow_writeable_chroot=YES

nano /etc/vsftpd/user_list
(add "cronarchive" to the bottom)

useradd -m -d /home/archive/ cronarchive
passwd cronarchive 
(set the pw u want)

mkdir -p /home/archive
chmod -R 777 /home/archive

Step 2 – Set your archive server in install.pl script

Below is a settings example to put during the install.pl script which can be run by running the following commands. This has to be run on all asterisk servers:

cd /usr/src/astguiclient/trunk/
perl install.pl

Step 3 – Turning on the cronjob to send the recordings over to the archive server

Changing this cronjob has to be done on all asterisk servers. You have to remove the # in front of this line by typing “crontab -e” and scrolling until you find it:

2,5,8,11,14,17,20,23,26,29,32,35,38,41,44,47,50,53,56,59 * * * * /usr/share/astguiclient/AST_CRON_audio_3_ftp.pl --MP3 --run-check

Step 4 – Changing the Apache alias for the recordings

Last thing we need to do is change the alias for the recordings on the archive server as shown below:

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/record.conf

Alias /RECORDINGS/ "/home/archive/"

<Directory "/home/archive">
    Options Indexes MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
        <files *.mp3>
            Forcetype application/forcedownload
        </files>
</Directory>

Well, thats all there is to it, hopefully this will help some of you with improving your cluster setups and properly setting up an archive server.

-Chris aka carpenox

How to – Create a DNC call menu for people to remove themselves

This article will go over the process to create a call menu or IVR that allows people to remove themselves from the calling list by pressing a key. The FTC is cracking down on VoIP carriers to make sure their clients are using this feature and it will end up getting your VoIP routes shut down if you do not have this feature on your system.

Step 1 – Create a new Call Menu

Go to the admin GUI for ViciDial and click on inbound, then “Add a new call menu”

Step 2 – Fill out the required fields as highlighted in the picture below

For this example we have used some of the built in sounds for ViciDial and piped them together ( | ) to create the voice prompt we want as well as the post message to be played after they opt out. This example only shows 1 option to be pressed, but it can be amplified even more by setting up other options such as leaving a voicemail, asking for a callback, routing to an operator or anything else you can pretty much do with the system.

cm_dnc.agi,DNC---YES------B---

thanks-for-calling-today|privacy-to-blacklist-this-number|press-3
your|number|has-been|removed|sip-silence|goodbye

Step 3 – Attach the call menu to you inbound group that your DID’s are routed through

You can get to your ingroup also through the inbound menu option in the admin GUI. Once your in your inbound group attached to your DIDs, go down to no agent queueing option and set it to Y, then set the route to call menu as shown below:

That’s all there is to it, hopefully you guys head my advice and do this now before it happens to you via your carrier, cause trust me when I tell you, its coming. If you need additional help, feel free to stop by our live support on Skype by clicking here.

-Chris aka carpenox

URGENT UPDATE REQUIRED – ViciDial Security Vulnerability

The ViciDial Group has released a warning for any SVN version below 3583, if you are below this version, update your system immediately. You can do so by following this article for SVN update.

I hope everyone takes this seriously, or your data may be hacked or minutes used on your VoIP, or worse.

Chris aka Carpenox

How to – Fix “Repository ‘openSUSE-Leap-15.2-PHP-Applications’ is invalid.”

Just a short article to fix this issue for Leap 15.2. First you need to list your repo’s and remove the one labeled PHP-Applications, for my installs its been number 8. The following commands will show you how to find which one and remove it:

• zypper lr

• zypper rr 8

Now to add the new repo:

• zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:php:applications/openSUSE_Leap_15.2/server:php:applications.repo

You can now zypper ref and zypper up as needed, I hope this helps

Chris aka carpenox

How to – Setup a ViciDial Cluster

This article is going to go over the steps I suggest to take in order to setup a ViciDial Cluster. I do things a little different when it comes to this to prepare for worst case scenario that a server may have problems and have to be taken offline, I install all services to each server, such as apache, mysql and asterisk this way if need be, they each can take on additional roles to cover for a server having to be taken out of production. Obviously this is going to assume you have ViciDial already installed on each server with all roles ready to go. To do so you can follow any one of my articles for scratch installs or you can just use an ISO to install of which I suggest using Vicibox v9.0.3 over V10 because of the issues with the V10 firewall and dynamic portal not working correctly, even if you do apply my fix, I find V9 to be more stable.

Step 1 – Install Vicidial on each server

As I said above, I suggest installing all services on each server and just leaving the ones not needed for each box, disabled until needed. So if you are using an ISO install instead of one of my scratch instructions, for the purpose on this article, lets say ViciBox v9.0.3. The first thing you need to do after loading v9 is to upgrade the operating system from Leap 15.1 to Leap 15.2 using these instructions, because Leap 15.1 is end of life(no more updates). After that use the command, vicibox-install and choose Y(yes) for the options shown in the picture below:

Repeat this process on each server and then move on to step 2.

Step 2 – Turn off services not needed on each server role

Now we need to disable services not needed on each server to save on resources, but this way they are there if they are needed in the future.

• DB Server: systemctl disable apache2;systemctl disable asterisk
• Web Server: systemctl disable mysql;systemctl disable asterisk
• Asterisk Servers: systemctl disable mysql

We want to leave apache running on the asterisk servers so we can install webrtc for webphones

Step 3 – Run the install.pl script on each server

Now we want to link them all together by running the install.pl script located in the source directory for vicidial, follow the following commands to get to and run it:

cd /usr/src/astguiclient/trunk
perl install.pl

Now follow the prompt and answer them accordingly. The pictures below will show the choices needed for each server role except make sure you set the IP for the DB server on all the rest instead of localhost.

DB Server and Web Server

For the web server make sure you put the DB server IP instead of localhost

Asterisk Servers

Make sure you only put 5 and 7 keepalives on one asterisk server, the rest you should only choose 123468.

Step 4 – Add them to the GUI for ViciDial

Now we need to add them into the GUI for Vicidial by going to Admin then servers

Once you are here, click “Add a new server”

Fill out the fields accordingly and click submit

Now for the DB and web server turn the options to N(no) where you see highlighted below:

Now reboot all servers and then check your reports page to make sure all servers are set to green like shown below

That’s all there is to it, not as hard as you thought it would be, right? If you have any questions feel free to join our live support on Skype:

I hope this helps!

Chris aka carpenox