// Asterisk Vs. Trixbox
//
// by natas
//
// http://www.oldskoolphreak.com

Somewhat recently I needed a fresh Asterisk box up and running ASAP for
some testing I was planning on doing. I didn't want to sit around and wait
for Gentoo to compile or download a 4 CD set and go through the
installation then have to configure all the packages. So I decided to
download Trixbox 1.1 and give it a go, since they claim "An Asterisk box in
under an hour."

Everything went smoothly with the installation and it was a no brainer,
only requiring me to select my keyboard layout, time zone and to enter a
root password. I had an Asterisk box that was ready for some testing after
about 30 minutes and three reboots.

I started exploring around on my new Trixbox test system from the CLI and
was fairly surprised at what I found. I was pretty excited that so many
other packages were installed and already configured for me to the point
where things were operable. However, this also means that you probably
won't want to use Trixbox in an environment where security is a top
priority. You could be running a big risk leaving so many services and
default settings on.

I decided I'd had enough fun looking around with the CLI making sure
everything was where I was used to it being, so I decided that I'd check
out the Trixbox web interface. The first time I logged into the web
interface I didn't know what the hell was going on. I realized that I
didn't know the passwords to any of the password protected sections of the
interface. A little looking around on the Trixbox website and I was good to
go. I'm a little surprised they even had password protected sections of the
interface.

The first thing that I got really siked on with Trixbox, and the part that
is still my favorite, is the endpoint configuration editor. I'd never seen
this before and I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's something exclusive to
Trixbox. The endpoint configuration tool provides a nice web interface to
creating configuration files for Cisco IP phones, something I wish I had
when I initially got my Cisco 7960 phone. It makes creating a working
config file seem like a breeze, although I'm still not sure that you can
get all the advanced stuff in there. If you need to create different Cisco
config files for a lot of phones I think this interface would be a big
help. I worked on bringing over the necessary pages from Trixbox to one of
my other machines so I could have it on other boxes I use regularly, but
ran into a few problems getting it to work.

The whole reason I installed Trixbox in the first place was to test out
some A2Billing stuff so this was the next thing I checked out after poking
around for a bit. I spent a little bit of time editing some config files to
make sure I knew how to set up A2Billing and in about 20 minutes I had the
package working properly. A2Billing is really an awesome package and props
to Areski for his work, even if his documentation is a little hard to read
(because he's from Spain).

The Trixbox interface for editing Asterisk related and other system related
config files wasn't as "noobish" as I had thought it was going to be. It's
basically just a web based text editor. Nothing fancy. One thing that I
noticed though, was that the Trixbox developers put so much crap in the
preconfigured config files that it was a little annoying having to read
such long files and having to look at all the other files that they decided
to #include. Some of the examples were pretty cool though and it may be a
worthy read for Asterisk newbies.

I have heard stories that the Asterisk Flash Operator Panel is a real pain
to get running properly on it's own so it was kind of nice that this was
included with Trixbox and was ready to be tested out right off the bat for
anyone who wants to try this out before going through the exhaustive
installation process on another machine. Nothing worse than spending a
buttload of time on something that you end up hating or finding useless! I
played around with the Flash Operator Panel for about thirty seconds before
I became bored of it. Guess I'm not meant to be an operator.

The Asterisk Management Portal, recently renamed to FreePBX, which is a GUI
for Asterisk configuration, is also included with Trixbox. I gave this a
quick test and I really didn't think it was anything special and I would
honestly rather not ever use it again to manage my PBX. Guess I'm just to
used to config files.

So which do I think is better, Trixbox or straight up Asterisk? Overall, it
came down to my personal preference of knowing exactly what's on my system
and how things are set up, which is exactly how my Gentoo boxes are right
now. Even though Trixbox wasn't terribly bad in any way, I still felt like
so many things were on there that I wouldn't want or need, especially on a
Voice Over IP PBX/Softswitch. Why the hell was IRCd installed and
automatically started? I didn't understand that. Ultimately, I didn't think
Trixbox dumbed down Asterisk to much, which I thought was the whole point.
But you can really only dumb down things like this so much.

I'll stick with my own OS and Asterisk, thank you.

Shouts:
Shouts to all DDP members past and present!