Music on Hold
Provided By: MonkeyTech.Net for use by FaktorTel. Step 1:

Firstly, check your version of mpg123
mp123-V

I found I required Version 0.59r to work with asterisk and after reading some forums found, others have had the same problem.

E.g.

wget http://www.mpg123.de/mpg123/mpg123-0.59r.tar.gz
cd mpg123-0.59r
make <<-- to see list of supported os
make linux <<-- for linux systems
make install
ln -s /usr/local/bin/mpg123 /usr/bin/mpg123

Step 2:

Now make a dir for your music ( you can also stream a shoutcast stream, however, will get to that soon )

cd /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/
mkdir mymusic

Place some mp3 files in the folder we just made.

Step 3:

Edit the "/etc/asterisk/zapata.conf " and make sure the following line is uncommented
( not sure if this is really required, but it won't hurt )

musiconhold=default

Step 4:

Now we need to tell Asterisk where to find the music to play while on hold

Rename " musiconhold.conf "

mv musiconhold.conf musiconhold.backup

Create new " musiconhold.conf " with your text editor ( nano / pico )

nano /etc/musiconhold.conf

Add these lines:

[classes]
default => mp3:/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/mymusic,-z

*Note: The " -z " flag plays files randomly remove, " -z " to play files in order

For streaming audio on musiconhold

Make another dir in /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/ called stream
then create a empty file with a .mp3 extenstion

E.g.

cd /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/
mkdir stream
cd stream
touch stream.mp3

nano /etc/musiconhold.conf and change the Default line above to something like this:

default => mp3:/var/lib/asterisk/stream,http://radio.internode.on.net:8010/

make sure you add the URL to the shoutcast server you wish to use at asterisk prompt issue " reload " command or restart asterisk

Using Module Format_mp3 instead of mpg123

There are some issues with mp3 playback and mpg123 if you are having problems mite like to try this:

cd /usr/src
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@cvs.digium.com:/usr/cvsroot
cvs login - the password is anoncvs.
cvs checkout asterisk-addons
cd asterisk-addons/format_mp3
make
make install

make sure " autoload " is enabled in /etc/asterisk/modules.conf

Create Dir

add Dir
/var/lib/asterisk/moh-native

add mp3 files into that dir

edit musiconhold.conf

nano /etc/asterisk/musiconhold.conf

uncomment the " default " context we made above. Make sure you have these lines:

[classes]
[moh_files]
default => /var/lib/asterisk/moh-native

*Note: The smaller the filesize the better. E.g. Dont need anything over 128k and really only needs to be mono.

On your softphone you can place call on hold by pressing the " 1 " button under the display.

If there are any problems or typos please let us know.

We will have a voicemail howto coming soon. We are setting up a different speech synth program and will include that in the example.