[VoIP] Asterisk start on boot with Debian Linux

[Donald Froula]

I figured out how to run Asterisk at boot up, but only
after lots of false starts.

Debian requires a startup script to be placed in the
directory /etc/init.d. The Asterisk source
distribution comes with a working script in the
"contrib/init.d" sub-directory, called
rc.debian.asterisk. I copied this to /etc/init.d and
edited it to modprobe my zaptel drivers and run ztcfg
to bring up the interfaces.

Debian then requires you to run the command
"update-rc.d" to set up the rules for running the
script in the various run levels.

I used the following command:

"update-rc.d rc.debian.asterisk start 99 2 3 4 5 . 1 0
1 6 ."

This sets up the script to run Asterisk as the last
process when booting in runlevels 2 3 4 and 5, the
normal run levels. It also tells Debian to kill off
Asterisk the first thing when switching to runlevels
0, 1 and 6. 0 and 6 are for system halt and shutdown.
Level 1 is single-user "safe" mode.

The problem I had was that I had been running Asterisk
in single-user "safe" mode. I did this to avoid
launching the GUI when booting up. This will never
work, as Debian kills all daemons in single-user,
runlevel 1.

To set things right, I entered the following command
to inhibit running the GUI at boot in the normal run
levels.

"update-rc.d -f GDM remove"

I then changed the /boot/grub/menu.lst to default back
to normal mode at boot (I had the order of the menu
items swapped to default to single-user mode).

Now, Asterisk starts up as a daemon at boot time. If
your BIOS supports reboot on power-failure, it makes a
very robust setup.

Note that this is all specific to Debian Linux.

Hope this helps someone.

Best,

Don


--- Donald Froula <dfroula at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> I'm still trying to figure how to load all the
> zaptel
> drivers, start zaptel, and start asterisk at boot.
> I've played with adding a shell script in
> /etc/init.d,
> with a softlink from /etc/rc1.d, but can't get this
> to
> work. Any ideas?
> 
>