Indice
Asterisk Click 2 Call
What is it?
If you search you'll get a very lot of information but sometimes this yelds to confusion so let's point out some things in a CLEAR manner.
“Click to call” (click 2 call) refers to the possibility to call a phone number just clicking somewhere on your desktop PC.
Usually it is implemented as a browser plugin: it optionally recognizes phone numbers in web pages, in any case it adds a button somewhere (directly in the webpage or in the context menu) that is supposed to call the number when clicked.
Okay, but how to call then? Well, the question is what medium you would like to use to call that number? There are several common options: your Skype application/webapplication, your cell phone, a 3rd party voip service, your PBX (phone center) if you have one.
Using skype is straight forward, as you can install the application on your pc and use your account.
Using your cell phone implies that you have some kind of application installed on your PC that communicates with your cell phone. This depends on your cell phone manufacturer / operating system.
Using a 3rd party voip service needs that you have an account with them and then configure the plugin to connect to that account.
More interesting when you have your private PBX.
In this case “clicking” the number makes your phone ring. Your phisical phone in your desk, i.e. an so called “extension” of the PBX. When you pick up the receiver the PBX will dial the desired number and you will hear the remote destination ringing.
This is the functionality I was searching for.
Note that click2call itself refers to the button on your browser/PC and what it makes happen, but the PBX functionality should be called hey-pbx-call-me-and-when-i-answer-dial-the-number-and-transfer-my-call-to-it.
Asterisk AMI
This is possible through Asterisk Managing Interface (AMI) that is a channel through which you can manage Asterisk and perform tasks.
You can choose if you want the plugin or any endpoint application to talk directly with the AMI, or if you want to create a go-between php/cgi application in a web server (maybe the same server running asterisk). In the last case your will use it to ask AMI to generate the call.
What you have to do is (1) create an AMI account, (2) optionally create a php/cgi script, and (3) configure the plugin or other frontend application.
Create an AMI account
No webadmin (config files). Edit /etc/asterisk/manager.conf and add a section:
[clicktocall] secret=password deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 permit=127.0.0.1/255.255.255.0 read=originate write=originate
where clicktocall is the username, password a desired password, deny should stay all, permit one ip or an ip class that is allowed to talk to login, read / write are the rights and “originate” is enough for click2call to work.
FreePBX webadmin. Settings → Asterisk Manager Users → (see above)
php/cgi script
see [1]
Plugins
I have tested these two plugins:
- for google chrome, it uses the php/cgi go-between [2]
- for mozilla firefox, it directly speaks to AMI [3]
