Recommended answering machine software?

[Bill Moran]

Doug Lee <dgl at dlee.org> wrote:

> This is a (slightly edited) repost of a question I asked in February
> of 2002, to which I got no answer.  I never got round to this
> project, but now I wonder if it would be easier to manage...
> 
> I'd like to run something under FreeBSD 4.9 which can make my
> FreeBSD box act as an answering machine:  answer calls, play an
> outgoing message (presumably a .wav or similar file), and take
> messages.  It would be nice if it also could understand DTMF codes and
> do different things according to them, like allow messages to be
> maintained for multiple people.  Whether or not it's part of the
> system, I also intend to cause the message files to be e-mailed
> appropriately on receipt.  I wouldn't mind compatibility with
> mgetty+sendfax, but I don't think that's essential.  I do have caller
> ID and definitely want the system to be able to take advantage of that.
> 
> I skimmed through ports but didn't find a clear winner for this type
> of application.  I'm also not sure what specific hardware I'd need (I
> assume not just any modem will do :-), and I suspect this will be
> dependent on what software I use.

While it may be overkill, Asterisk is really the software you're looking
for: http://www.asterisk.org  It'll do everything you need and more.

Unfortunately, asterisk's ability to function on FreeBSD is currently
limited by a lack of drivers for phone cards.  You'd think you could just
use standard modems, but not really.  There is a lot of work going in to making
asterisk work better on FreeBSD, so it's not going to be like this forever.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com