3.6. Compiling Asterisk

Once you've compiled and installed the zaptel and libpri packages (if you need them), you can move on to Asterisk. This section walks you through a standard installation and introduces some of the alternative make arguments that you may find useful.

3.6.1. Standard Installation

Asterisk is compiled with gcc through the use of the GNU make program. To get started compiling Asterisk, simply run the following commands (replace version with your version of Asterisk):

    # cd /usr/src/asterisk-version
    # make clean
    # ./configure
    # make menuselect
    # make install
    # make samples

Be aware that compile times will vary between systems. On a current-generation processor, you shouldn't need to wait more than five minutes. At AstriCon (http://www.astricon.net), someone reported successfully compiling Asterisk on a 133-MHz Pentium, but it took approximately five hours. You do the math.

Run the make samples command to install the default configuration files. Installing these files (instead of configuring each file manually) will allow you to get your Asterisk system up and running much faster. Many of the default values are fine for Asterisk. Files that require editing will be explained in future chapters.

Tip

	Tip
If you already have configuration files installed in /etc/asterisk/ when you run the `make samples` command, .old will be appended to the end of each of your current configuration files—for example, extensions.conf will be renamed extensions.conf.old. Be careful, though, because if you run `make samples` more than once you will overwrite your original configuration files! The sample configuration files can also be found in the configs/ subdirectory within your Asterisk sources directory.

If you already have configuration files installed in /etc/asterisk/ when you run the make samples command, .old will be appended to the end of each of your current configuration files—for example, extensions.conf will be renamed extensions.conf.old. Be careful, though, because if you run make samples more than once you will overwrite your original configuration files!

The sample configuration files can also be found in the configs/ subdirectory within your Asterisk sources directory.

If you're using a system that makes use of the /etc/rc.d/init.d/ or /etc/init.d/ directories, you may wish to run the make config command as well. This will install the startup scripts and configure the system (through the use of the chkconfig command) to execute Asterisk automatically at startup.

    # make config