NOTE: There is a newer version of this article for those who are using PJSIP rather than chan_sip in FreePBX. If you have already converted to PJSIP, please go directly to PJSIP Edition – How to use an Obihai 200 series VoIP device as a gateway between Google Voice and FreePBX.

This article is intended for a specific, probably rather narrow group of readers. It is for people who have experience setting up and configuring FreePBX, and who also currently own an Obihai 200 series device (200 or 202), and that are using standard Obihai firmware and use Obihai’s “OBi Dashboard” to configure your device. It is specifically not intended as an inducement for anyone to go out and buy a new Obihai device, because in our opinion Obihai hasn’t been treating its customers very well lately, and we have no reason to think that will change. And it is also not for those who like to run custom firmware, or that think that the “OBi Dashboard” is in some way evil – although if you do, this method will probably work just as well on a locally-configured Obihai. But if you happen to have an Obihai 200 series device lying around, and you are running FreePBX, you can put it to good use. This method might also work on an unlocked 300-series device running certain custom firmware but we have no experience at all with that, so we aren’t saying it will or won’t work in such a case, and we don’t support such usage. This method will not work with older Obihai 100-series devices, though you can still use those for FreePBX extensions or other types of SIP connections.

As always we are telling you how we did this, which is not necessarily how you should do it. Any changes you make to your Obihai or FreePBX configuration are at your own risk, and we assume you know what you’re doing. If you somehow manage to really screw things up, that’s on you, not us. We don’t guarantee that this will work for everyone, we just know it did for us.

Some other technical information: The method we show here uses chan_sip, not the newer pjsip, for the connection to FreePBX. The reason is that we are running FreePBX on a Raspberry Pi and as best we can tell, it does not have pjsip installed. We realize that chan_sip is being deprecated in the newest versions of Asterisk but we suspect that it will more than likely continue to work for years to come.

We do suggest that if your Obihai device has previously been configured, you follow this procedure to start over with a clean configuration:

Completely remove the device from the “OBi Dashboard”, as you would if you planned to transfer ownership to someone else.

Then do a hard reset of the Obihai device – dial ***8 from a connected phone and follow the prompts to restore the factory default settings.

If there were previously one or more Google Voice accounts configured on the device and you plan to continue using any of those same accounts, log into those Google Voice accounts and remove the Obihai device as a destination. If you don’t do this, then after following this procedure you will see two Obihai device destinations in each Google Voice account, only one of which will be valid, and it will be difficult to tell which one is the correct one. Also, keeping an old invalid Obihai destination in your Google Voice account configuration may stop incoming calls from getting to your Obihai.

Then add the device back to the “OBi Dashboard”, as you would if you had just purchased it new.

This is entirely optional, but it does help make sure that you don’t have any settings from an old configuration messing things up.

Also, you need to have the latest firmware. Dial ***1 to find out the local IP address of your device and go to that page and see if it comes up with the Polycom logo – note that if you cannot access the device, you may need to dial ***0 and then 30# and follow the prompts to enable WAN access. Login using “admin” as the username, and use the password shown under “Webpage Admin Password” on the “OBi Dashboard” at Obihai’s site – on that site you may need to click the gear icon next to your device to see the Webpage Admin Password. If it’s still the default password, this might be a good time to change it to something a bit more secure, but if you do be sure to make a note of it, because you will need it later in these instructions.

If your device’s web pages still come up with the old Obihai logo, dial ***6 to see if new firmware is available, and if so let it install. If it does not find new firmware, then go to System Management/Auto Provisioning, and look to see if there is a value entered for the FirmwareURL setting. You may need to change this to point to a more recent firmware version. For example, our device currently shows this in that field:

IF ( $FWV < 3.2.2.5921 ) FWU http://fw.obihai.com/OBi202-3-2-2-5921EX-332148940.fw

That is all one line even if it is split on this page. We are not telling you to copy that verbatim to your device, just that this field is what seems to control what version of the firmware you receive. Normally if that field is set correctly, your device should grab the latest firmware after a reboot, though you may need to dial ***6 to get it started. Do not unplug or even touch the Obihai while it is upgrading firmware or you may brick it! After a successful upgrade the device’s web pages should be branded Polycom rather than Obihai.

One other thing we very strongly suggest is that you set your Obihai device to a fixed IP address on your local network. This can either be done in the Obihai’s device settings, under System Management/WAN Settings, or in your router’s configuration – it doesn’t matter as long as your Obihai is always at the same local IP address. If you don’t do this you will not be able to use parts of this method.

The assumption we make here is as follows: An Obihai 200-series device can support up to four “service providers”, up to three of which can be Google voice accounts, and one of which is in this method a FreePBX extension. There are technical reasons for this limitation but we won’t go into those here. The point is that any given Obihai 200-series device can bridge up to three Google Voice accounts to FreePBX, and we assume those will be designated as Service Provider 1 (SP1), Service Provider 2 (SP2), and Service Provider 3 (SP3) in the Obihai configuration. Your FreePBX extension will be on SP4. In the case of an OBi202, which has two phone ports, you can have a FreePBX extension associated with each phone port. If you are connecting your OBi202 to only one or two Google Voice accounts, then your two extensions can be on SP3 and SP4. But if you are connecting to three Google Voice accounts and still want to let each phone port on an OBi202 be on a different extension, then assign the extension you want associated with Phone Port 1 to SP4, and we’ll tell you later how to configure the extension you want associated with Phone Port 2.

If you do not use SP4 for at least one of your FreePBX extensions then these instructions probably won’t work for you, since we have assumed throughout that SP4, and by association, ITSP Profile D will be used with your FreePBX extension (or at least with one of them if you have an OBi202). You could modify the instructions to take this into account, but chances are you’re going to miss something and it won’t work as intended.

We assume you know how to configure a FreePBX extension, by selecting a “Generic Service Provider” in the “OBi Dashboard” and then pointing it at your FreePBX server. Once again, just be sure to use SP4 for your FreePBX extension, or the configuration examples shown here won’t work without modification. Note that you may need to modify the phone port’s DigitMap and OutboundCallRoute settings to allow calls to other extensions, but that is beyond the scope of this article. You can make SP4 the Primary Line for Phone Port 1, but if you have an OBi202 we recommend that you do NOT make ANY of the service providers the Primary Line for Phone Port 2, at least not yet. OBi200 users don’t need to worry about this; it won’t affect you because you only have a single phone port.

You can configure your Google Voice account(s) in the normal manner using the “OBi Dashboard”, in fact if there’s a way to do it without using the Dashboard we don’t know about it, at least not without using custom third-party firmware which is beyond the scope of this article. Get everything set up and working normally – get your first Google Voice account set up on SP1 and make sure it is working, then if you have additional accounts add them on SP2 and if necessary, SP3. Make sure that you can make and receive calls on your Google Voice account(s) before you go any further. Note that you can use dialing prefixes to make test calls using a particular Service Provider without setting it as your Primary Line – for example **1 followed by the number you are calling will send the call through the account associated with Service Provider 1 in the Obihai configuration, and the **2 and **3 prefixes will do the same with regard to Service Providers 2 and 3.

So now that you have your FreePBX extension working and your Google Voice accounts set up and configured, there are two things that need to happen. One is to redirect all incoming Google Voice calls to a FreePBX SIP trunk, which will be used for incoming calls only. And the other is to send all outgoing calls to a Custom trunk, and configure the Obihai to correctly route them to the correct Google Voice accounts. Some users may not need both of these – for example, if your main reason for wanting to route calls through FreePBX is so you can use its blacklist and other call screening features on incoming calls, then you may not need the outbound connectivity. But we’ll show you how to do both.

Handling incoming Google Voice calls:

☞ These changes must be made using the OBi Dashboard’s Expert Configuration option.

Go to Voice Services/Gateways & TrunkGrps – we’ll be changing the settings for Voice Gateway1 (vg1). You can use any unused Voice Gateway, but the examples here assume the use of vg1. Start by unchecking the checkboxes under “OBiTALK Settings” for these values: Name, AccessNumber, and AuthUserID. Then click “Submit” at the bottom of the page. If any of the checkboxes in the “Device Default” column for those settings are now checked, uncheck them and click “Submit” again. You need to do this or the page won’t let you enter the new values. This is true anyplace we make changes to any of the settings in the OBi Dashboard – if either of those boxes are checked, they must be unchecked and “Submit” clicked before you can make changes.

Now you can enter the new settings for vg1:

Name: Anything you like to identify it, such as FreePBX trunk

AccessNumber: SP4(192.168.x.x) – replace 192.168.x.x with the fixed IP address of your FreePBX server

AuthUserID: The FreePBX trunk name, we’ll use gvgateway in this example

When you have these the way you want them, click Submit. Note that for the AccessNumber setting we specified SP4, which should be your FreePBX extension. This isn’t actually using SP4, but rather it is telling the device that this voice gateway uses the same technology (SIP) as SP4, so don’t worry that FreePBX will confuse calls on vg1 with calls from your extension.

We are not using a password in this configuration; instead we’ll be limiting the trunk to only accepting calls from the IP address of your Obihai device. This makes configuration a bit easier. But if the Obihai were on a different local network than your FreePBX server then you might need to configure an AuthPassword for additional security, and configure the trunk to look for it. For now we’re assuming the Obihai device is on the same local network as the FreePBX server, or at least that it’s at a fixed IP address.

Next, we must configure the Google Voice accounts to send incoming calls to this Voice Gateway.

Go to Voice Services/SP1 Service and find the setting X_InboundCallRoute near the top of the page. In order to configure this properly you need to know the Google Voice number associated with this Google Voice account, so if you don’t know what it is then log into the Google Voice account and find it there. Now change this setting as follows:

X_InboundCallRoute: vg1(XXXXXXXXXX/$1)

Replace XXXXXXXXXX with the ten digit Google Voice number, and click “Submit”. Do not under any circumstances change any other settings on the page! If you do you may screw up the configuration so badly you’ll have to start over with the factory reset again. If you have more than one Google Voice account then do the same thing under SP2 Service and if necessary, SP3 Service, using the Google Voice number associated with that particular Google Voice account in place of the XXXXXXXXXX.

Now we need to increase the maximum number of sessions between the device and the FreePBX server.

Go to Voice Services/SP4 Service and find the “Calling Features” section, and under that the setting for MaxSessions. We suggest increasing this number from the default, to at least 6. We used 10, but the Obihai may not be able to handle that many simultaneous connections. Don’t forget to click “Submit”.

That concludes the changes you need to make on the Obihai to handle incoming calls.

☞ These changes must be made on the FreePBX server.

Next we must turn our attention to FreePBX. The first thing we need to do is edit /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf, so in a ssh session enter this – you can use your text editor of choice, we like nano:

nano /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf

Add the following to the end of the file (note that some lines are wrapped, so you may wish to cut and paste them into a text editor in order to view them correctly):

[custom-from-obihai]

exten => _X!,1,Set(CALLERID(num)=${CUT(EXTEN,/,2)})

exten => _X!,n,Set(CALLERID(ani)=${CALLERID(num)})

exten => _X!,n,Set(CALLERID(name)=${SHELL(curl --silent --digest --user admin:obipassword http://192.168.X.X/callstatus.htm --stderr - | grep -n "Peer Number

${CALLERID(num)}" | grep -o -P '(?<=

Peer Name

).*?(?=

)' | tr -d '

')})

exten => _X!,n,ExecIf($["${CALLERID(name)}"="${CALLERID(num)}"]?Set(CALLERID(name)=))

exten => _X!,n,Set(CDR(did)=${CUT(EXTEN,/,1)})

exten => _X!,n,Goto(from-pstn-e164-us,${CUT(EXTEN,/,1)},1)

exten => h,1,Macro(hangupcall,)

Replace obipassword with the password you use to log into your Obihai device’s web interface when you log in locally (this is admin, unless you have changed it as we suggested earlier in this article). This is probably not the same as the password you use when you log into your Obitalk account, so don’t confuse the two. Also, replace 192.168.X.X with the local IP address of the Obihai device.

This is used to get the Caller ID number on incoming calls, and it also attempts to get the Caller ID name on the rare occasion when Google Voice sends one. Note this only works if, on the Obihai device, the X_InboundCallRoute setting in the Service Provider settings for Google Voice account(s) contains the /$1 appendage, in case you were wondering what that was for. And also, the curl command must be installed and working on the Asterisk server; usually this is installed by default but you can check by typing “which curl” at the Linux command prompt – it should return a path, typically /usr/bin/curl. Note that attempting to get the Caller ID name from the Obihai device does take a small amount of time, because it’s actually querying the device’s web interface, since there’s no other way to get it. But, you probably won’t notice any delay when the Obihai device is on the same local network as the Asterisk server. If you don’t care about trying to get a Caller ID name from the Obihai device, just omit the two lines that contain references to the CALLERID(name) variable.

Next, using the FreePBX web interface, create a new PJSIP Trunk. Under the General tab the only things you need to fill in are the Maximum Channels and the Trunk Name, which must match the AuthUserID you used for Voice Gateway1 on the Obihai – we suggested gvgateway:

Trunk Name: gvgateway

Maximum Channels: 6

Disable Trunk: No

Skip the other settings on that page, other than if you like you can fill in an Outbound CallerID to stop FreePBX from complaining, even though this trunk will not be used for outgoing calls. Next, in the sip Settings tab, Outgoing tab:

Trunk Name: gvgateway (yes you have to fill it in here again)

PEER Details:

type=friend

permit=192.168.X.X/255.255.255.255

nat=no

host=192.168.X.X

dtmfmode=rfc2833

disallow=all

directmedia=no

deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0

context=custom-from-obihai

allow=ulaw

Replace the two instances of 192.168.X.X with the local IP address of the Obihai device. This is why we don’t need to use a password, because access to this trunk is only allowed from the Obihai’s IP address. This is why we strongly urged you to assign a fixed IP address to the Obihai. Also, omit the line nat=no if the Obihai device is not on the same local network as the FreePBX server, or if you experience issues with one-way audio.

Don’t forget to click the Submit button before leaving the Trunk configuration page, or you’ll get to start over and do it all again!

Finally you need to create your Inbound Route(s). You need one for each of your 10-digit Google voice numbers that are coming in via the Obihai. When creating them, under the “Advanced” tab you may want to set “Force Answer” to Yes – this causes the call to be answered immediately when it comes in, so that it will not go to Google Voice’s voicemail. In rare circumstances this may cause a problem where calls come in and when you answer there is no one there, but the caller continues to hear ringing and then winds up at Google Voice’s voicemail. We have not experienced this issue in recent firmware releases, but if you do then set the “Pause Before Answer” setting to 1, which delays one second before answering the call. Also, if you have configured CallerID Superfecta, you may want to enable that on the Inbound Route, in the “Other” tab, because Google Voice seldom provides Caller ID name information on incoming calls.

In your Inbound Route you can make the destination whatever you like, including but not limited to the FreePBX extension served by the Obihai device, in order to take advantage of FreePBX’s various features.

After you have made all these changes don’t forget to apply the configuration in FreePBX! Now any calls made to one of your Google Voice numbers should come into FreePBX and be routed according to the Inbound Route specifications.

Sending outgoing calls to Google Voice:

☞ These changes must be made using the OBi Dashboard’s Expert Configuration option.

Some users may not care about doing this but for those that do, here’s how it is done.

Go to Service Providers/ITSP Profile D/SIP and look for the X_AccessList setting. This should be filled in with the local IP address of your FreePBX server, so that your Obihai will not accept connections from any other IP address via SP4. Note that we are assuming here that ITSP Profile D is associated with SP4, which will always be the case unless you have gone out of your way to change it.

While you are on this page, make sure that the setting X_UseRefer is enabled – check the box if it isn’t – and that X_SessionRefresh is disabled – uncheck that box if necessary. Then Submit the changes. So to recap, these are the settings to change if necessary:

X_UseRefer: Checked

X_SessionRefresh: Unchecked

X_AccessList: Set to IP address of FreePBX

Next, go back to Voice Services/SP4 Service and change the X_InboundCallRoute setting. The following is how it might be set for three Google Voice accounts on SP1 through SP3:

{>(<**10:0>11x.|<**11:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp1},{>(<**20:0>11x.|<**21:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp2},{>(<**30:0>11x.|<**31:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp3},{>(ext1):ph},{>(ext2):ph2}

This is just an example, and in any case you’d need to replace ext1 and ext2 with the extension numbers of your Phone Ports. But don’t just copy and paste that – instead, you should construct this setting according to your particular configuration. So here is an explanation of each part, and keep in mind that each part starts with a { and ends with a } and that the parts are separated by commas. Use only the parts you need!

{>(<**10:0>11x.|<**11:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp1}

The above will route all calls prefixed with **1 that fit the pattern of 11 digit calls starting with “1”, or international calls starting with 011, to the Google Voice account on SP1. Note that it is the FreePBX trunk that will be applying the **1 prefix, not the person making the call. If you don’t want to allow international calls, then use this instead:

{>(<**11:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp1}

The next part does the same thing for calls prefixed with **2, routing them to SP2. Of course this assumes you have a second Google Voice account; if not you’d omit this entirely:

{>(<**20:0>11x.|<**21:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp2}

And as before, if you don’t want to allow international:

{>(<**21:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp2}

And if you have a third Google Voice account then you should include one of these two parts:

{>(<**30:0>11x.|<**31:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp3}

or

{>(<**31:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp3}

The next part deals with incoming routing to extensions. If you have an Obi200 and therefore only one phone port, you’d use this at the end:

{>(ext1):ph}

Replacing ext1 with the actual extension number you are using in FreePBX. However, if you have an OBi202, and you have three Google Voice accounts but you want each phone port to be on a separate extension, so that both extensions have to share a Service Provider connection, then you’d also use this to route the second extension’s calls to phone port 2:

{>(ext2):ph2}

Where ext2 would be the extension number you want associated with phone port 2.

Note that specifying the extension numbers this way adds a bit of security, because any calls that may arrive at your Obihai that are not addressed to a valid extension number or Google Voice number will be rejected. There is, by design, no “default route” for calls that do not match one of the expected patterns.

So for an OBi200 with three Google Voice accounts on SP1 to SP3, and FreePBX extension 123 on SP4, the X_InboundCallRoute setting would be:

{>(<**10:0>11x.|<**11:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp1},{>(<**20:0>11x.|<**21:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp2},{>(<**30:0>11x.|<**31:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp3},{>(123):ph}

But if it were an OBi202 with the same configuration but also an extension 124 going to phone port 2:

{>(<**10:0>11x.|<**11:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp1},{>(<**20:0>11x.|<**21:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp2},{>(<**30:0>11x.|<**31:1>xxxxxxxxxx):sp3},{>(123):ph},{>(124):ph2}

By the way, we realize that some very astute readers may question why we’re replacing either a 0 or a 1 with the same character – the answer is, when we didn’t use any replacement character it didn’t work! It’s as simple as that. This may be a firmware bug, because previously it worked without needing to have at least one replacement character.

While on this page, make note of but don’t change the X_UserAgentPort setting – it will probably be either 5063 or 5083, but in any case you’ll need to know it later in these instructions. Also, check that the X_EnforceRequestUserID setting is not checked – this is very important; if you don’t do this then outgoing calls may not work. And you may also want to verify that MaxSessions is set to something higher than the default. So, these are the changes on this page:

X_InboundCallRoute: See discussion above

X_UserAgentPort: Make note of but don’t change

X_EnforceRequestUserID: Unchecked

MaxSessions: At least 6, we use 10 but that may be too many.

Don’t forget to submit your changes. Before logging out of the “OBi Dashboard”, it may be a good idea to go back to the main Dashboard page at this point and click on the gear icon for your device, and look under the Phone Port Configuration Summary to make sure that the “Primary Line for Outgoing Calls Route to:” setting is correct for each of your phone ports. Specifically, you probably want it to be set to SP4 for Phone Port 1, and “Not Configured” for Phone Port 2 (for now), assuming that you plan on routing all your outgoing calls through FreePBX. You change this by clicking on the gear icon next to the service provider you wish to choose as the primary, then when the page refreshes and you have dismissed any popups, check the appropriate checkbox next to “Primary Line for Outgoing Calls” to select that Service Provider. But do keep in mind that anything you put in the OutboundCallRoute setting for a phone port may override this setting.

That’s all of the changes you need to make on the Obihai to handle outgoing calls, except for a couple that unfortunately cannot be made from the “OBi Dashboard” at this time.

☞ These changes must be made using the Obihai device’s web interface.

Log into your Obihai device’s web interface and go to Service Providers/ITSP Profile D/General and make sure that the following two settings are enabled:

X_ICEEnable: Checked

X_EarlyICEEnableIn: Checked

Click Submit, wait for the page to reload, and then click the Reboot button in the upper right corner of the page. This fixes a specific issue with outgoing calls. This assumes that ITSP Profile D is associated with SP4, which will always be the case unless you have gone out of your way to change it.

☞ These changes must be made on the FreePBX server.

Go into the FreePBX web configuration and create one new Custom Trunk – note Custom, not SIP – for each of your Google Voice accounts. Here’s how they are configured:

• General tab:

Trunk Name: Whatever you want

Outbound CallerID: The 10 digit Google Voice number for the account

CID Options: Force Trunk CID

Maximum Channels: 2

Disable Trunk: No (It’s important to check this setting if you have copied the configuration from another trunk!)

• Dialed Number Manipulation Rules tab – Dial patterns:

**1+1NXXNXXXXXX

**11+NXXNXXXXXX

**11areacode+NXXXXXX

If your area does not have 7 digit dialing of local calls then omit the last one; but if it does then replace areacode with the actual 3 digit area code. If you wish to allow international calls, then also add this pattern:

**1+011X.

This is set to use the Google Voice account on Service Provider 1 on the Obihai, but if you replace all instances of **1 with **2 or **3 then it will use the Google Voice accounts associated with SP2 or SP3 respectively. We chose this method because it is the exact same pattern you’d use to select a particular service provider when dialing from a phone connected to the Obihai.

● Custom Settings tab – Custom Dial String:

sip/$OUTNUM$@ip_address_of_obihai:X_UserAgentPort

This is why we said to take note of the X_UserAgentPort setting earlier. So if, for example, your Obihai is at 192.168.1.123 and the X_UserAgentPort was set to 5083, you’d use this:

sip/$OUTNUM$@192.168.1.123:5083

That’s it – submit your changes. Repeat the process for any additional Google Voice accounts on that Obihai. Remember that it is the **n prefix that selects the Google Voice account that the call goes out on, so if instead of using multiple trunks you wanted to use a single trunk and make the Google Voice account selection in your Outbound Routes you could probably do that, although we imagine that it would be a lot more complicated to do it that way.

After you’ve created your custom trunks, don’t forget to apply the configuration. Now you can select those trunks in your Outbound Routes, as usual in FreePBX.

OBi202 users only: How to use one Service Provider connection for two FreePBX extensions

As we mentioned earlier, Obi202 devices have two phone ports, and maybe you’d like to have a separate FreePBX extension associated with each phone port. If you are already using SP1 through SP3 for other purposes, such as Google Voice connections, then you are only left with SP4 to use for both extensions. So as we said above, what you want to do in that case is configure SP4 as the extension that will be associated with Phone Port 1 (ph1), and you do that in the normal manner using the “OBi Dashboard”, although you may need to make some additions to the default DigitMap and OutboundCallRoute settings to allow extension to extension calls. Since we don’t know how extensions are numbered on your system, we can’t really explain how to do that, but we are aware that there is a tool called OBiCfg (this is a .zip file that expands to a Windows-compatible program) that may help you configure those settings. If you don’t use Windows, the program will probably run under WINE on Linux or MacOS based systems. Some time back we were able to convert this program to a Mac application, more or less, using a Mac program called Wineskin but that’s not exactly a straightforward process, and we haven’t tried to do it recently.

But the main thing is that you should get your Phone Port 1 working as a FreePBX extension, and make sure that it can make and receive calls. Then, and only then, can you configure Phone Port 2. Here is how, starting with the Obihai configuration.

☞ These changes must be made using the OBi Dashboard’s Expert Configuration option.

Go to Service Providers/ITSP Profile D/General. In your browser, place your cursor inside the text field for the DigitMap setting, and select the entire field and copy it. This assumes that ITSP Profile D is associated with SP4, which will always be the case unless you have gone out of your way to change it, and that SP4 is used for the FreePBX extension associated with Phone Port 1, which you have already configured. You may wish to temporarily paste the copied text into a text editor if you don’t use a clipboard manager, so that you don’t accidentally copy something else over it.

Go to Voice Services/Gateways & TrunkGrps – we’ll be changing the settings for Voice Gateway2 (vg2), since we’ve already used vg1. You can use any unused Voice Gateway, but we assume the use of vg2 in these instructions. We’ll be changing the Name, AccessNumber, DigitMap, and AuthUserID settings, as follows:

Name: The extension number you wish to use for this extension

AccessNumber: SP4(192.168.x.x) – replace 192.168.x.x with the fixed IP address of your FreePBX server

DigitMap: The DigitMap that you copied from ITSP Profile D

AuthUserID: The extension number you wish to use for this extension again

Then click Submit.

Go to Physical Interfaces/PHONE 1. In your browser, place your cursor inside the text field for the OutboundCallRoute setting, and select the entire field and copy it. Paste it into any plain text editor you have handy – this is just for your convenience so you can see the entire setting. We are going to modify this slightly and the use it as the OutboundCallRoute for Phone Port 2. Without knowing exactly what you have there now, we can’t just give you a replacement to paste in – you need to edit what’s there now. But note that we are not changing this setting in Phone Port 1 at all, so don’t try to edit it in place – copy it to a text editor so you won’t accidentally save it to the wrong Phone Port configuration.

Before we continue, please note the following:

These instructions assume that you want to send all calls from Phone Port 2 to your FreePBX server, and that if the call is ultimately destined for a Google Voice connection then FreePBX will send it back to your Obihai. In other words, you want your FreePBX extension to be your “Primary Line”. If that is NOT the case, and you want the Primary Line for Phone Port 2 to be a Google Voice account, then you can set that up in the “OBi Dashboard” in the normal manner. In this case you will not want to make any of the changes shown below in your DigitMaps or in the OutboundCallRoute, EXCEPT that if you have added a rule that routes calls to other extensions to sp4, you’ll want to change that to point to vg2. So make that change only if appropriate, and then paste the entire text into Phone Port 2’s OutboundCallRoute, click Submit, and then skip down to the paragraph that begins with “We’ve already showed you above how to route incoming calls for a particular extension to Phone Port 2” and continue from there. But if you DO want your FreePBX extension to be your “Primary Line”, which we recommend, then continue on from here.

There are two basic things you need to do in the OutboundCallRoute setting you just copied:

First, replace any references to pli (typically part of the text Mpli) with vg2. You need to do this because pli stands for “Primary Line” but you can’t select a Voice Gateway as a primary line in the “OBi Dashboard”, so this makes that change in the Phone Port configuration. Typically there will be two rules that need to be changed:

{([1-9]x?*(Mpli)):pp} is changed to {([1-9]x?*(Mvg2)):pp} – this is near the beginning of the text.

{(Mpli):pli} is changed to {(Mvg2):vg2} – this is near the end of the text, and note there are two replacements in this rule.

Next, you need to change any existing references to sp4 to point to vg2, EXCEPT for the rule that looks like this: {(<**4:>(Msp4)):sp4} . Don’t change that one, but any other references to sp4 should be changed to vg2, unless you have some specific reason for leaving them set to sp4. When making changes, note that rules are enclosed in {curly braces} and then separated by commas, so be careful not to accidentally delete a curly brace or comma. Just make sure that nothing remains routed to sp4 other than the single rule for the **4 prefix mentioned above; otherwise some calls from Phone Port 2 may appear to be coming from Phone Port 1’s extension when they arrive at FreePBX.

Once you have the OutboundCallRoute text modified as described above, go to Physical Interfaces/PHONE 2 – make sure you are not still in PHONE 1 where you copied the settings from; you must now be in the PHONE 2 configuration – and paste your modified settings into the OutboundCallRoute setting there, and Submit.

There are two other settings on this page that needs to be changed, DigitMap, which is just above the OutboundCallRoute setting, and CallReturnDigitMaps, which is just below it. It would be safest to copy those over from Physical Interfaces/PHONE 1, make the necessary changes, and then paste them in to the equivalent fields in Physical Interfaces/PHONE 2, but typically each of these fields will by default be the same as their equivalents in Phone Port 1 anyway.

What you need to do in both the DigitMap and CallReturnDigitMaps is replace any references to pli with vg2. In the DigitMap setting this will typically need to be changed in two places:

[1-9]x?*(Mpli) is changed to [1-9]x?*(Mvg2) – this is near the beginning of the text.

(Mpli) is changed to (Mvg2) – this is near the end of the text.

And in the CallReturnDigitMaps there is typically only one replacement that needs to be made:

{pli:(xx.)} is changed to {vg2:(xx.)} – this is near the beginning of the text.

Again, when making these changes make sure you don’t accidentally delete a curly brace or comma, and don’t forget to click Submit when you are finished.

Before leaving the “OBi Dashboard”, go back out to the main Dashboard page and click on the gear icon for your device, and look under the Phone Port Configuration Summary to make sure that the “Primary Line for Outgoing Calls Route to:” setting for Phone 2 says “Not Configured”. If, instead, it shows a service provider (SP1, SP2, SP3, or SP4) then look in the section just above, “Configure Voice Service Providers (SP)”, and click the gear icon next to that Service Provider, dismiss the popup, and then on the line “Primary Line for Outgoing Calls”, UNCHECK the checkbox next to Phone 2. This should leave Phone 2 with no configured Primary Line, meaning it should only use the rules in the settings we configured above. It would be great if we could simply set the Primary Line for Phone Port 2 to Voice Gateway 2, but the “OBi Dashboard” doesn’t allow it, which is why we had to change all those instances of pli to vg2.

If, after making these changes and setting up the configuration in FreePBX as described below, you find that you are having problems making some calls, check to see if you have the same issue on Phone Port 1. The reason we said to copy the DigitMap setting from Service Providers/ITSP Profile D/General to Voice Gateway2’s DigitMap was because we assumed that the DigitMap in ITSP Profile D, which should be associated with Phone Port 1 if you have followed these instructions from the beginning, would allow outgoing calls as configured for Service Provider 4 in the “OBi Dashboard”. So if, for example, you allowed 7 digit dialing to a particular area code when you set up SP4, then by copying the ITSP Profile D DigitMap to Voice Gateway2 those same rules should be followed by Phone Port two, PROVIDED you made all the replacements of pli to vg2 and sp4 to vg2 that we documented above.

We’ve already showed you above how to route incoming calls for a particular extension to Phone Port 2, using the X_InboundCallRoute setting under Voice Services/SP4 Service – once again, there needs to be a rule there of the form {>(ext2):ph2} where ext2 is the extension number associated with Phone Port 2.

That’s all you need to do in the Obihai device configuration.

☞ These changes must be made on the FreePBX server.

In FreePBX we need to make a Custom Extension and a new SIP trunk. When you create the extension, make sure you specify that it is Custom and not SIP! The details for the Custom Extension are as follows:

Under the General tab, set the User Extension, Display Name and Outbound CID as you normally would – obviously, the User Extension must match the Obihai device settings you used for the Name and AuthUserID for Voice Gateway 2, and especially with the extension number you associated with Phone Port 2 in the X_InboundCallRoute setting under Voice Services/SP4 Service. For all the other tabs, in most cases you can use the same settings that you would if you were creating a SIP extension. The major exception to this is in the Advanced tab, Edit Extension section, Dial setting. For that you want to use something like this:

sip/extension_number@ip_address_of_obihai:X_UserAgentPort

Replace extension_number with the number of this extension, and use the actual ip_address_of_obihai. The X_UserAgentPort is the same one we had you make a note of earlier, that was used in the Custom Dial String for the trunk(s) you created for outgoing calls to each of your Google Voice accounts. So if, for example, your extension number is 124, your Obihai is at 192.168.1.123 and the X_UserAgentPort was set to 5083, you’d use this as your Dial setting:

sip/124@192.168.1.123:5083

When you finish your custom extension configuration, don’t forget to click Submit. Note that this custom extension is used for calls going TO Phone Port 2 on the Obihai only, although there is one important exception to that – if you set an Emergency CID in the Advanced tab, Extension Options section, it will be used for calls FROM the extension that are routed through an “Emergency” outbound route, provided that the extension number you use in the trunk settings in the next section exactly matches the custom extension’s number.

For calls coming FROM Phone Port 2 we need to create a new SIP Trunk – this may sound strange, but it’s the easiest way to handle this. So, create a new SIP (chan_sip) Trunk. Under the General tab use the following settings, but note that the Trunk Name can be whatever you want, for example:

Trunk Name: Extension_124_from_Obihai

Maximum Channels: 3

Disable Trunk: No

Skip the other settings on that page, other than if you like you can fill in the Outbound CallerID to stop FreePBX from complaining. Next, in the sip Settings tab, Outgoing tab, use the extension number as the Trunk name (this is what must exactly match the custom extension’s number for the Emergency CID setting to be honored), and then fill in the PEER Details as shown below:

Trunk Name: The extension number, such as 124

PEER Details:

deny=0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0

callerid=Caller ID name and number (see below)

context=from-internal

directmedia=no

dtmfmode=rfc2833

host=192.168.X.X

port=X_UserAgentPort

nat=no

permit=192.168.X.X/255.255.255.255

qualify=yes

qualifyfreq=60

sendrpid=pai

transport=udp

trustrpid=yes

type=friend

Replace the information in the callerid= item with the correct user name and extension number, in the same way you would set a Caller ID for a regular extension, and replace the two instances of 192.168.X.X with the local IP address of the Obihai device. Once again, for the port= item replace X_UserAgentPort with the same port number we had you make a note of earlier, that was used in the Custom Dial String for the trunk(s) you created for outgoing calls to each of your Google Voice accounts. Omit the line nat=no if the Obihai device is not on the same local network as the FreePBX server, or if you experience issues with one-way audio.

Note that you can adjust the PEER Details settings as necessary. If you are trying to figure out what settings to use, you can always look in the file /etc/asterisk/sip_additional.conf and look at the settings for an actual SIP extension in FreePBX that is similar to this one, perhaps the settings for the extension associated with Phone Port 1, and use similar settings in the PEER Details here. However, the host= and port= settings must contain the IP address and X_UserAgentPort number of the Obihai device. We found that you don’t need to use every single setting that FreePBX would use when creating a SIP extension – the subset shown above worked well for us.

In case you are wondering, for us FreePBX didn’t complain about having a Custom Extension and a SIP Trunk Name set to the same extension number. If it does complain about it for you, go to the FreePBX Advanced Settings page, System Setup section, and make sure that the “Aggresively Check for Duplicate Extensions” setting is set to “No”.

Final thoughts

We realize that there are many different ways to do this, and that some work better than others. These are what worked for us. If they work for you, great! One thing we do notice is that we do not seem to experience the spontaneous rebooting of the Obihai device that some users of other methods have reported. We don’t know whether we’ve just been lucky, or whether the latest firmware fixed that problem, or whether there really is something different about our method, but we thought we’d put it out there as another possible way to do this that may work for some where other methods have failed.

Configuring an Obihai device isn’t the easiest thing to do, and that’s why we stick to using the “OBi Dashboard” – it makes configuration a lot easier. But if you need help understanding dialplans and other internal workings of the Obihai, we suggest you download the OBi Device Administration Guide – it’s a 220 page PDF file. It’s what we used to come up with most of this method, along with a few tricks we’ve picked up in various forums here and there.

One final thought – if you happen to also have an older OBi100 or OBi110 device, keep in mind that it can still be used as a FreePBX extension even though it can no longer connect with Google Voice. But it’s entirely possible to place or receive calls that go through FreePBX, to or from the 200-series device, because those devices still work fine with SIP connections, so in a roundabout manner you could still use Google Voice with such devices. It’s also possible to use the Obitalk network as an intermediary instead of FreePBX for such calls, but if you have a FreePBX server we don’t really see much point in doing that, and in any case that’s beyond the scope of this article.