home-assistant.io/source/_docs/asterisk_mbox.markdown

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Asterisk Voicemail server installation	Instructions on how to integrate your existing Asterisk voicemail within Home Assistant.

Asterisk Voicemail integration allows Home Assistant to view, listen to and delete voicemails from a Asterisk voicemail mailbox.

There are two components to the integration:

• A server that runs on the Asterisk PBX host and communicates over an open port.
• A client which can request information from the server.

Both parts are necessary for Asterisk voicemail integration.

The server installation is documented below. The client is integrated inside Home Assistant

{% note %} Currently this module can only monitor a single Asterisk PBX mailbox. {% endnote %}

Prerequisites

Before beginning make sure that you have the following:

• A functional Asterisk PBX setup which is using the default voicemail application.
• Both Home Assistant and Asterisk PBX running on the same LAN (or the same server).
• The Asterisk PBX server has Python 3.5 or newer installed.
• Administrator access on the Asterisk PBX (for Python module installation).
• Account access to the asterisk user that runs the Asterisk PBX software.

Installation

1. Apply for a Google API key to enable speech-transcription services

2. Install the asterisk_mbox_server Python module:

   pip3 install asterisk_mbox_server
   

3. Create a configuration file for the server

   As the asterisk user create an asterisk_mbox.ini file. You can place this in any directory you choose, but the recommended location is /etc/asterisk/asterisk_mbox.ini.

   [default]
   host = IP_ADDRESS 
   port = PORT
   password = PASSWORD
   mbox_path = PATH_TO_VOICEMAIL_FILES
   cache_file = PATH_TO_CACHE_FILE
   google_key = GOOGLE_API_KEY
   cdr = mysql+pymysql://<mysql-user>:<mysql-password>@localhost/asterisk/cdr
   
   

   • host (Optional): The IP address to listen on for client requests. This defaults to all IP addresses on the server. To listen only locally, choose 127.0.0.1
   • port (Optional): The port to listen on for client requests. Defaults to 12345.
   • password (Required): A password shared between client and server. Use only alphanumeric characters and spaces
   • mbox_path (Required): The path to the storage location of mailbox files. This is typically /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/default/<mailbox>/
   • cache_file (Required): A fully-qualified path to a file that can be written by the server containing transcriptions of voicemails. Example: /var/spool/asterisk/transcription.cache
   • google_key (Required): Your 40 characters Google API key.
   • cdr (Optional): Where to find CDR data. Supports various SQL databases as well as a file log. Configuring the CDR will enable the asterisk_cdr platform.

   Once complete, ensure this file is only accessible by the Asterisk user:

   sudo chown asterisk:asterisk /etc/asterisk/asterisk_mbox.ini
   sudo chmod 600 /etc/asterisk/asterisk_mbox.ini
   

4. Interactively start the server to verify it is functioning

   sudo -u asterisk asterisk_mbox_server -v --cfg /etc/asterisk/asterisk_mbox.ini
   

   Now complete the Home Assistant configuration and verify that Home Assistant can communicate with the server

   You can use Ctrl-c to terminate the server when done testing

5. Configure the server to start automatically

   Copy the following code into /etc/systemd/system/asterisk_mbox.service:

   [Unit]
   Description=Asterisk PBX voicemail server for Home Assistant
   Wants=network.target
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=asterisk
   Group=asterisk
   ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/asterisk-mbox-server --cfg /etc/asterisk/asterisk_mbox.ini
   Restart=on-failure
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

{% note %} This assumes that your Asterisk PBX server is using systemd for init handling. If not, you will need to create the appropriate configuration files yourself. {% endnote %}