The following tutorial walks you through the process of installing Asterisk 10 on Debian 6 (Squeeze), the install method uses source directly from asterisk.org not the Debian packages via APT. I recommend installing Asterisk on a dedicated server running a minimal Debian 6 system with nothing else installed apart from SSH and always keep your base system up to date.

Make sure Debian is up to date with:

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apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Apt will now pull down and install any updates.

Install Debian Asterisk 10 dependencies and the required build tools with:

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install -y build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` libxml2-dev ncurses-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3

Create a build directory in /usr/src for Asterisk:

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mkdir /usr/src/asterisk

Change into the directory:

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mv /usr/src/asterisk

Download Asterisk 10 and the DAHDI tools using wget:

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wget https://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/asterisk-10.0.0.tar.gz &&
wget https://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/dahdi-linux-complete/releases/dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0+2.6.0.tar.gz

Extract Asterisk 10 & DAHDI tools tar.gz archives:

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tar -xvzf asterisk-10.0.0.tar.gz && tar -xvzf dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0+2.6.0.tar.gz

Next we must build DAHDI tools on Debian, this must be done first before building Asterisk 10, enter the following:

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cd dahdi-linux-complete-2.6.0+2.6.0/

Build DAHDI tools with:

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make all &&
make install &&
make config

Start DAHDI tools on Debian with:

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/etc/init.d/dahdi start

Build Asterisk 10 on Debian 6

It’s time to compile Asterisk 10 on Debian 6 with the following:

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cd asterisk-10.0.0/

Build Asterisk 10:

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make clean
./configure

When this finishes you should get the funky Asterisk ASCII text logo:

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               .$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$=..
            .$7$7..          .7$$7:.
          .$$:.                 ,$7.7
        .$7.     7$$$$           .$$77
     ..$$.       $$$$$            .$$$7
    ..7$   .?.   $$$$$   .?.       7$$$.
   $.$.   .$$$7. $$$$7 .7$$$.      .$$$.
 .777.   .$$$$$$77$$$77$$$$$7.      $$$,
 $$$~      .7$$$$$$$$$$$$$7.       .$$$.
.$$7          .7$$$$$$$7:          ?$$$.
$$$          ?7$$$$$$$$$$I        .$$$7
$$$       .7$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$      :$$$.
$$$       $$$$$$7$$$$$$$$$$$$    .$$$.
$$$        $$$   7$$$7  .$$$    .$$$.
$$$$             $$$$7         .$$$.
7$$$7            7$$$$        7$$$
 $$$$$                        $$$
  $$$$7.                       $$  (TM)
   $$$$$$$.           .7$$$$$$  $$
     $$$$$$$$$$$$7$$$$$$$$$.$$$$$$
       $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

To customize your Asterisk build use menuselect, you can add additional codecs and other features:

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make menuselect

Make Asterisk 10:

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make
make install

Make Asterisk 10 samples, do not do this if you are upgrading or already have Asterisk config files in /etc/asterisk

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make samples
make config

Start Asterisk console with, this is for testing only:

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asterisk -vvvvc

To start the Asterisk service on Debian:

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/etc/init.d/asterisk start

You should now have a working Debian Asterisk server with a set of default config files installed, each config has examples for configuration. I recommend setting up your internal extensions first and then your internal / external trunks.

Debian with a source install of Asterisk is my prefered choice, make sure you note down that asterisk is installed from source and keep it up to date, I would recommend joining their mailing list.

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