How to install FreeSWITCH 1.8 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

FreeSWITCH is a free and opensource telecom software stack. It supports all major operating systems like Linux, Windows, macOS and freeBSD. In this article, we will see how to install Freeswitch 1.8 from source on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS code named Bionic Beaver.

How to install FreeSWITCH on Debian 9 Stretch

How to install FreeSWITCH on Debian 8 Jessie

How to install FreeSWITCH on CentOS 7

Does FreeSWITCH seem hard ? Not really. Visit our FreeSWITCH Archive to learn more.

Installation from Source

1. Fetch updated list of packages

apt update -y

2. Install dependencies

apt install -y git subversion build-essential autoconf automake libtool libncurses5 libncurses5-dev make libjpeg-dev libtool libtool-bin libsqlite3-dev libpcre3-dev libspeexdsp-dev libldns-dev libedit-dev yasm liblua5.2-dev libopus-dev cmake

3. Lets install some optional packages too

apt install -y libcurl4-openssl-dev libexpat1-dev libgnutls28-dev libtiff5-dev libx11-dev unixodbc-dev libssl-dev python-dev zlib1g-dev libasound2-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libperl-dev libgdbm-dev libdb-dev uuid-dev libsndfile1-dev

4. Now install signalwire related packages. First install libks.

apt install cmake cd /usr/src git clone https://github.com/signalwire/libks.git cd libks cmake . make make install

5. Then install signalwire-c

cd /usr/src git clone https://github.com/signalwire/signalwire-c.git cd signalwire-c cmake . make make install

6. Now grab FreeSWITCH source. Use the -b flag to get a specific branch

cd /usr/src git clone https://freeswitch.org/stash/scm/fs/freeswitch.git -bv1.8 freeswitch cd freeswitch

7. As we are in a branch that will go through many rebases, to avoid conflicts better config rebase settings

git config pull.rebase true

8. Start bootstrapping

./bootstrap.sh -j

9. By default, only few modules are enabled. You can enable/disable these modules at this stage. Edit 'modules.conf' and change as per requirements. Remember enabling new modules may require additional dependencies.

10. Now run standard installation process

./configure -C make make install

11. Compile sounds

make all cd-sounds-install cd-moh-install

12. Create simlinks to use services easily.

ln -s /usr/local/freeswitch/bin/freeswitch /usr/bin/ ln -s /usr/local/freeswitch/bin/fs_cli /usr/bin

13. Add new group and user with less privileges to run FreeSWITCH service.

cd /usr/local
groupadd freeswitch
adduser --disabled-password  --quiet --system --home /usr/local/freeswitch --gecos "FreeSWITCH Voice Platform" --ingroup freeswitch freeswitch
chown -R freeswitch:freeswitch /usr/local/freeswitch/
chmod -R ug=rwX,o= /usr/local/freeswitch/
chmod -R u=rwx,g=rx /usr/local/freeswitch/bin/

14. Now lets add systemd unit file. Systemd is default init system for Ubuntu 18.04. Open new file '/etc/systemd/system/freeswitch.service' using your favorite editor and copy below content in it.

[Unit]
Description=freeswitch
Wants=network-online.target
Requires=syslog.socket network.target local-fs.target
After=syslog.socket network.target network-online.target local-fs.target

[Service]
Type=forking
Environment="DAEMON_OPTS=-nonat"
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/freeswitch
ExecStartPre=/bin/chown -R freeswitch:freeswitch /usr/local/freeswitch
ExecStart=/usr/bin/freeswitch -u freeswitch -g freeswitch -ncwait $DAEMON_OPTS
TimeoutSec=45s
Restart=always

User=root
Group=daemon
LimitCORE=infinity
LimitNOFILE=100000
LimitNPROC=60000
LimitSTACK=250000
LimitRTPRIO=infinity
LimitRTTIME=infinity
IOSchedulingClass=realtime
IOSchedulingPriority=2
CPUSchedulingPolicy=rr
CPUSchedulingPriority=89
UMask=0007
NoNewPrivileges=false

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

15. Now start service and enable it to start on boot.

chmod ugo+x freeswitch.service systemctl start freeswitch.service systemctl enable freeswitch.service

16. Now check status of FreeSWITCH service systemctl status freeswitch.service Status should be 'active' something like below

● freeswitch.service - freeswitch Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/freeswitch.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Mon 2019-05-27 10:55:15 UTC; 7min ago

17. Now you can connect to FreeSWITCH using client as below fs_cli -r

Notes

During compilation if you stuck with errors like unknown dependencies (particularly spansdsp), run below command before starting compilation again.

git clean -fdx

Hope you like this article. Let us know feedback in comments.

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