Asterisk 1.6.1 + OpenSSL: Save your hair! Timesaver

While compiling Asterisk 1.6.1 from source, if you come across a "no such File or directory" compile error (through chan_sip.c and tcptls.h) try using the ASTCFLAGS instead of or in addition to CFLAGS.

This error is most likely to show up if:

• ./configure runs fine, even with --with-ssl=/usr/local/ssl (or your path)
• openssl is installed in a non-standard path (common when compiled from source)
• you know that ssl.h and err.h exist on your system -- asterisk's build simply doesn't find it during make (arguably not asterisk's job)
  

If ssl.h and err.h are under /usr/local/ssl/include/ssl.h and /usr/local/ssl/include/err.h, respectively, this might get Asterisk compiling when other methods don't:

ASTCFLAGS="-I/usr/local/ssl/include" CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/ssl/include" /usr/local/bin/make

Faxing with Asterisk 1.6.1 and SpanDSP

Overview:

If you're familiar with Digium's Asterisk 1.4x or 1.2x, your fax solution might have included the extremely useful SpanDSP library. Getting a vanilla install of Asterisk from source to "installed" with SpanDSP required a patch and separate downloads ... that is, until recently.

Good News:

Recent versions of Asterisk in the 1.6x line include a combined app_fax support and work with recent versions of SpanDSP.

So...
If you're looking for a place to download app_rxfax.c or app_txfax.c (no longer available from soft-switch.org) and you're using Asterisk 1.6.x, consider getting a recent version of SpanDSP. For many installs, this will be enough.

Asterisk 1.6 and NVFaxDetect

One of the great things going for VOIP is the freely available Asterisk PBX. Using Asterisk, you can turn your Desktop, Laptop... or PDA... into a featured telephone system with support for voice menus, voicemail, faxing, and many more interesting things.

Asterisk recently released an update to the 1.6 line, which already includes support for encrypted SIP and TCP connections. However, one third-party module that provides fax detection over SIP and IAX (basically, Voice Over IP/VOIP traffic), no longer works smoothly with the most recent versions.

At work:

At work we help our clients to do a lot of creative things using Asterisk and other systems we custom design. One slowdown to adopting the new versions of Asterisk, is that Newman Telecom's NVFaxDetect hasn't yet been ported for use with new versions of Asterisk. If a port has been created, it isn't easily found through public channels at present.

We're now porting our own open-source faxing implementation based on the app_rxfax and app_txfax libraries with spandsp. Here's hoping this development will be preempted by a digium or other community release!