Asterisk CLI useful commands

Owned by Valerio Ciotta
Last updated: Mar 17, 2021
8 min read




Entering CLI

Before you can see any of the messages in Asterisk CLI, you need to ssh to the system by using ssh command (if using Linux on your computer) or using putty or similar software if on PC/MAC. After that you can enter the Asterisk CLI via following command:

[root@Motion-PBX ~]# asterisk -rvvvvv

where number of Vs define the verbosity level of the CLI.

Once inside you will see a lot of useful info print out for all actions on the system, Asterisk related though. You will see:

  • Phone calls
  • Peer registrations
  • Subscribe notification
  • Reload of system components (Extensions, Trunks, IVRs, etc.)

Asterisk 13.6.0, Copyright (C) 1999 - 2014, Digium, Inc. and others.
Created by Mark Spencer <markster@digium.com>
Asterisk comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; type 'core show warranty' for details.
This is free software, with components licensed under the GNU General Public
License version 2 and other licenses; you are welcome to redistribute it under
certain conditions. Type 'core show license' for details.
=========================================================================
Connected to Asterisk 13.6.0 currently running on Motion-PBX (pid = 2112)
Motion-PBX*CLI>


Entering CLI with additional debugging

If for some reason you have some inexplicable issues, like Asterisk not being able to start, you can try to run the CLI with different set of switches which should give some application specific debug info which includes start up sequence, database connection, registration retries, etc.

[root@Motion-PBX ~]# asterisk -rddddd

where number of Ds define the verbosity of these debug messages.

Parsing /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf
Seeding global EID '00:50:56:8e:23:02' from 'eth0' using 'siocgifhwaddr'
Asterisk 13.6.0, Copyright (C) 1999 - 2014, Digium, Inc. and others.
Created by Mark Spencer <markster@digium.com>
Asterisk comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; type 'core show warranty' for details.
This is free software, with components licensed under the GNU General Public
License version 2 and other licenses; you are welcome to redistribute it under
certain conditions. Type 'core show license' for details.
=========================================================================
Connected to Asterisk 13.6.0 currently running on Motion-PBX (pid = 2112)
Core debug was OFF and is now 5.

Important

To turn off the debug messages run this command:

Motion-PBX*CLI> core set debug off
Core debug was 5 and is now OFF.


Running commands outside of CLI

If you don't need to be inside CLI, or you need just to execute some command without concern of output from CLI, you can do so by running Asterisk command with following switches being used:

[root@Motion-PBX ~]# asterisk -rx "reload"

Above will reload Asterisk configuration without going into CLI.


SIP debugging

First important command(s) to know is the SIP debug set of commands which are useful when you need to see the SIP data stream going through Asterisk. Simple command is to enable SIP debugging for one phone with:

 SIP SET DEBUG PEER PEERNAME

Motion-PBX*CLI> sip set debug peer giove1motion
SIP Debugging Enabled for IP: 151.0.175.186

If for some reason thepeer is not registered and the IP of the peer is not known to the asterisk, above command will not work and CLI will not show any SIP messages.

In such case, if you know the IP from which traffic should come, it is better to turn on debugging for that specific IP like this:

 SIP SET DEBUG IP PEER_IP

where PEER_IP is the IP address of the peer which should send traffic to said extension/trunk.

When you finish debugging the SIP stream, you need to turn off SIP debugging since leaving that running clutters the CLI output and you might miss other important information on the system.

Important

To turn off SIP debug run this command:

Motion-PBX*CLI> sip set debug off
SIP Debugging Disabled

RTP Debugging

One of the primary techniques is to view what is actually getting sent and received by VOIP devices.

If you have issues with audio problems, enable the RTP debug

Motion-PBX*CLI> rtp set debug on
RTP Debugging Enabled

Example of proper bidirectional RTP traffic

Got  RTP packet from    151.0.175.186:55903 (type 00, seq 013414, ts 317314000, len 000160)
Sent RTP packet to      82.215.163.137:10498 (type 00, seq 053165, ts 317314000, len 000160)
Got  RTP packet from    82.215.163.137:10498 (type 00, seq 008373, ts 1558588704, len 000160)
Sent RTP packet to      151.0.175.186:55903 (type 00, seq 020095, ts 1558588704, len 000160)
Got  RTP packet from    151.0.175.186:55903 (type 00, seq 013415, ts 317314160, len 000160)
Sent RTP packet to      82.215.163.137:10498 (type 00, seq 053166, ts 317314160, len 000160)

Important

To turn off RTP debug run this command:

Motion-PBX*CLI> rtp set debug off
RTP Debugging Disabled



CODEC transcoding list

If for some reason you have issues with audio problems, some of the messages might indicate codec incompatibilities on the system. In such cases you can see the possible translation paths in Asterisk with following command:

Motion-PBX*CLI> core show translation

This command will show a table of possible codec transcoding/translation paths that can be followed on the system.

When you see a - sign, it means that transcoding between said codecs is not possible. In most cases, the reason for such issue is missing codec.

Motion-PBX*CLI> core show translation
         Translation times between formats (in microseconds) for one second of data
          Source Format (Rows) Destination Format (Columns)

           ulaw  alaw   gsm  g726 g726aal2 adpcm  slin  slin  slin  slin  slin  slin  slin  slin  slin lpc10  ilbc  g722 testlaw
     ulaw     -  9150 15000 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
     alaw  9150     - 15000 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
      gsm 15000 15000     - 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
     g726 15000 15000 15000     -    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
 g726aal2 15000 15000 15000 15000        - 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
    adpcm 15000 15000 15000 15000    15000     -  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250   15000
     slin  6000  6000  6000  6000     6000  6000     -  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  6000  6000  8250    6000
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500     -  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000 14500 14500 14000   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500     -  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000 14500 14500  6000   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500     -  8000  8000  8000  8000  8000 14500 14500 14500   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500  8500     -  8000  8000  8000  8000 14500 14500 14500   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500     -  8000  8000  8000 14500 14500 14500   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500     -  8000  8000 14500 14500 14500   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500     -  8000 14500 14500 14500   14500
     slin 14500 14500 14500 14500    14500 14500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500  8500     - 14500 14500 14500   14500
    lpc10 15000 15000 15000 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000     - 15000 17250   15000
     ilbc 15000 15000 15000 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000     - 17250   15000
     g722 15600 15600 15600 15600    15600 15600  9600 17500  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15600 15600     -   15600
  testlaw 15000 15000 15000 15000    15000 15000  9000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 17000 15000 15000 17250       -


Reloading the complete Asterisk configuration

In cases, and not limited to, where you did manual modifications to Asterisk dialplan, you need to reload the complete configuration of the Asterisk subsystem which can be done by a simple command:

Motion-PBX*CLI> reload

Or, out of the Asterisk CLI

[root@Motion-PBX ~]# asterisk -rx "reload"

This will reload all the configuration related to Asterisk telephony engine.

Restarting the Asterisk

If reloading of Asterisk is not enough for the changes made, or there is other reason to do so, you can restart complete Asterisk with:


[root@Motion-PBX ~]# service asterisk restart

List peers

When checking the availability of phones/trunks, you can print out a list of the peers on the system:

Motion-PBX*CLI> sip show peers

The command will print out a list of SIP peers on the system with additional info like online status and IP address from which they connect. 


Active calls

Watch the complete list of the active channels and active calls

Motion-PBX*CLI> core show channels

SIP channels list

Watch the complete list of the SIP channels

Motion-PBX*CLI> sip show channels

Registered trunks

Check the registration status of the SIP trunks

Motion-PBX*CLI> sip show registry
Host                                    dnsmgr Username       Refresh State                Reg.Time
voip.eutelia.it:5060                    N      0110703070         105 Registered           Tue, 17 Jan 2017 14:39:52
82.215.163.137:5060                     N      xenia_bs2          105 Registered           Tue, 17 Jan 2017 14:39:52
2 SIP registrations.

Note

The trunk registration string must be previously configured in the trunk section of the XCALLY Web GUI


Checking the ODBC connection pool

asterisk - r

odbc show asterisk

If you need more connections, please increase them inside this file:
/etc/asterisk/res_odbc.conf

Example of res_odbc.conf setup to support up to 50 connections that can be open at a given time:
[asterisk]
max_connections => 50

Don't forget to reload asterisk in case you change the max_connections:
asterisk -r
reload

By increasing the maximum number of connections the pool can maintain you should find Asterisk realtime to be both more stable and fast!