Getting Started
- Make sure you have highlighted the words 'Install to hard drive' and press ENTER. The installer will load and ask you which disk should be the target for installation. This disk will be wiped clean, so make sure that is what you want to do. You will be asked twice to confirm.
- After the installation, you will be back at the main menu. From here, select 'Eject CDROM' and then confirm your intentions.
- Once the CDROM ejects from your system, you will scroll down and select 'Reboot System'
- After the system comes back up, you have now booted Miravoice from the hard drive. Left click in the desktop and select 'Commands' again to bring up the console.
- Decide on a password for your VOIP devices and write it down. You will be asked this password in the next step. We recommend something that is difficult to guess but not impossible to enter on your VOIP devices. If you are using a softphone, you can select almost any password, but some VOIP handsets might be very difficult to program if your password has special characters.
- Select 'Setup extensions' from the list of options and press ENTER.
- Accept the default selection for the sip.conf. It should read /etc/asterisk/sip.conf. This is the file that holds all of your authentication for the Asterisk PBX, an integral part of Miravoice.
- You will be prompted for a password to use for all of your VOIP devices. It will not be displayed on screen. Consult the password you wrote down a few steps ago.
- You will be asked to confirm your choice of password. Make sure you enter it properly a second time, as it will not echo on screen either time.
- On the next screen, select 'OK' after reading the message.
- In this window, you can enable or disable video communications. By default it will be enabled. Leave the information in about thoughtwave, as this is how you will connect to outside numbers on the public switched telephone number and any ThoughtWave extension. Miravoice call routing does not go through thoughtwave, as it is all point-to-point. When done you can continue saving changes by selecting 'OK', or revert automatically to the defaults by selecting 'Cancel'
- Next you will be given a description of your video codec options. By default, your system will be set up for h.263. However, you can enable h.264 very easily by editing the appropriate line or adding a line in the edit window. When you are done, you can select 'OK' to continue to the edit screen.
- When you are done editing your codec choices, select 'OK' to accept the changes or 'Cancel' to select the original defaults. The system will immediately create 250 extensions with that password. They will be numbered s1000 through s1249. Later, we'll talk about s1000 and its special meaning.
- After a few moments, the system will report that the file has been created. Select 'OK' to return to the 'Commands' window.
- Now, you will want to select 'Reboot System' to enable the new SIP configuration file. In a few moments you will have your extensions configured and your system will be ready to go.
- Left click in the desktop and select 'Commands' once again.
- Scroll down to the option that reads 'Configure Voicemail Users' and press ENTER. You will be presented with a scrollable list of configured extensions.
- Make sure '1000' is highlighted and press ENTER.
- In the edit window, set a numeric password, a human-readable name, and an email address that belongs to that extension. Extension 1000 is the default extension that rings if no one presses anything at the main dial-in menu, so it's important to set up 1000.
- Press ENTER and you will be returned to the list of extensions.
- In the same manner, configure any additional voicemail boxes that you would like to set up.
- When you are satisfied with the voicemail boxes you have configured, select 'Cancel' to return to the main menu.
- Select 'Reload Switch'
- Now you are ready to configure your VOIP devices. If you have enabled the DHCP server, make sure your VOIP devices are on the same network segment as your Miravoice system. If you will not be using the DHCP server, make sure to assign unique IP addreses to each VOIP device in the address range provided to you with the appropriate default route and netmask. If you need help with this contact support.
- For extension 1000 through 1249, the SIP login is simply the letter 's' followed by the extension number, such as s1000, and the password is the one you selected in the setup process. Extension 1000 is always the ring-through or 'Receptionist' extension and it is recommended that you attach a VOIP device to this extension so that callers will always fall through to a human being if available.
- When in doubt, contact support and we can step you through this entire process or do it for you!
Hardware FAQ
- What is the minimum recommended hardware to run Miravoice?
- Can I run Miravoice on a Macintosh Computer?
- Can I run Miravoice on a Windows or Linux Computer?
- Can I run Miravoice on a SPARC-based Computer?
- Is it possible to install to a USB thumb drive?
- Why does Miravoice keep crashing on boot inside my Virtual Machine monitor?
- What kind of VOIP phones can I use with Miravoice?
- Do I need any specialized telephony hardware?
We recommend at least a Pentium III PC with no less than 256MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive. You'll need a supported ethernet card, such as Realtek 8139. Miravoice does not require a very powerful system to run, but it runs best when it is on dedicated hardware. Your old laptop of yesteryear, or a tired old home PC should do just fine.
On Intel-based Macintosh computers, it may be possible to boot Miravoice inside of VMWare Fusion or Oracle VirtualBox. However, you may experience timing issues that could result in choppy audio. It's a much better idea to get a dedicated system for this, but if you absolutely have to, you can run it in a VM.
You should be able to boot Miravoice inside of a Virtual Machine monitor on a Windows system, but again keep in mind that there could be timing issues if your CPU is doing other things besides running a phone switch.
We've tested it inside of QEMU on Solaris/SPARC, and it will boot but it will not be useful. This is not recommended.
Absolutely. The safest way to do this is to remove all other drives from an existing system, and then boot the installation CD with the thumb drive plugged in. In most cases, you'll want to install to sd0, which is SCSI/SATA disk 0. At this point you can take that thumb drive to any system that boots USB and use it as your Miravoice installation.
If you want to run Miravoice inside on a VM, you'll need a CPU with hardware extensions for virtualization, such as VT-X or AMD-V. The core of Miravoice is based on NetBSD, which does not necessarily play nice with VirtualBox. You can try to add a --norawr0 option to the command line, but this could adversely affect timing.
Most SIP-compliant phones will work with Miravoice. This includes phones from Grandstream, Vanaccess, and some Cisco models with the appropriate firmware. In addition, you may use almost any softphone client. We recommend X-lite from Counterpath that works on most PC and Macintosh systems or Bria for the iPhone.
Nope. Nothing is explicitly required. In fact, you can run Miravoice in a VM on a machine and then talk directly to your Miravoice instance with X-lite and use it for all of your calling needs without having to purchase any additional hardware.
Connectivity FAQ
- What speed and quality of connection is recommended for Miravoice
- Do I need static IP addresses for this to work?
- Will my ISP block Miravoice?
- Can I use Miravoice as a proxy?
- How do I configure a static IP address for Miravoice?
- How do I enable the DHCP server?
- How do I create a login account?
- Can you install my Miravoice software without me having to do anything?
We recommend a terrestrial broadband connection such as DSL, Cable Modem, or T1 for Miravoice. Low latency is much more important than high bandwidth if you must choose. Connections that involve satellite communications with geosynchronous orbit will not be acceptable due to the orbital radius and limitations on the speed of light.
A 6.0Mbps/768kbps ADSL connection should be plenty for a small office or medium sized business and a enterprise might want a couple of T1s.
No, you do not need any kind of static connectivity. In fact, you'll have additional security with Miravoice because all of your IP addresses will be non-routable RFC1918 addresses, so you don't need to worry about them being reachable from the outside. Of course, for outbound traffic, you'll go through one of our proxies so even then no one will know your origin.
Some ISPs block well-known service ports--especially those that have to do with Voice Over IP because they think that by preventing you from using VOIP, you'll pay them exorbitant sums of money for their service. However, all of your outbound traffic will be to a single IP address and port and that will be a randomly assigned port on one of our main proxy servers.
Absolutely. You can assign private IP addresses to your enterprise systems and have your outbound traffic go through our proxy servers. You may find this desirable if you are worried about security. Most customers just use this option for their VOIP and Video devices.
After you install Miravoice on your system, you can left click in the desktop, select 'Commands', then select 'netconfig', then program a static IP address. After your next reboot you will have that static IP address. If you do this, you will no longer request an IP through DHCP so make sure this is what you really want.
After you install Miravoice, left click in the desktop, select 'Commands', then select 'toggledhcpd'. After that, on your next reboot, you will have enabled the DHCP server.
From the Commands window, select 'newuser', answer Yes to the question, then select and confirm a user name and a password. You will then be asked to confirm your intensions. Afterwards, you will be able to log in with SSH as that user and run the 'console' command to have the same effect.
Yes, we can install it remotely. We'll need written instructions documenting that this is ok, and then we'll log in securely, install it, eject the CD-ROM, and then we can fconfigure it together over the telephone.
