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    4.3. indications.conf

    The sounds that people expect from the telephone network vary in different parts of the world. Different countries or regions present different sounds for events such as dialtone, busy signal, ringback, congestion, and so forth.

    The indications.conf file defines the parameters for the various sounds that a telephone system might be expected to produce, and allows you to customize them. In the early days of Asterisk this file only contained sounds for a limited number of countries, but it is now quite comprehensive.

    To assign the tones common for your region to channels, you can simply assign the tonezone using the CHANNEL() function, and that tonezone will apply for the duration of the call (unless changed later):

    Set(CHANNEL(tonezone)=[yourcountry]) ; i.e., uk, de, etc.

    However, since signaling from a call could come from various places (from the carrier, from Asterisk, or even from the set itself), you should note that simply setting the tonezone in your dialplan does not guarantee that those tones will be presented in all situations.

    Hacking indications.conf for Fun and Profit

    If you have too much time on your hands, you can do all sorts of pointless but entertaining things with your indications. For example, fans of Star Wars can make the following change to the end of their indications.conf files:

    Code View: Scroll / Show All
    [starwars](us)
description = Star Wars Theme Song
ring = 262/400,392/500,0/100,349/400,330/400,294/400,524/400,392/500,0/100,349/400, \
       330/400,294/400,524/400,392/500,0/100,349/400,330/400,349/400,294/500,0/2000

    If you then use the country named 'starwars' in your configuration files or dialplan, any ringing you pass back will sound quite different from the standard ring you are used to. Try the following dialplan code to test out your new ringing sound:

    Code View: Scroll / Show All
    exten => 500,1,Answer()
    same => n,Set(CHANNEL(tonezone)=starwars)
    same => n,Dial(SIP/0000FFFF0002) ; or whatever your channel is named in sip.conf

    Note:

    Depending on the type of device used to call into this example, you may wonder if it will actually work. SIP phones, for example, typically generate their own tones instead of having Asterisk generate them. This example was carefully crafted to ensure that Asterisk will generate a ringback tone to the caller. The key is the Answer() that is executed first. Later, when an outbound call is made to another device, the only method Asterisk has available to pass back a ringing indication to the caller is by generating inband audio, since as far as the caller’s phone is concerned, this call has already been answered.


    While Asterisk will run without an indications.conf file, it is strongly recommended that you include one: copy the sample over from ~/src/asterisk-complete/1.8/configs/indications.conf.sample, modify the country parameter in the [general] section to match your region, and restart Asterisk.

    chan_dahdi Ignores indications.conf

    DAHDI does not use the indications.conf file from Asterisk, but rather has the tones compiled in. For more information, see Chapter 7.


    If your system supports multiple countries (for example, if you have a centralized Asterisk system that has users from different regions), you may not be able to simply define the default country. In this case, you have a couple of options:

    1. Define the country in the channel definition file for the user.

    2. Define the country in the dialplan using the CHANNEL(tonezone) function.

    For more information about using Asterisk in different countries, see Chapter 9.