₦airaland Forum

@airsaylongcome

I’m here to contribute constructively, just like anyone else. If I use AI tools to help explain something clearly or speed up a solution, that doesn’t invalidate my input, it’s part of how we work today. Dismissing it as “copy-paste” ignores the effort behind curating and adapting that information to the thread.

You don’t have to agree or find value in it, but taking an aggressive tone or gatekeeping who gets to contribute on this thread, based on their tools or methods isn’t helpful to anyone. If you have a technical issue with the content, challenge the ideas, not the format.

This is a public community forum. Let’s keep it focused on ideas and solutions, not personal attacks.

MindHacker9009:
@airsaylongcome

I’m here to contribute constructively, just like anyone else. If I use AI tools to help explain something clearly or speed up a solution, that doesn’t invalidate my input, it’s part of how we work today. Dismissing it as “copy-paste” ignores the effort behind curating and adapting that information to the thread.

You don’t have to agree or find value in it, but taking an aggressive tone or gatekeeping who gets to contribute on this thread, based on their tools or methods isn’t helpful to anyone. If you have a technical issue with the content, challenge the ideas, not the format.

This is a public community forum. Let’s keep it focused on ideas and solutions, not personal attacks.

You call these (and many others I can’t be bothered to highlight) “curating”?

You haven’t even done a basic check to evaluate how much computing resources was allocated to the VM and the first thing is ChatGPT?

You have literally copied the entire response from chatGPT, done absolutely no clean up, pasted it here and you call it “curating”?


The entire lower half of page 1 and upper half of page two of this thread, was you just spewing inaccuracies despite very clear corrections with proofs. All through the thread, there hasn’t been one human response from you. ChatGPT said this, AI said that. Pointed out to you clearly how condescending that was, especially as you have zero knowledge or experience in this field. Not even in Linux. But you have insisted on Ai Ai AI.
My job here is done sha. Take lead and tutor the reading audience. It is a public forum like you said. The floor is yours.

airsaylongcome:
MindHacker,

Can you back off with all these ChatGPT copy-paste? Can you just back the eff off? And do all of that on the other threads you litter with this AI copy-pasta where you have no context or experience? Can you?

You think people reading here are dull and can’t throw the errors at AI themselves that you feel the need to come and litter everywhere with AI responses?

Small thing, “ChatGPT said”, “AI said”. Either back off or take ownership and lead the conversation

Boss, I taya for the guy... i do networking and there are some issues I encounter and even with context, AI no dae too help, immediately I see the output, I know that can't be the answer.
I'll have to go into OEM documentation or ask senior engineer and everything will be resolved.

@@airsaylongcome

First, no, you're not right across the board. You don't have a free pass to misrepresent what I actually said or how I engaged. I have strong knowledge of Linux, so the claim that I have “zero knowledge or experience in this field” is simply incorrect. I was also upfront about leaning on AI assistance. You have not grounds to dismiss the entire contribution as worthless.

Calling it “not curating” because AI was involved is also shortsighted. Curating doesn't mean manually reinventing the wheel, it means evaluating, selecting and organising information. There was no need to trim down what was shared and any of them could offer the solution and to reduce it all to “just copy-pasting” is unfair.

You haven’t posted any actual solution or constructive input to move the discussion forward. Instead, you’ve resorted to personal attacks, which only derail the thread.

If the goal is to help the community here, then focusing on solutions is what matters, not trying to discredit others with unfounded claims or sarcasm. Let’s keep this productive.

emoboy4u:
Boss, I taya for the guy... i do networking and there are some issues I encounter and even with context, AI no dae too help, immediately I see the output, I know that can't be the answer.
I'll have to go into OEM documentation or ask senior engineer and everything will be resolved.

AI actually now have full information on this and senior engineers now rely on AI for guidance, including how to effectively use AI as a tool for solving issues like yours.
We Senior engineers aren’t magicians, we too now use AI for finding solutions.

MindHacker9009:
@@airsaylongcome

First, no, you're not right across the board. You don't have a free pass to misrepresent what I actually said or how I engaged. I have strong knowledge of Linux, so the claim that I have “zero knowledge or experience in this field” is simply incorrect. I was also upfront about leaning on AI assistance. You have not grounds to dismiss the entire contribution as worthless.

Calling it “not curating” because AI was involved is also shortsighted. Curating doesn't mean manually reinventing the wheel, it means evaluating, selecting and organising information. There was no need to trim down what was shared and any of them could offer the solution and to reduce it all to “just copy-pasting” is unfair.

You haven’t posted any actual solution or constructive input to move the discussion forward. Instead, you’ve resorted to personal attacks, which only derail the thread.

If the goal is to help the community here, then focusing on solutions is what matters, not trying to discredit others with unfounded claims or sarcasm. Let’s keep this productive.

You say you have Linux knowledge, and someone with a likely underpowered host is complaining that their VM shuts down and your first response is to tail the logs? lol.

Curating according to your ChatGPT: “ means selecting, organizing, and presenting content, items, or experiences with purpose and care”. Emphasis on selecting and presenting. Not lifting verbatim, including tags and markers that enable ChatGPT properly format content. You curate by removing those, and highlighting the commands, preferably using monospace fonts or the NL code tags. None of that was done. Just a wall of unformatted text. Curator

Like I said, the floor is yours. My work here is done

MindHacker9009:
AI actually now have full information on this and senior engineers now rely on AI for guidance, including how to effectively use AI as a tool for solving issues like yours.
We Senior engineers aren’t magicians, we too now use AI for finding solutions.

Point is, you aren't even trying to understand the problem, you aren't demonstrating being a 'senior engineer', expected to have superior tshooting ability. You didn't ask questions or probe to try get to the root cause.

What you did is what a newbie would do. But then, all is well
.

@airsaylongcome

Actually, you’re wrong, checking the logs is exactly the first and most essential step in troubleshooting any Linux or VM issue. If the VM is shutting down unexpectedly, the logs will often provide crucial clues about what’s going wrong. Ignoring the logs would be a very big mistake.

So yes, tailing the logs is the right initial move before diving into hardware specs or anything else.

The floor is still open if you want to argue that.

airsaylongcome:
You say you have Linux knowledge, and someone with a likely underpowered host is complaining that their VM shuts down and your first response is to tail the logs? lol.

Curating according to your ChatGPT: “ means selecting, organizing, and presenting content, items, or experiences with purpose and care”. Emphasis on selecting and presenting. Not lifting verbatim, including tags and markers that enable ChatGPT properly format content. You curate by removing those, and highlighting the commands, preferably using monospace fonts or the NL code tags. None of that was done. Just a wall of unformatted text. Curator

Like I said, the floor is yours. My work here is done

@emoboy4u

You’re mistaken. Understanding the problem starts with gathering information and checking the logs is a fundamental step, even senior engineers rely on logs to pinpoint issues. Ignoring the logs isn’t a sign of expertise, it’s a critical oversight.

So no, what I did wasn’t newbie-level troubleshooting, it was following standard, effective procedure.

emoboy4u:
Point is, you aren't even trying to understand the problem, you aren't demonstrating being a 'senior engineer', expected to have superior tshooting ability. You didn't ask questions or probe to try get to the root cause.

What you did is what a newbie would do. But then, all is well
.

@airsaylongcome

Your knowledge of VoIP is based solely on what you've read online or in books, as you haven’t developed your own Asterisk or FreePBX software before. Sorry to burst your bubble, but opening this thread to position yourself as the sole expert and then trying to monetize it is misleading. In reality, you likely know less than 10% of what AI generated resources can provide on VoIP.

Crossblueart:
I have an issue. When I enter my iPhone address to use thr GUI on my Web browser, it keeps shutting down after working for a while. I will have to run fwconsole restart for it to start working again.

Below is my setup

How much RAM do you have allocated to your VM? How many vCPU do you have allocated to it? Virtualbox has a quirk where VMs get killed instead of overloading the host machine. My troubleshooting would start with reviewing the computing resources allocated to the FreePBX VM

I was the one who offered to donate money to the OP (@airsaylongcome) for the Info and Support he made available here on this thread. He never tried to ask anyone for money.
He even ended up not accepting my offer because he doesn't need it.
I am not taking sides here, just pointing out something you might have miss-typed while typing.

And my people, please let's learn to encourage people who they try to do good, or at least not attack them. I say this because from the very first post, the OP had clearly stated that they intend to use this thread as a means to connect with other Tech People in the VOIP Tech Space.

I understand you are also trying to help and you have good intentions with the AI responses, I believe you couod be a little bit more diplomatic in how you counter the OP so no one gets offended

MindHacker9009:
@airsaylongcome

Your knowledge of VoIP is based solely on what you've read online or in books, as you haven’t developed your own Asterisk or FreePBX software before. Sorry to burst your bubble, but opening this thread to position yourself as the sole expert and then trying to monetize it is misleading. In reality, you likely know less than 10% of what AI generated resources can provide on VoIP.

airsaylongcome:
How much RAM do you have allocated to your VM? How many vCPU do you have allocated to it? Virtualbox has a quirk where VMs get killed instead of overloading the host machine. My troubleshooting would start with reviewing the computing resources allocated to the FreePBX VM

Over 2gb RAM and 3vCPU.
Here's the details below:

MindHacker9009:
@airsaylongcome

Your knowledge of VoIP is based solely on what you've read online or in books, as you haven’t developed your own Asterisk or FreePBX software before. Sorry to burst your bubble, but opening this thread to position yourself as the sole expert and then trying to monetize it is misleading. In reality, you likely know less than 10% of what AI generated resources can provide on VoIP.

I appreciate your prompt responses, Chief. But honestly, that’s not accurate. He never claimed to be the only one with knowledge in the field. What he did was share openly and encourage others to explore the VoIP niche.

His approach actually motivated me to give it a shot. I was inspired by the way he went about it, so I figured—why not try? I even make out time from my AWS studies to practice, cause of that push.

Crossblueart:
Over 2gb RAM and 3vCPU.
Here's the details below:

Great. So very well powered. I’d say run it again, pull up the VM command line and run ‘htop’ (without the quote, you might have to install it using ‘yum update && yum install htop -y’). See what is maxing out resources just before the VM shuts down. Do you get the same behaviour if you use your laptop’s web browser?

airsaylongcome:
Great. So very well powered. I’d say run it again, pull up the VM command line and run ‘htop’ (without the quote, you might have to install it using ‘yum update && yum install htop -y’). See what is maxing out resources just before the VM shuts down. Do you get the same behaviour if you use your laptop’s web browser?

Here is a pic of running processes at initial login.
Even right now, I can't access the GUI using the ip address. It takes too long to load and eventually times out.

I get this occasionally. I will have to restart again for it to work.

airsaylongcome:
Do you get the same behaviour if you use your laptop’s web browser?

Do you mean when I use my browser for other things?

Crossblueart:
Here is a pic of running processes at initial login.
Even right now, I can't access the GUI using the ip address. It takes too long to load and eventually times out.

I get this occasionally. I will have to restart again for it to work.

Do you mean when I use my browser for other things?

The bolded immediately tells me the issue. Firewall. VoIP solutions are major targets for hackers when they (the VoIP servers) are online on the Internet. To mitigate this, FreePBX has an aggressive firewall policy. You not being able to access it immediately tells me that you haven’t correctly configured the inbuilt Firewall. Restart the VM twice within 5 mins and the firewall will be temporarily disabled. You then need to add your local subnet to the whitelist so that any device on your local network can access the FreePBX gui. I’d suggest you do this using your laptop’s web browser. This should be part of your initial configuration after a fresh install and it sounds like you didn’t go through that (or skipped it). If you still have issues, I’d say reinstall, and go through the initial configuration using your laptop’s web browser. There’s a part during the initial configuration where it asks you to register with Sangoma to “activate” the system, while not strictly necessary, I advise newbies to go through that process. Create a Sangoma account and all and have the install activated. Saves you a lot of stress. When you have some experience, you can skip that and still be able to configure the system with some know how.

Long story short, reboot your VM twice within 5 minutes to temporarily disable the firewall, access the FreePBX VM using its IP address on your Laptop’s web browser, whitelist your local subnet and possibly go through the Sangoma activation process. Then enjoy. If you have issues, just do a fresh install and on first access, do all of the above. It sounds like your firewall hasn’t been properly configured.

Stuff you know from experience that other intelligent resources will not be aware of (I’m sorry I couldn’t resist)

airsaylongcome:
The bolded immediately tells me the issue. Firewall. VoIP solutions are major targets for hackers when they (the VoIP servers) are online on the Internet. To mitigate this, FreePBX has an aggressive firewall policy. You not being able to access it immediately tells me that you haven’t correctly configured the inbuilt Firewall. Restart the VM twice within 5 mins and the firewall will be temporarily disabled. You then need to add your local subnet to the whitelist so that any device on your local network can access the FreePBX gui. I’d suggest you do this using your laptop’s web browser. This should be part of your initial configuration after a fresh install and it sounds like you didn’t go through that (or skipped it). If you still have issues, I’d say reinstall, and go through the initial configuration using your laptop’s web browser. There’s a part during the initial configuration where it asks you to register with Sangoma to “activate” the system, while not strictly necessary, I advise newbies to go through that process. Create a Sangoma account and all and have the install activated. Saves you a lot of stress. When you have some experience, you can skip that and still be able to configure the system with some know how.

Long story short, reboot your VM twice within 5 minutes to temporarily disable the firewall, access the FreePBX VM using its IP address on your Laptop’s web browser, whitelist your local subnet and possibly go through the Sangoma activation process. Then enjoy. If you have issues, just do a fresh install and on first access, do all of the above. It sounds like your firewall hasn’t been properly configured.

Stuff you know from experience that other intelligent resources will not be aware of (I’m sorry I couldn’t resist)

You're most probably right. I just remembered the subnet I registered is different from the one I'm currently one I'm using.

I actually did go through the first set of videos - installations, configuration and security updates.

I'll include my current network and report back. Thank you.

emoboy4u:
Boss, I taya for the guy... i do networking and there are some issues I encounter and even with context, AI no dae too help, immediately I see the output, I know that can't be the answer.
I'll have to go into OEM documentation or ask senior engineer and everything will be resolved.

Just seeing this.

I dey tell you! Sometimes sef senior engineer dey escalate to hin own Senior Engineer. There are loads of stuff where experience trumps AI.

@airsaylongcome

You've offered three suggestions now including this funny one "reboot your VM twice within 5 minutes"😄, but they don't appear to have resolved the issue. Because what you’re doing amounts to trial and error. That approach wastes time and lacks direction. It’s like fixing cars in the seventies, before they had ECUs you can now plug into to read error codes and identify the problem right away.

The first and most important step in any proper troubleshooting process is checking the logs. They provide context, error messages and system behavior that point directly to the root cause. Skipping that step and throwing out random guesses is an outdated approach, it belongs in the stone age, and it’s certainly not what a senior engineer like me would do.

Let’s focus on working smarter with smart tools and AI, not just harder like in the stone age.😎

There is "the trade". And there are "tricks of the trade". There are stuff you know only from years of experience and from regular engagement with the community.

A "Senior Engineer" would know this. But I guess "Senior" and "Engineer" have different meanings.to different folks

Would you take your car to a mechanic who randomly pulls out plugs and cables, guessing what might be wrong? Or would you prefer a mechanic who connects to the ECU, reads the diagnostics and identifies the issue right away?

Senior engineers like me today work smarter and faster, leveraging smart tools and AI to read the logs to get to the root of problems right away.

Lol....Senior Engineers know a rookie mistake when they see one. An incorrect subnet is something even the dumbest Senior Engineer should identify without a log trace.

"They" said rebooting within 5 minutes was a "funny one". With proof that it is a well-known "tool", "they" have suddenly gone mute on that, turning to mechanic and ECU. Forgeting that even after scanning the ECU, "they" cannot interpret the results of the ECU scan on "their" own. "They" will still take the results to "the gods" despite being "we, Senior Engineers"

Lol... You’re missing the point entirely. A senior engineer knows that even something as basic as a subnet misconfiguration can be confirmed instantly by checking the logs. That's not "rookie" work, that’s efficient troubleshooting. Why waste time guessing when the system can tell you exactly what’s wrong?

Plugging into an ECU only work if you know how to interpret them. That’s what separates actual engineers from non engineers.

We senior engineers don’t rely on guesses, we first check logs and interpret them to resolve issuers fast.

Since Mr robot decided to be trigger happy

Anyway, the original purpose of this thread was to network with experienced HUMANS already in VoIP, and not to tutor new entrants, I will be focusing only on HUMAN engagements from those already in the field. Specifically looking for Kamailio/RTPENGINE as SBC, cos I don hook for one small QA project with VitalPBX.

I will only be responding (by email) to the two monikers that have already started out here.

Any other responses will be specifically to HUMAN contributors who already use Kamailio and RTPENGINE in production. Possibly also Sippy B2BUA HUMAN users.

ChatGPT:
To find out whether a firewall (or Fail2Ban) is blocking access, here’s how to interpret the logs:

🔍 1. /var/log/httpd/error_log – Apache Errors
What to look for:
✅ Blocked or unauthorized access:
pgsql
[error] [client 192.168.1.100] client denied by server configuration
[error] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html
This usually means Apache is rejecting access due to config or security restrictions.

🚫 Timeouts or abrupt disconnects (could imply firewall/drop):
pgsql
[error] [client 192.168.1.100] Premature end of script headers: index.php
[notice] child pid XXXX exit signal Segmentation fault
Can occur if the connection is killed unexpectedly, possibly by a firewall or Fail2Ban.

🔐 SSL errors (e.g., blocked HTTPS attempts):
csharp
[ssl:error] AH02032: Hostname mismatch
Not directly firewall, but indicates access attempts might be malformed or blocked.

🔍 2. /var/log/asterisk/full – Asterisk Logs
This log is more about telephony activity, but it can still show failed connection attempts that trigger Fail2Ban.

What to look for:
❗ Authentication failures (SIP/chan_pjsip):
pgsql
[2025-06-13 12:12:34] NOTICE[1234] chan_sip.c: Registration from 'sip:1001@x.x.x.x' failed for 'x.x.x.x:5060' - Wrong password

These failed login attempts can trigger Fail2Ban, which then blocks the IP.

Lol! User hasn't gone past Firewall to reach Apache and we are looking for Apache denying requests because "denied by server configuration: /var/www/html".

User has not even created an extension yet and we are looking for "Registration from 'sip:1001@x.x.x.x' failed for 'x.x.x.x:5060' - Wrong password".

We don't even know if user is creating x1xxx or x1xx. User hasn't even talked about attempting to register Softphone o, and we are already looking for failed registration attempts.

A Senior Engineer, even just a basic Senior Sys Admin with basic Linux knowledge would know to check network layer before application layer.

True true, experience trumps "I read it somewhere". I'm done. Now I know I'm dealing with a zero experience "Intelligence" expert. Context is truly key. Adios

ChatGPT:
Key Observations:
You're accessing FreePBX's web GUI via your iPhone browser.

It works initially, but then stops responding.

You can get it working again temporarily by running fwconsole restart.

So what matters right now:
This is a connectivity issue to the web interface, likely tied to:

Firewall behavior (especially FreePBX’s Responsive Firewall or Fail2Ban)

Resource exhaustion or a service crash

IP getting blacklisted or timing out

Not SIP registration or SIP extensions yet

Here's What You Should Check Next
1. Is Your iPhone Getting Blocked by the Firewall or Fail2Ban?
Run:
fail2ban-client status

And check:
fail2ban-client status apache-auth

If your iPhone’s IP appears in the banned list, unban it:
fail2ban-client set apache-auth unbanip <iPhone-IP>

2. Check FreePBX's Firewall
If you're using FreePBX's Responsive Firewall, it might block mobile devices not actively "pinging" or registering.

Whitelist your iPhone:
fwconsole firewall list trusted
fwconsole firewall trust <your-iPhone-IP>

3. See if Apache or PHP-FPM crashed
Right after it stops working, run:

systemctl status httpd
systemctl status php-fpm
And check logs:

tail -n 50 /var/log/httpd/error_log

4. Determine What Triggers the Failure

Does it stop working:

Only from iPhone?

After login or idle time?

From desktop too?

Try accessing the GUI from a PC on the same network and see if it stays up longer.

As a senior engineer : We shouldn't chase SIP logs or worry about extensions if the real issue is GUI access being dropped, likely caused by firewall behavior, bans, or service crashes.

Nothing much to say. Humble pie. Anywhere belle face.