This guide demonstrates how to use the Dynamic Routes module in FreePBX (specifically versions 16 and 17) to create a sequential “traffic cop” system. It will inspect the Caller ID of an incoming call on a specific DID, intercept any anonymous, hidden, or restricted numbers, pass the remaining calls through a Toll-Free number check, and finally deliver regular callers to your standard destination—all while keeping your Inbound Routes GUI perfectly clean.

If you want to cleanly route specific incoming caller IDs—such as capturing all toll-free numbers or blocking anonymous callers—without creating dozens of messy inbound routes, standard FreePBX pattern matching falls short. Because standard inbound routes use basic digit matching, trying to catch toll-free prefixes (like 800, 888, etc.) can accidentally misroute calls from geographic area codes (like 808 for Hawaii or 858 for California).

Prerequisites

Before beginning, ensure your FreePBX system has the Dynamic Routes module installed.

1. Navigate to Admin > Module Admin.
2. Check for Dynamic Routes. If it is not installed, download and install it.

Step 1: Create the Anonymous Caller ID Filter

This first Dynamic Route will check if the incoming caller ID is blank, or if the SIP provider has replaced the number with words like “Anonymous,” “Restricted,” or “Private.”

1. Navigate to Applications > Dynamic Routes.
2. Click Add and name the route (e.g., Anonymous_CID_Check).
3. Set the Source Type to Asterisk Variable.
4. In the Asterisk Variable field, enter the following regex string:

${REGEX("^([Aa]nonymous|[Uu]nknown|[Rr]estricted|[Pp]rivate|[Hh]idden)?$" ${CALLERID(num)})}

5. Scroll down to the Routing section at the bottom. Click to add a new match entry.
6. In the Match field, type exactly: 1
7. Set the Destination next to it to how you want to handle blocked callers (e.g., Terminate Call > Hangup, or an IVR explaining you don’t accept blocked numbers).
8. Set the Default Destination below that to Dynamic Routes > TollFree_CID_Check (we will create this in the next step).
9. Click Submit.

How it works: The Asterisk REGEX() function evaluates the caller ID. If it matches common hidden caller ID terms (ignoring case sensitivity) or is completely blank, it outputs a 1 and routes the call to your termination destination. If it contains a real number, it outputs a 0 and falls through to the Default Destination.

Step 2: Create the Toll-Free Caller ID Filter

This second Dynamic Route receives the calls that passed the first check and inspects them for North American toll-free area codes (800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, 888) across 10-digit, 11-digit, and E.164 (+1) formats.

1. In Applications > Dynamic Routes, click Add to create another route.
2. Name it TollFree_CID_Check.
3. Set the Source Type to Asterisk Variable.
4. In the Asterisk Variable field, enter the following regex string:

${REGEX("^[+]?1?(800|833|844|855|866|877|888)" ${CALLERID(num)})}

5. Scroll down to the Routing section and add a new match entry.
6. In the Match field, type exactly: 1
7. Set the Destination next to it to your special destination for Toll-Free callers.
8. Set the Default Destination below that to your standard inbound PBX destination (e.g., your main IVR, Ring Group, or Queue).
9. Click Submit and then Apply Config.

Step 3: Link Your DID to the Front Door

Now that your filters are built and chained together, you simply need to point your specific incoming DID to the first step in the chain.

1. Navigate to Connectivity > Inbound Routes.
2. Click Add Inbound Route (or edit your existing route for the desired DID).
3. In the DID Number field, enter your specific DID (e.g., 5874096407).

• Note: If your SIP provider requires a specific format, ensure it matches (e.g., 15874096407 or +15874096407). Do not use an underscore _ unless you are actively using Asterisk pattern matching for a range of DIDs.

4. Leave the CallerID Number field blank.
5. Scroll to the bottom to the Set Destination section.
6. Choose Dynamic Routes and select Anonymous_CID_Check.
7. Click Submit and Apply Config.

The Final Call Flow

Your system now processes incoming calls on that DID with a highly efficient, automated gatekeeper:

1. The Inbound Route acts as the front door. It verifies the call is for your specific DID and hands it to the Anonymous route. (Calls to other DIDs bypass this logic entirely).
2. The Anonymous Filter checks for blocked or blank numbers, hanging them up if matched, or passing them to the next step if they are legitimate numbers.
3. The Toll-Free Filter checks the remaining calls for toll-free prefixes. Matches are sent to your special toll-free destination, while all standard geographic numbers drop safely into your normal PBX routing.

A child theme is a theme that is linked back to an original theme. This allows you to make changes to the theme and it’s files (in the child) and your changes will not get erased when the main theme gets updated. Any changed you put into the child will overwrite the main theme. All your theme customization should be done in the child theme.

Here is how to create an Astra Child Theme.

Astra provides a web tool to create a ready to go child theme. You can even customize it and brand it to meet your needs. Head on over to the Child Theme Generator and follow these steps:

1 – Enter the name you wish to give your child theme.
2 – Click on the Advanced Option (beside the Generate button) if you want to brand your child copy. The advanced options will allow you to send the author, URL, description, and even add in your own screen shot.

3 – Once you have entered all the options, them select the Generate button and download the child theme (as a zip file) to your workstation.

Installing the child theme.

1 – Log into your WordPress websites dashboard an navigate to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New

2 – Click on the “Upload Theme” button (located in the upper left of the page), choose the child theme files you created, and click on “Install Now”.

3 – Activate your child theme. Everything should look the same (provided your had the parent theme active before). NOTE: Do not remove the parent theme, they are linked and the child theme required the parent to work.

Contrats. You now have a child theme and it is active. You can now go ahead and make any changes in the child theme you need and don’t have to work about your changes being erased every time you update the theme.

Here is how to fix it up….

In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Appearances -> Theme Editor and open the funtions.php file of your Astra theme. Add the following code line to the bottom of the file.

add_filter( 'get_the_archive_description', '__return_null');

WordPress does require scheduled tasks so wp-cron is needed. We are not going to disable it completely, just make sure it gets called at a regular basis (improve the timing) and not at every page view (improve the speed). We will move this functionality over to the servers crontab system. This does mean that you need admin access to the system that is hosting your WordPress. If you are hosting it on a cloud provider, then you may not be able to make this change.

Disable wp-cron from running at each page view.

You need to disable WordPress’ default behaviour of calling wp-cron on each page view. In your WordPress website, edit the file wp-config.php and add in the following line:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Add a crontab on your server

I use FreeBSD to host my WordPress instance. Open a shell terminal and edit the file /etc/crontab. Add the following line to the end:

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/fetch -q https://example.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron -o - > /dev/null 2>&1

Make sure to change example.com to the URL of your website. The above line we automatically call the wp-cron function every 10 minutes. You can change the */10 to */5 to make it run every 5 minutes if needed. This will also get run even if you website get little to know traffic making the scheduler more accurate.

This change is highly recommended for any site (if you have access to the servers crontab) but it critical if you have a high volume site. This is probably one of the biggest changes you can do to speed up page loading for your visitors.

 Step 1: Installing the right driver.

The latest version of Rasplex (I tested this on 0.1.30) doesn’t have the right driver for an LCD screen connected to the GPIO connector.  The first thing to do is to download the modified driver.  I have put a copy of the compliled driver on my system to make it easier to get.

Make the directory and copy the driver into it: 

mkdir -p /storage/lcdproc
cd /storage/lcdproc
wget http://www.bohica.net/projects/hd44780.so
chmod 644 hd44780.so

Step 2: Modify the configuration.

The configuration file for lcdproc needs to be changed to use the new driver.  We can do this by coping the main system config over to the config directory and edit it there.

Copy and edit the LCDd.conf confg file.

cp /etc/LCDd.conf /storage/.config/LCDd.conf
nano /storage/.config/LCDd.conf

Look for the following variables in the file and change the lines to look like this:

DriverPath=/stoage/lcdproc/
Driver=hd44780
ServerScreen=no
TitleSpeed=2

Scroll down in the file until you find the [hd44780] driver section and change the connection type to use the Raspberry Pi

ConnectionType=rpi

Right after the ConnectionType line inset the following lines:  NOTE: There is not a standard for what pins the LCD connects to on your GPIO.  You will have to figure this out or contact the manufacturer.  These numbers may be different for your display, make sure to add the correct ones for your display.

D7=22
D6=27
D5=18
D4=17
RS=7
EN=8

Look for the size lines and change it to match your display.  My display is a 16 character wide with 2 lines display so mine looks like the following:

Size=16×2

Save and exit the LCDd.conf file.

Step 3: Tell Rasplex to use the LCD

Rasplex need to know about the LCD display. There are two places to configure it.  The first place tells Rasplex what driver you are using and the second tells Rasplex to display information on the LCD.

One the Rasplex menu, tell it what type of driver to use:

Preferences -> Rasplex Settings -> System
   Make sure the LCD/VFD Driver is set to hd44780

Next on the Rasplex menu, tell Rasplex to start using the LCD:

Preferences -> System -> Video Output
   Enable LCD/VFD

You can now restart your Rasplex and the LCD display should start working.

Trixbox is build on CentOS (Red Hat based) so this howto will also apply to any Red Hat based Linux. Plase also not the following:

• Not all network drivers support VLANs but most do.
• Do not use VLAN 1 as this is usually refered to as the “default” VLAN and is most likly already used.

Your existing ethernet card configuration is stored in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/cfg-eth0.  The easiest way to create a VLAN is just to copy that file (adding the VLAN ID onto the end of the name) and then edit it.

# cp /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.20

Now edit the file your just created.

1. Find the DEVICE=eth0 variable and change it to DEVICE=eth0.20
2. Append the variable VLAN=yes to the end of the file.
3. Change the IPADDR, NETMASK, and BROADCAST variables to what your require on the new VLAN.

 This is what my finished file looks like:

DEVICE=eth0.20
BOOTPROTO=static
DHCPCLASS=
HWADDR=00:D0:87:BA:8E:B8
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
IPADDR=192.75.200.10
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.75.200.255
NETWORK=192.75.200.0
NOZEROCONF=yes
VLAN=yes

When you are done then restart the networking with the following command (or just reboot)

# /etc/init.d/network restart

The solution? Change the port. It’s not a fool proof method because some one just needs to scan your system looking for the ssh port, but does help to reduce the attempts by stopping some one just looking for port 22. If they have to search for your ssh port, then they may just move on to another system instead.

How to do it!

Trixbox is running on CentOS Linux. The config file for sshd is /etc/ssh/sshd_config. It is possable to set the default startup port here but I don’t like that solution. I prefer to change the port as a command line option when sshd starts up that way you can see the port that it is listening on when your view the processes. ( ps -aef ) The way to change the startup port for sshd is in the /etc/sysconfig/sshd file. This file is not there by default in Trixbox and will need to be created. It only needs one like in it setting the OPTIONS variable as follows:

# cat /etc/sysconfig/sshd

OPTIONS=”-p 222″

Once the file is created, then restart the sshd daemon with the following command:

# service sshd restart

Once it is restarted, your sshd service will now be answering on the new port ( port 222 in this example ).

Remember to modify your clients to connect up using the new port.

Now log into the trixbox and change to the /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail directory.  You will see two subdirectories, default and device.  Change to the default directory. Here you should see one directory for each mailbox that was created.  The mailboxes do not get created until they get used. If you do not yet see one for 300 then this is because it has not been used yet.  If it is not there, then just phone that extension and leave a voicemail message.  If the other boxes 301, 302, and 303 are there, then you can remove them with the following commands:

rm -rf 301
rm -rf 302
rm -rf 303

The next thing to do is create a symlink so that the extensions 301,302, and 303 all point to the master mailbox of 300.

ln -s 300 301
ln -s 300 302
ln -s 300 303

Make sure the owners on the symlinked mailbox are the same as the master mailbox. They should be owned by asterisk.

chown asterisk:asterisk 301
chown asterisk:asterisk 302
chown asterisk:asterisk 303

next change to the /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/device and make sure that the symlinks are created.  If they are not, then manually create them as follows.

ln -s 300 301
ln -s 300 302
ln -s 300 303

You should now be able to have any of the extensions go into the common mailbox.

Here is what I did to fix it:

Secure shell into the trixbox and run the following two commands.

# cd /var/lib/asterisk
# ln -s moh mohmp3

Log into the webGUI and click on the Music on Hold module and there shouldn’t be any errors. Then select System => System Maint. Click on the Reset Now button.

Test an extension.  The Music on Hold should now work.

NOTE: I understand this is now fixed in the latest version of trixbox (v 2.6.0.2)

Here is the steps to enable video aupport. (I am running trixbox CE 2.6 and asterisk 1.4):

Edit the following file /etc/asterisk/sip_general_custom.conf and add the following lines

videosupport=yes
allow=h264
allow=h263
allow-h263p

Then restart asterisk so that it reloads the config files.  You should now have working video support.

NOTE: X-Ten seems to have a bug in their code (or asterisk I’m not sure). When you start sending video, only the person that received the call will see both cemeras.  The fix is to put the call on hold for a second and then back off hold, you should now be able to see the video on both sides.