Installing g.729 Codec.

Move to the Asterisk modules directory. By default, it’s the following:

cd /usr/lib/asterisk/modules

Now the tricky part, find out which binary you need to get the right module for the right processor of your server. This almost always stumps me, and I always end up downloading roughly two or three codecs before I get the right one. Here’s something to help you out, so you don’t have to make these mistakes:

uname -a

This let’s you know what type of server you got… But it’s reallllly complicated if you don’t know what you’re looking for!

Linux 2.boom.boom.pow.server 2.6.18-348.1.1.el5xen #1 SMP Tue Jan 22 17:00:37 EST 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ok, so this will help you out ALOT MORE than the above. I don’t know what half of that stuff even means!!

cat /proc/cpuinfo

The above command will give you something like this:

[root@myserver ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
 processor : 0
 vendor_id : GenuineIntel
 cpu family : 6
 model : 23
 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz
 stepping : 10
 cpu MHz : 1596.000
 cache size : 3072 KB
 physical id : 0
 siblings : 2
 core id : 0
 cpu cores : 2
 apicid : 0
 fdiv_bug : no
 hlt_bug : no
 f00f_bug : no
 coma_bug : no
 fpu : yes
 fpu_exception : yes
 cpuid level : 13
 wp : yes
 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr sse4_1 lahf_lm
 bogomips : 5866.85

processor : 1
 vendor_id : GenuineIntel
 cpu family : 6
 model : 23
 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz
 stepping : 10
 cpu MHz : 1596.000
 cache size : 3072 KB
 physical id : 0
 siblings : 2
 core id : 1
 cpu cores : 2
 apicid : 1
 fdiv_bug : no
 hlt_bug : no
 f00f_bug : no
 coma_bug : no
 fpu : yes
 fpu_exception : yes
 cpuid level : 13
 wp : yes
 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr sse4_1 lahf_lm

Look at the section that tells you the model name, in my case it is:

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz

Next, visit http://asterisk.hosting.lv/#bin, and from the right  hand side, select the Asterisk version that you need PLUS THE version that matches your processor. For me it was:

codec_g729-ast110-gcc4-glibc-core2.so

However, these are the more popular selections (odd, none of my servers run any of the below, but whatever)

http://asterisk.hosting.lv/bin/codec_g729-ast14-gcc4-glibc-pentium.so
http://asterisk.hosting.lv/bin/codec_g729-ast14-gcc4-glibc-x86_64-core2.so

Ok, so next, you want to download them and install them in the Asterisk modules directory

cd /usr/lib/asterisk/modules

wget http://asterisk.hosting.lv/bin/codec_g729-ast14-gcc4-glibc-pentium.so

So that installs (read downloads) the codec into the modules directory of your Asterisk install. Now to activate it! Simply rename it to codec_g729 and you should be good to go!!

mv codec_g729-ast14-gcc4-glibc-pentium4.so codec_g729.so

Next, to ensure that your codec took, and is now working fully with Asterisk, restart Asterisk then login to if it is show up:

service asterisk restart
asterisk -vr
core show translation

The above command will vary from each version of Asterisk. The above works for 1.10 and 1.11

You should see something akin to this:

Notice that g729 is now showing. There are no numbers next to it, as transcoding hasn’t taken place yet, but when you start sending calls via g729, you will see that numbers come and go (mostly come).