System information

Channel Drivers
Without channel drivers, Asterisk would have no way to make calls. Each channel
driver is specific to the protocol or channel type it supports (SIP, ISDN, etc.). The
channel module acts as a gateway to the Asterisk core. Asterisk’s channel drivers are
listed in Table 2-5.
Table 2-5. Channel drivers
Name Purpose Popularity/Status
chan_agent Provides agent channel for Queue() Useful
|chan_alsa Provides connection to Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture
Useful
chan_bridge Used internally by the ConfBridge() application;
should not be used directly
Essential
a
chan_console Provides connection to portaudio New
chan_dahdi Provides connection to PSTN cards that use DAHDI
channel drivers
Useful
chan_gtalk Provides connection to Google Talk Usable
chan_h323 Provides connection to H.323 endpoints Deprecated—see chan_ooh323 in
Table 2-11
chan_iax2 Provides connection to IAX2 endpoints Useful
chan_jingle Provides connection to Jingle-enabled endpoints Usable
chan_local Provides a mechanism to treat a portion of the dialplan
as a channel
Useful
chan_mgcp Media Gateway Control Protocol channel driver Usable
chan_misdn Provides connection to mISDN supported ISDN cards Limited
chan_multicast_rtp Provides connection to multicast RTP streams Useful
chan_nbs Network Broadcast Sound channel driver Insignificant
chan_oss Open Sound System driver Useful
chan_phone Linux telephony interface driver (very old) Insignificant
chan_sip Session Initiation Protocol channel driver Essential
chan_skinny Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) channel
driver
Usable
chan_unistim Nortel Unistim protocol channel driver Usable
chan_usbradio Channel driver for CM108 USB cards with
radio interface
Usable
chan_vpb Voicetronix channel driver Insignificant
b
a
If you are using the ConfBridge() application.
b
Some Voicetronix hardware is supported by Zaptel using an addon Zaptel module distributed by Voicetronix. However, Zaptel is no longer
supported by Asterisk and this driver has not been ported to DAHDI.
Modules | 17