Asterisk mpg123 faking it

How to replace MPG123 with SOX for musiconhold

Note: Asterisk 1.2 has solved the “mpg123 issue” and comes with a cleaner solution, so what is described below essentially is only of interest for Asterisk 1.0.x users.

As an alternative to using mpg123 you can use sox to convert a wav file into the right format for asterisk and use cat to “play” the file

Example with converted files if you do not want to install mpg123 or sox
Note: If the rawplayer method is not playing back any music, try adding “.mp3” to the end of the .raw filenames.

You could use audacity (open the mp3 then File -> Export as WAV…) or xmms to convert the mp3 to wav

• Option 1: Hacking mpg123 and playing a single file

Then make a file called /usr/local/bin/mpg123 with the following contents

I think you need to uncomment the default line in the sample Asterisk config musiconhold.conf for Asterisk to try and launch mpg123

• Option 2: Use custom mode in musiconhold.conf and use rawplayer script

The musiconhold configuration includes a “custom” mode that lets you specify the program to run in order to play your (faked) mp3’s. We can use this to run our own “rawplayer” instead of mpg123.
Put something like this in musiconhold.conf:

Then make an executable file /usr/bin/rawplayer like this:

And finally convert your mp3 files to raw as stated above an place them in subdirectories default an classic under /var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3 and (VERY IMPORTANT!) rename them from *.raw to *.mp3 (as Asterisk expect they are named that way):

Now restart Asterisk and you have your “default” and “classic” music available with less cpu load.

See Also

• Asterisk cmd MusicOnHold
• Asterisk config musiconhold.conf
• Asterisk cmd SetMusicOnHold
• Asterisk cmd MP3Player
• mpg123
• Asterisk mpg123 redhat

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