Dialer Tips

Are Your Calls Marked as Spam?

If you have noticed that your calls have been marked as spam or have been blocked by major mobile carriers such as AT&T, T-mobile or Verizon, please register your caller IDs on the following resource websites: Hiya (AT&T) 1st Orion (T-Mobile, Sprint) T-Mobile Call Reporting TNS (Verizon, U.S. Cellular) Other, less important, but helpful resources:

How to export callbacks from ViCiDial

In order to export all callbacks (CBHOLD) from the entire dialer, please log into the MySQL and run the following query:

SELECT * FROM `vicidial_list` WHERE `status`='CBHOLD' INTO OUTFILE '/var/www/html/vicidial/cbholds.zip' FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY 'rn'

After that, navigate to http://your-dialer-address/vicidial/cbholds.zip, download and rename the file from .ZIP to

How to reduce dialer database size by deleting logs

Small, clean database will always perform better than a huge one. In order to see what is the total size of all the databases in the dialer, log in via SSH and run the following command:

du -kh /var/lib/mysql

To check the size of the asterisk database only, you can run:

du -kh /var/lib/mysql/asterisk

Finding files larger than … in Linux

In order to locate any files larger than a certain size, please run the following command. The below example searches for all files larger than 500MB:

find / -size +500M

To display more details and sort the items in the list by size, run the following:

find / -type f -size +500M -exec du -h {}

Searching for a string in Asterisk

If you wish to search for a certain string in Asterisk only (Example: only show carrier congestion), launch the Asterisk CLI along with the grep command, i.e.:

asterisk -rvvvvv | egrep -i "string"

Example (showing only congestion notices / errors)

asterisk -rvvvvv | egrep -i "congested"

Deleting recordings older than X days

To remove recordings older than X days (i.e. 3 days), SSH into your dialer and run the following command:

find /var/spool/asterisk/monitorDONE/MP3 -type f -mtime +3 -exec rm {} ;
find /var/spool/asterisk/monitorDONE/ORIG -type f -mtime +3 -exec rm {} ;

How to export leads with certain disposition only from ViCiDial / GoAutoDial using PHPMyAdmin

To export only leads with a specific disposition (in this example SALE) from only certain campaigns (in this example 1000, 2000), please log in to PHPMyAdmin and run the following SQL:

select * from vicidial_list where status="SALE" and list_id in (select list_id from vicidial_lists where campaign_id=1000 or campaign_id=2000)

Click on the Export button on the bottom and

How to export all leads from specific certain cities from the entire database / dialer

Just run the following from your MySQL / MariaDB console:

SELECT first_name,last_name,address1,city,postal_code,phone_number FROM vicidial_list WHERE list_id in (select list_id from vicidial_lists) and city in ('X','Y','Z') INTO OUTFILE '/tmp/cities.csv' FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY 'n'

Installing Fail2Ban on a CentOS server

If you are running a predictive dialer (or any kind of Asterisk server) or a web hosting server, you have probably experienced often hacker/lamer brute force attempts. These attacks can be easily blocked by implementing optimal server configuration, using a good Firewall (i.e. SonicWall, PfSense, Tomato) etc. A very useful method of blocking brute force attacks is installing Fail2Ban, which

Resetting only specific call statuses within a specific campaign

Sometimes, admin would like to change / reset only specific dial statuses within only specific campaign – i.e. Reset all NA, NI, NP and similar statuses while keeping others (like DNC, SALE etc.) intact. To do so, log SSH in and open mysql:

mysql -ucron -p1234
use asterisk

Afterwards, run the following command (Example –