Musiconhold on RedHat Linux

Redhat (v7-v9) has replaced the mpg123 application with another application, mpg321, and created a symbolic link to "mpg123", so it seems to work in the same way. Asterisk MusicOnHold only works with original mpg123.

How to fix the problem

First, shutdown asterisk and kill all mpg process:

 killall -9 mpg123

Second, remove the symbolic links mpg123 located in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin:
 rm /usr/bin/mpg123
 rm /usr/local/bin/mpg123        (if exists)
___
Third, you need to download
(NOTE DO NOT USE 0.59q... USE 0.59r YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!)
 http://www.mpg123.de/mpg123/precompiled/mpg123-0.59q-1.i386.rpm
And install using
 rpm -ivh mpg123-0.59q-1.i386.rpm
___
I would suggest an alternative way of doing this which in my opinion is cleaner:

1. cd /usr/src/asterisk
2. make mpg123
3. make install

This will automatically download mpg123 0.59r from its source, unpack it and compile it. Make install will install mpg123 together with Asterisk.

Please note that if you use RedHat (I'm using RH 7.3), your music on hold won't work unless you do this.


In the /etc/asterisk/musiconhold.conf file, ensure an entry like this exists:
 ; Music on hold class definitions                               
 ;                                     
 [classes]                         
 default => mp3:/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3   ; location of mp3 files to play sequentially

No other changes are required to any other asterisk configuration files for simple Music On Hold use.

Last step (obviously) is start asterisk again.

Troubleshooting:
On a properly configured system, the asterisk CLI will show something similar to the following when a sip phone places a call on hold:



Also see format_mp3 from asterisk-addons. This can be used as a replacement for a external mp3 decoder.
See Asterisk MusicOnHold Configuration for more info.

See Also

• Asterisk cmd MusicOnHold
• MusicOnHold Configuration
• Asterisk cmd SetMusicOnHold
• Asterisk cmd MP3Player
• How to Replace mpg123 with SoX for MusicOnHold
• mpg123