Fix for Elastix on VirtualBox for Windows with SIP Having No Sound

Recently I installed Elastix VOIP server which is an Asterisk + CentOs linux distribution specially made for VOIP. Now, as if running VOIP isn’t enough of a challenge, I’m forced to install this on a Windows 2003 RC2 Server because we don’t have a spare box – It’s OK since the machine is an IBM Blade server with a very high spec.

The installation is pretty straightforward; just install VirtualBox, create a 10Gig virtual-disk and allocate around 1Gig RAM which is good for the 4 PSTN lines we have. The server has 2 gigabit NICs with static IPs so I assigned one to VirtualBox and named it Virtualization. Next, boot the virtual disk up with the Elastix ISO mounted and proceed with the installation.

Now after all the installation is completed, I tested SIP calls using Zoiper soft-phone and guess what – NO FUCKING SOUND!

So I fiddled with sip.conf, sip_nat.conf and sip_additional.conf which are the usual suspects when SIP goes awry. However this didn’t solve my problems!

Now there is only one way to solve this, TAKE A CIGARETTE BREAK :))

So after the puffs, I came back from the smoking lounge and did a network-engineer’s worst nightmare:

Configured Windows’ network card assigned to VirtualBox named Virtualization to disabled everything except “VirtualBox Host Interface Networking Driver”. This should not work right? The NIC must have an IP either via DHCP or Static configuration for it to work. Right?

Well, you’re wrong!

After doing this SIP works flawlessly!

So there you go, I just saved you months of tearing out your hair, crying without sleep and spending hours and hours wasting your time in Google search!