How to read the Asterisk Debug Page

The Asterisk Debug Page is a web-based view of three things that normally require SSH: the current SIP peer and registry status, the IAX2 peer and registry status, and the last 1000 lines of the live Asterisk console output — all pulled from the box and displayed in one place.

Enabling the page in server settings

The page does not collect data automatically. You must turn it on for each server individually. Open the server record in the Administration section, find the Asterisk Debug setting, and set it to enabled. Once that flag is on, VICIdial will start querying the Asterisk process for peer and registry state on each cycle, and it will begin capturing the console tail. If you open the page before enabling the setting, all three sections will be empty or show a disabled notice.

The three sections and what each one shows

Once enabled, the page is divided into three distinct sections:

• SIP Peers and Registry — a table of every SIP endpoint Asterisk knows about. Each row shows the peer name, its current reachability state (OK or UNREACHABLE), and the measured round-trip latency in milliseconds. Below the peers table is the registry section, which lists each outbound registration your box is sending to a carrier and whether that registration is current.
• IAX Peers and Registry — the same structure as the SIP section but for IAX2 connections. If your system uses IAX2 trunks between servers or to a carrier, this section shows their state. Most modern setups are SIP-only, in which case this section will show no entries.
• Asterisk CLI tail — the last 1000 lines of the Asterisk console output, updated on each page refresh. This is the raw log stream: channel events, registration attempts, authentication errors, codec negotiation messages, and any WARNINGS or ERRORs Asterisk has printed. It is the fastest way to see what is actively going wrong without opening a terminal.

flowchart LR
  A["Asterisk Debug Page"] --> B["SIP section"]
  A --> C["IAX2 section"]
  A --> D["CLI tail"]
  B --> B1["Peers table - OK or UNREACHABLE + latency"]
  B --> B2["Registry table - registered or not"]
  C --> C1["IAX peers state"]
  C --> C2["IAX registry state"]
  D --> D1["Last 1000 lines of Asterisk console"]

How to use each section for diagnosis

Start with the SIP peers table when calls are failing to connect. An UNREACHABLE peer is a carrier Trunk that your box cannot reach — calls through that trunk will fail immediately. High latency on an otherwise OK peer can cause audio issues and SIP timeouts even when the trunk appears up. The registry table beneath it confirms whether your box has successfully registered outbound credentials with the carrier — a peer can show OK for OPTIONS pings but still fail to place calls if the registration has lapsed.

The CLI tail is the right place to look when something is broken but the peers and registry look fine. Authentication failures, codec mismatches, and Channel errors all print to the Asterisk console. Scanning the last 1000 lines for WARN or ERROR strings usually surfaces the exact line where things started going wrong.

For the server-level health context alongside Asterisk state, the guide to monitoring VICIdial server health and capacity covers the broader picture. The VICIdial system load guide explains what the load number on a busy Asterisk box actually measures.

On a VICIfast-managed box the Asterisk Debug setting is enabled from provisioning, so the page is ready the moment your server goes live. Spin up a managed VICIdial box in under 40 seconds and skip the manual setup entirely.