The VICIdial post-install checklist

The install script finished without an obvious error, but that is not the same as a working dialer. A fresh VICIdial box has a handful of moving parts that all need to line up before the first call can go out. This checklist walks the parts in order, so you find a broken piece in a quiet moment instead of in front of a room full of agents.

Confirm the telephony engine is running

Everything starts with Asterisk, the open-source phone engine VICIdial drives. Log in over SSH and run a quick process check. If Asterisk is not running, nothing else on this list matters yet, so fix that first. Once the engine answers, check the Keepalive scripts: these are the small watchdog programs VICIdial runs on a schedule to refresh agent state, regenerate config files, and restart pieces that have died.

Look at the crontab for the root user and confirm the keepalive lines are present and uncommented. A common fresh-install gotcha is a crontab that was never installed, so the dialer looks fine for a minute and then quietly stops feeding agents. If the lines are missing, the rest of the system will misbehave in ways that are hard to diagnose later.

Set the server time and GMT

VICIdial decides when it is allowed to dial a lead based on the clock. If the operating-system time or the configured GMT offset (lead) is wrong, the dialer will either refuse to call leads it should be calling or, worse, call people outside their legal hours. Set the system clock with NTP, then set the matching GMT offset in the server record inside Admin. Do not adjust the offset for Daylight Savings Time by hand. Get this right before any real list goes on.

Wire up a way to make calls

Now the dialer needs a path to the outside world. Add a Carrier (your SIP provider) so outbound calls have somewhere to go, then create a phone so an agent has somewhere to log in. A carrier is just the upstream account that actually places your calls onto the phone network. If you are still picking one, our guide to choosing a SIP carrier covers what to look for.

The order things have to come together

flowchart TD
  A[Asterisk running] --> B[Keepalive crontab active]
  B --> C[Server time and GMT set]
  C --> D[Carrier added]
  D --> E[Phone created]
  E --> F[Test list loaded]
  F --> G[Hopper feeds a lead]
  G --> H[Place a test call]

Load a small test list and place a call

Build a tiny Lead list of a few numbers you control, such as your own cell phone, and assign it to a campaign. The Hopper is the staging table VICIdial uses to pull ready leads out of your list and hand them to agents, so confirm it actually fills with at least one number. If the hopper stays empty, the usual culprits are call-time rules, list status, or the clock problem above.

Log in as your test agent, take a call from the campaign, and make sure you hear two-way audio. A call that connects but has no sound almost always points at a media or firewall issue rather than VICIdial itself. When your phone rings, you answer, and you can hear yourself, the install genuinely works.

Where to go next

This list is the smoke test that proves the basics. For the full picture of what a clean install includes from the start, see our complete guide to installing VICIdial. One caution worth repeating: run this checklist every time you stand up a new box, because the same step fails on a different server for a different reason each time.

If running through this list on every fresh server sounds like work you would rather skip, that is exactly what we remove. VICIfast provisions a fully configured, ready-to-dial VICIdial server in under 40 seconds, with the clock, keepalive, and HTTPS already correct. See VICIfast pricing to compare it against doing this by hand.