There are many different types of modules, each providing their own functionality and capabilities to Asterisk. Configuration of loading is described in Configuring the Asterisk Module Loader.
Various Module Types
- Channel Drivers
Channel drivers communicate with devices outside of Asterisk, and translate that particular signaling or protocol to the core.
- Dialplan Applications
Applications provide call functionality to the system. An application might answer a call, play a sound prompt, hang up a call or provide more complex behavior such as queuing, voicemail or conferencing feature sets.
- Dialplan Functions
Functions are used to retrieve, set or manipulate various settings on a call. A function might be used to set the Caller ID on an outbound call, for example.
- Resources
As the name suggests, resources provide resources to Asterisk and its modules. Common examples of resources include music on hold and call parking.
- CODECs
A CODEC (which is an acronym for COder/DECoder) is a module for encoding or decoding audio or video. Typically codecs are used to encode media so that it takes less bandwidth. These are essential to translating audio between the audio codecs and payload types used by different devices.
- File Format Drivers
File format drivers are used to save media to disk in a particular file format, and to convert those files back to media streams on the network.
- Call Detail Record (CDR) Drivers
CDR drivers write call logs to a disk or to a database.
- Call Event Log (CEL) Drivers
Call event logs are similar to call detail records, but record more detail about what happened inside of Asterisk during a particular call.
- Bridge Drivers
Bridge drivers are used by the bridging architecture in Asterisk, and provide various methods of bridging call media between participants in a call.
The next sub-sections will include detail on each of the module types.