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Once channels are established and communicating between devices and Asterisk; where that data flows to depends on the channel type itself, its overall configuration, device specific configuration, signaling sent by the originating mechanism (a device, a command, an API call) and associated bridges. One or more channels could be talking to one or more channels over various bridges. What specifically Asterisk talks to on each channel is limited only by the technology implemented by the channel driver.

Inbound and Outbound Channels

Often in our documentation, troubleshooting and development discussions you'll see mention of inbound or outbound channels. It'll be helpful to define what that means here.

Inbound channels are channels created when things outside of Asterisk call into Asterisk. This is typically the channel executing Dialplan.

Outbound channels are channels created when Asterisk is calling out to something outside Asterisk.

The primary exception is with Local Channels. In the case of local channels, you'll typically have two local channel legs, one that is treated as outbound and the other as inbound. In this case both are really inside Asterisk, but one is executing dialplan and the other is not. The leg executing dialplan is the one treated as inbound.

Below we'll diagram some examples to make things clear.

Example explanations:

Channels and Variable Inheritance