Running asterisk 18 in a FreeBSD 12-STABLE platform, asterisk.conf contains some FreeBSD
style delegations of the directoris used by default.

First of all: the configuration of the Asterisk instance is done in a simple, plain way using static config files!

We face a weird behaviour with the default sample entry one can find in etc/asterisk.conf, the entry

[directories](!)
astspooldir => /pool/logging/var/spool/asterisk

results in a voicemail folder created at

/var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/…

and not at /pool/logging/var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/… as we would expect. But ommiting the “(!)” tag

[directories]
astspooldir => /pool/logging/var/spool/asterisk

results in the desired behaviour! This is weird. Where can I find some informations about the usage of the “(!)” in this context? As far as I know, the “(!)” marks a stanza as pristine/unique and is not to be expanded by other stanzas (or objects, I’m not so familiar with the variaty of semantics …). I derive this from my knowledge taken from the syntax/semantics of extensions configuration.

Another problem, as the subjects may state, is to have additional sounds alongside the default ones.

The default sounds shipped with the FreeBSD port of Asterisk are located at
/usr/local/share/asterisk/sounds/en. We’d like to stay with any default, since the directory configuration pointing to the top level directory of sounds is

[directories]
astdatadir => /usr/local/share/asterisk

The installation image of asterisk is changing from time to time due to updates. The additional configurations should be kept outside the default paths, but sounds are located as a subdirectory adjacent with a lot of other default directories I’d like to keep as they are.

For voicemail and other purposes we need other languages, German (de_DE/de), French (fr)
and so on. We’d like to put those additions into different directories, maintaining them separately and leave the original folders untouched.

Does Asterisk provide a mechanism to expand/searches directories?

I tried to study the example/sample configuration files but I coul not find a hint how to explicitely set the directory (absolute, relative) for sounds in a defined stanza (the
“[…]” thing i.e. in etc/voicemail.conf and so on).

Thanks in advance,

best regards

O. Hartmann