Adding a SIP trunk

A SIP trunk connects your system to the phone network. Exovo ships provider templates that pre-fill the correct settings — registrar, port, and whether the provider authenticates by credentials or by your IP address — so adding a trunk is mostly a matter of entering your account details and numbers.

Choosing a provider template

Admin → Trunks → Add trunk opens the provider selector: pick your country, then your provider. The template fills in the server details and the right authentication mode. If your provider isn't listed, pick Generic and enter the registrar your provider gave you.

Some templates (for example VoIP Innovations) can provision the provider's entire recommended setup — multiple geo-redundant trunks plus a failover outbound rule — in one step.

Registration vs IP-based authentication

Providers authenticate one of two ways, controlled by Register with provider on the Server Details tab:

• Registration (checked, the default): the trunk sends SIP REGISTER with your Authentication ID and password. Status shows Registered when the provider accepts.
• IP-based (unchecked): no registration — the provider trusts calls from your public IP, which you register in their portal. The trunk list shows IP auth instead of a registration state, and credentials are optional.

Trunk credentials and the registrar

On the Account Details tab, enter the Main Trunk Number (your primary number, in international + format) and, for registering trunks, the authentication ID and password from your provider. The Server Details tab carries the registrar hostname and port (5060 unless your provider says otherwise) — pre-filled by the template.

DIDs and the default route

Add every number the provider routes to you on the DID Numbers tab (international format). These DIDs become selectable in inbound rules and per-user caller ID; on SMS-enabled trunks, each DID has an SMS checkbox to enable messaging on it.

To load a block of numbers at once, use Import on the DID Numbers tab. Paste — or upload — a CSV with one number per line as number,name (the name is optional; a leading number,name header row is ignored). Exovo checks each row before adding: numbers must be in +E.164 format, and any number already assigned to this or another trunk is flagged and skipped, so you see exactly what will import. The DIDs are added to the tab; Save the trunk to persist them.

The Default route (General tab) is the safety net: any call arriving on this trunk that no inbound rule claims goes there. Point it at a user, ring group, queue or IVR — during initial setup, pointing it at yourself is a quick way to test inbound calling before building rules.

Capacity and direction

On the Options tab, Number of sim calls (default 10) caps concurrent calls on the trunk — set it to the channel count you're paying for. Allow inbound calls / Allow outbound calls let you dedicate a trunk to one direction, useful in multi-trunk setups where one provider carries outbound and another owns your numbers.

Verifying registration status

The trunk list shows live state: a green Registered dot, a gray Offline dot, or the IP auth badge. The stat strip at the top counts failed registrations across all trunks, and the dashboard's Trunks online tile tracks the same health at a glance.

If a registering trunk drops offline, open its row menu and choose Refresh Registration to send a fresh SIP REGISTER immediately instead of waiting for the next retry; the status dot updates once the provider responds. The action only applies to registering trunks — gateways and IP-authenticated trunks never REGISTER, so Exovo tells you there is nothing to refresh.

Troubleshooting a trunk that won't register

• Check the credentials — the authentication ID is often not your account number; providers frequently issue a separate SIP user ID.
• Check the firewall — outbound 5060/udp (or the template's port) must be open, and many providers also need your RTP range open for audio. See the installation port table.
• Check for SIP ALG — routers with "SIP ALG" or "SIP helper" enabled mangle registration traffic; disable it on the router.
• IP-auth trunks that reject calls — your public IP probably isn't (or is no longer) the one registered with the provider; verify it in their portal.
• Watch the event log — Admin → Event Log records registration failures with the provider's response code.