Keeping Asterisk Passive?

Can asterisk run at the same time as another system sharing the same PSTN lines? I see at least two logical approaches to this?

(1) Can Asterisk simply run, for configuration purposes, and do nothing to control the telephone lines?

(2) Can Asterisk attend to the phones and yet allow the use of a legacy system simultaneously?

I'm setting up my 1st Asterisk, on 4 PSTN lines. I'm having problems with the dialplan, so that I am, so far, unable to use the * system for anything.

While I'm fixing those problems, I'd like to keep * running in a way that it does NOT answer and does not hang up on callers.

When I have no action set for incoming calls, * still accepts the call and hangs up, and I cannot answer the calls on our old Toshiba PBX. Then it seems that I must turn the * server off.

I'm guessing that one could get Asterisk to be quasi-passive by a change in extensions.conf [general] section, setting allfallthrough=no.

The O'Reilly book, "*,TFOT" (2nd Ed) says, "If you set this to no, then Asterisk will sit and wait for input after all priorities have executed."

"*, TFOT" also suggests that the WaitExten() application [which I have not yet learned] might make Asterisk somewhat passive?

Maybe there is a way that Asterisk will simply ignore incoming calls?

In any case of Asterisk paying attention to the incoming call, what would prompt Asterisk to stop waiting, and let go of the line?

Basicly yes it can sit passivly, the same as any phone system can.

As long as teh dialplan does not do anything on thelines then it will just sit there seeing the ring .

Ian

Thanks for the reply. I need a little further help on this. I actually had a practical question.

I see that I did ask whether it was possible, even though I could almost assume that it was possible. Confirmation of that possibility is only the premise of my practical question.

My problem is that I don't know how to do it.

Can someone please say how to do it?