Westhawk has designed and implemented a Java based web-applet that acts as a soft-phone for the Asterisk Open-Source PBX. This paper describes the difficulties (many) and compromises (few) that were encountered in the development process. Most of these problems related to the security, networking or threading requirements of hosting the application in a browser.

Our aim in presenting this paper at SANE is to assist systems and network professionals in their discussions with developers about what is possible vs what is acceptable in a secure, portable, low maintenance but compelling web based application.