In my local area there has recently been 3 new Allstar nodes brought online, which is awesome! However all 3 have suffered from the exact same user configuration errors.
Seems like nobody fully reads the documentation so maybe these quick tips will held save you avoid some initial frustration:
1.) Port 4569 UDP needs to be opened for the IP address that the router assigned to your node (called port forwarding). Otherwise you will not be able to receive incoming connections.
2.) If you also going to run Echolink then you must use a -L or -R suffix. Running Echolink in the normal user mode will cause an endless loop, between Allstar and Echolink, upon connection. The only way out is for one of the nodes to restart Asterisk.
3.) Just like opening port 4569, for Allstar, Echolink needs have have UDP ports 5198 & 5199 opened as well (to support incoming connections).
Pro Tip: If you are also using Echolink then assign Echolink to a private node. That way you can turn incoming Echolink connections on and off.