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Linux installation

Linux and FreeBSD Installation

Prerequisites

Currently, we are supporting AlmaLinux 64 bit, CentOS 64 bit and Debian 64 bit versions. We recommend that you make yourself familiar with Linux before installing the system.

In many installations, there is a service running on the standard HTTP ports (80 and 443). If you wish to continue running the service on the host, you need to assign different ports to the PBX. You can do this by editing the script /etc/init.d/pbx or /etc/systemd/system/pbx.service and adding --http-port <port> and --https-port <port> to the startup parameters.

The PBX needs to have access to the public Internet for the activation of the license key and for installing software updates https://license.vodia.com for the license and https://portal.vodia.com for software updates). If you need to disconnect Internet access after installation, you will need a permanent key which is available upon special request.

Installation

In order to start the installation, you need to be logged in as system administrator to a shell (typically bash).

Download and run the install script for your operating system. Before running the install script, edit the install script and read the comments. You may choose to install different languages and make other modifications to the installation script that fit your purpose.

If you need to write a pidfile, you may do so by editing the OPTIONS variable in the installation script. You need to add --pidfile <filename> to the list of options. For normal installations, this is not neccessary.

Please note that you will might have to configure your firewall (iptables). Otherwise, you will not be able to access the web interface of the PBX and register phones.

If you see a prompt that shows you a one-time username and password, use that to log in for the first time. This username and password will work only once, you are supposed to set your own admin login right after logging in. The one-time username and password are there to avoid that a robot gets control over the system right after the service is running and you have not set your own password yet.

We recommend that you reboot the server after the initial installation. This will make sure that everything will come up automatically in the case you have to restart the server. It will also make sure that there is only one PBX process running on the server.

After the PBX is working, you should make sure that there is some kind of automatic backup. If you are not using a cloud service provider that automatically generated snapshots, there is a Backup Script which you can use for that.

In AlmaLinux:

$ wget http://portal.vodia.com/downloads/pbx/install-alma.sh
$ chmod a+rx install-alma.sh
$ ./install-alma.sh

In CentOS:

$ wget http://portal.vodia.com/downloads/pbx/install-centos.sh
$ chmod a+rx install-centos.sh
$ ./install-centos.sh

In Debian:

$ wget http://portal.vodia.com/downloads/pbx/install-debian.sh
$ chmod a+rx install-debian.sh
$ ./install-debian.sh

On Raspberry Pi:

  • Navigate to http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads and download the Raspbian IMG and follow the installation process on this thread.
  • After the IMG has been installed SSH into your raspberry PI. The default login for Raspbian is "root" and password "raspberry".
$ wget http://portal.vodia.com/downloads/pbx/install-mini3.sh
$ chmod a+x install-mini3.sh
$ sudo ./install-mini3.sh

Follow the directions after the .sh script has been initiated.

Useful Commands

After the installation you can check if the PBX is running using the following command:

ps -C pbxctrl

You can restart the service using the following command:

systemctl restart pbx.service

or on older Linux systems:

/etc/init.d/pbx restart

Software Updates

Once the service is installed, you can update the software through the web interface. The procedure is the same for all operating systems. It is important that the executable has the name "pbxctrl" and can be moved and deleted by the PBX process.

Uninstalling the Software

You can uninstall the software by deleting the working directory of the PBX (usually /usr/local/pbx) and by deleting the script pbx in the /etc/init.d directory.

Installing in the Cloud

There is a large range of service providers that can run the Vodia PBX. In this section shows examples on how to install the PBX in the cloud.

Installing Linux's Version of Vodia's IP PBX on AWS (Amazon Web Service) Instance

(AWS Templates)

Some AWS Linux templates don't by default come with swap space. This can cause random crashes of the PBX service, e.g. when cron jobs are running in the background. Please make sure that during the installation you set up swap space for the instance.

Digital Ocean

Google Cloud

OVH