PBX in a Flash 2.0.6.2.4 CentOS 6.2 Installed and working

Right, well a very long time ago while i was still at university a couple of mates of mine got me into Voice over IP kit, in fact one of them actually based his final year project on it, suffice to say, i was the late adopter of this technology. But i quickly started getting into it based on the cost savings it would afford me and my family.

At the time, Asterisk was a pretty new kid on the block and setting it up was quite ‘in-depth’, after a couple of attempts and many hours of hunting around the web i managed to build my first Asterisk PBX server, successfully hosting several extension and trunks to some pretty cheap providers. To save others the pain and suffering i had to go through digging up the information about how to get this working, i compiled my guide into a single document and published it here… http://www.fluxbox.co.uk/2007/08/29/asterisk-freepbx-install-guide/

This guide is, somewhat out of date these days and some cool kids have come along and wrote complete automated installers for everything i did (why didnt i think of that lol)… Well there are some choices these days;

• PBX in a Flash
• AsteriskNow
• Elastix
• FreeSWITCH
• FreeSENTINAL
• Tardinium ipbx

All of these are freely avaliable downloads, and come with loads of online support from forums and other communities. I started off with Asterisk as my PBX and FreePBX as my web managment console, so i decided to stick with this though my progression. The two of these options which stick to that are PBX in a Flash and AsteriskNow (im not too sure about the others).

Anyways, the reason for the recent upgrade to 2.0.6.2.4 comes from my recent venture into Virtualisation, iv had virtual kit for some time now, but usually just the cheap low end stuff such as vmware workstation or VMware Server, both of which install ontop of the operating system, making them not the best option, as windows has a way of sucking the life out of your VM’s if it starts needing some more memory (which with windows can be at any random time of the day). My PBX was originally built on a old physical desktop PC which was rescued from my parents house many years ago, it ran very well for about 2 years, but then came the power of virtualisation and Physical to Virtual (P2V) technology. Bang, overnight this Physical machine was now a virtual host, easy… But wait, the story goes on, it ran again very well for another year and then i started working with full blown ESX hypervisors, Bang (again), overnight it went from a vmware server host to an ESXi virtual host, and ran very well for another year… or did it !

Well, im not sure when things started going wrong, as im kinda one of these people who sets up servers to do a job, and as long as they keep ticking away, i ignore them… well, it seems that this poor little PBX has been suffering, a lot, over the course of its life… and much of the operating systems brains have been left behind between P2V transitions… suffice to say, it was a very unhappy box… and running a very old version of Asterisk. So, rather than treat it with the loyalty it deserved and try to repair it loviningly, i binned it and decided it was time to start-a-new (dont worry, i dont treat all my loved ones this way, ask my wife… umm, where is she… :(

Well, in comes PiAF 2.0.6.2.4 (no thats not a phone number)… a quite long winded installer, asking some slightly confusing questions which it later ignores, but we finally got there…

PIAF Installed Version   = 2.0.6.2 under *VMWARE*

FreePBX Version          = 2.10.0.8

Running Asterisk Version = 1.8.13.0

Asterisk Source Version  = 1.8.13.0

Dahdi Source Version     = 2.6.1+2.6.1

Libpri Source Version    = 1.4.12

IP Address               = 192.168.8.** on eth0

Operating System         = CentOS release 6.2 (Final)

Kernel Version           = 2.6.32-220.13.1.el6.i686 – 32 Bit

To cut this post a little shorter, heres the highlights… FreePBX 2.10 is not gonna be for everyone, if like me you have been using FreePBX for a while, and got used to the old interface, the new version is a true pain in the ass, kinda like going from Office 2003 to 2007… (RIBBON, THOUST HATE YOU!!!).

As mentioned in my previous post about some custom addins you have to throw a box like mine, which sits behind a NAT Firewall (http://www.fluxbox.co.uk/2007/07/16/magical-world-of-asterisk/), there are some modifications you need to make to this one if your using NAT.

The stuff previously added under sip.conf now go into sip_nat.conf and reads as follows, if like me you have a Dynamic IP, you’ll need to register for a DyDNS account to get yourself a static host which follows you.

nat=yes

externhost=*********.dnsalias.com

externrefresh=10

localnet = 192.168.*.0/255.255.255.0

Its worth noting that under FreePBX 2.10 there is a page to edit your sip settings, where you can specify your external host and local net addresses, but i couldnt get it to pay any attention to these, so added my own here :)

Additionally, you’ll need to open the following ports on your firewall to get a reliable call;

• 4569
• 10000 – 20000
• 5060
• 5063

I also had a right game getting my inbound Draytel lines working, so ill post seperate page about those settings shortly :)

Any questions about getting one of these handy boxes working, just drop me a comment and ill try and help if i can !