WARNINGS OVERVIEW. INSTALLING PBX in a Flash

PBX in a Flash PBX in a Flash Installation Digitally signed by PBX in a Flash DN: cn=pbx in a Flash, c=us, o=pbx in a Flash, ou=development, email=none Reason: I am the author of this document Date: 2007.11.25 11:40:00-05'00' November 25, 2007 Welcome! This document will describe the configuration and installation PBX in a Flash. I have tested this on Lab, Production, and VMware machines with great success. Does this mean it is absolutely safe? Not in your life! No warranties express or implied at all! But I use it day to day in mission critical applications. NOTE THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND ANY ERRORS. This work is copyright 2007 by Thomas A. King. This work may not be altered or modified without express written permission of the author. You may copy this manual and use it freely; however this notice must be included with the document. This manual is NOT released under the GNU General Public License. WARNINGS This script was tested and vetted on machine running INTEL processors with lots of RAM and NO, I SAY AGAIN NO SATA or RAID controllers present. All of the machines used in the development of this script use PATA drives. OVERVIEW PBX in a Flash is based on Centos 5, Asterisk 1.4, FreePBX 2.3. LAMP, etc, all rolled into a very stable ISO. When the ISO is burned to a CDrom and then booted on your machine of choice it will install a rock solid world class version of Asterisk. The ISO does not need frequent updating as we have chosen to compile the software on the fly as needed. Later there will be scripts available to manage your updates either automatically or manually. One thing you won t find is bloat! We have heard that bloat is simply extra space used by programs but we beg to differ. Many installations like to install the kitchen sink which does tend to slow the machine down significantly and use up extra hard drive space. If you want to install a crm product and we have written a script for it you simply download the script and run it. No muss no fuss! We feel our minimalist approach with the ability to add as much or as little as you want it superior. INSTALLING PBX in a Flash Initially you will have to decide if you want to install it to a real computer or a vmware virtual one. Either way will work but this document will concentrate on installing PBX in a Flash onto a real as opposed to virtual computer. Once you have downloaded the iso image from www.pbxinaflash.net please burn it to a cdrom. Please the cdrom into the computer you want to install PBX in a Flash to and reboot the system. WARNING THE PROCESS OF INSTALLING PBX IN A FLASH WILL DELETE ALL PARTITIONS ON ALL HARD DRIVES ON THE TARGET COMPUTER BE WARNED! Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 1

1. Upon booting you will be presented with the following screen For most installs simply tap the ENTER key to continue. If you have special needs please check Appendix One for what the other options mean. (Under Construction) 2. Now you will see selinux loading the bootstrap to continue with the install process similar to the screen below Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 2

3. You will now be presented with a screen to choose your keyboard. To navigate in this screen use the up and down arrows until the red curso is over the keyboard type you want. Then press Tab then press ENTER to continue 4. After several moments the xwindow based graphical user install will start. You must at this stage ensure you have a mouse hooked up to the computer and you have the internet plugged into the machine. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 3

5. You must change the pull down option from Use free space on selected drives and create default layout to Remove all partitions on selected drives and create default layout. If you are a linux guru you can experiment with the advanced storage configuration however that is another manual! Navigate the mouse pointer until it is hovering over the Next button and single left click the mouse. 6. A Warning window will pop up, This is normal and you need to navigate the mouse pointer over the Yes button and single left click the mouse. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 4

7. The next screen you will be shown is the choose a time zone. On this screen you click the boz immediately under the map and to the left and choose your time zone. Notice that the System clock uses UTC is unchecked and this is appropriate for most installations. Navigate the mouse pointer until it is hovering over the Next button and single left click the mouse. 8. This screen is where you will enter the password for user root. You must enter is twice before you can continue. I have included some instructions on choosing a good password in APPENDIX TWO Navigate the mouse pointer until it is hovering over the Next button and single left click the mouse Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 5

10. Pay close attention to this stage. When the install process finishes the cdrom drive will eject the disk and you need to get it out before the system reboots. After the system reboots you should see the following screens. The second screen indicates that the computer has successfully connected to www.pbxinaflash.org and started the download and compile process. This can take a very long time! Please be patient. At this stage you may see the following screen Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 7

If you see this screen your internet connection is down or www.pbxinaflash.net is experiencing problems. If you need help then contact us through the PBX in a Flash forum. If the install is successful you should see the following screen You will need to run genzaptelconf after the system reboots. 11. Once the system reboots you will see the following screens The screen above is our custom bootup screen. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 8

12. Loading of PBX in a Flash will continue You now need to log into your PBX in a Flash system. Type the username root and then enter the password you entered in Step 8. 13. You should now see the following screen. Welcome to PBX in a Flash! 14. Type help-pbx and then tap the ENTER key. Here you will see some scripts that will aid you in getting your PBX in a Flash setup. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 9

In the coming months this screen will be updated to an interactive menu written in curses so stay tuned. In the meantime each script is fairly self explanatory. A man page version is also under development 15. Now comes time to look at the web interface. Please open your browser (FireFox only please! No IE any version) and type http://ipaddress (hint the address to type is displayed on the first screen you see when you log in Step 13) 16. Now you need to navigate your mouse pointer so it hovers over the Administration text and single left click the mouse. You should see the following screen. I recommend you click on the Menu Config button and set a password to restrict access to Webmin and Asterisk Mgmt. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 10

17. Now click on the Asterisk Mgmt Button to load FreePBX. A password screen will pop up and you can use the username/password of admin to get past this. 18. FreePBX will load and the screen should look similar to the one below. Notice the Critical Error Asterisk Manager Connection Failure message. If you see this you need to press the reload button at the top of the screen and it will go away. This error occurs because FreePBX has not created the configuration files. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 11

19. While you are at the FreePBX screen please navigate your mouse over the Module Admin choice and single left click. You should see a screen similar to below. Please navigate your mouse over the Check for updates online and single left click. In the unlikely event you see an error message that says cannot connect to mirrors.freepbx.org you may have to turn off iptables in order to get the modules loaded. This can be accomplished by logging into the CLI as user root and typing disable-iptables and tapping the ENTER key. Then type service network restart. You may also have to reboot PBX in a Flash if you still cannot connect to the FreePBX mirrors. After you have finished installing the Freepbx Modules you can turn on iptables again by typing at the CLI enableiptables. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 12

Initial Configuration Genzaptelconf As it sits when PBX in a Flash has done the final reboot Zaptel is not configured. This can lead to problems so let us configure and run genzaptel.conf 1. Log into the CLI (Command Line Interface) as user root using the password you typed in during the install. 2. This is the initial login screen and tells you about your system ip address and how to get help. Notice the green root@pbx:~ $ this is a customized version of the bash environment and is a visual queue that the install of PBX in a Flash seems to have completed successfully. 3. Now we need to change to the sysconfig folder. Please type cd /etc/sysconfig and then tap the ENTER key. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 13

4. Now we need to install a special editor. While PBX in a Flash comes with nano preinstalled I prefer joe. This editor is a clone of WordStar and is designed for use in a Linux environment. Don t worry it won t hurt. Please type the following yum y install joe and then tap the ENTER key. 5. Now that joe is installed type the following joe zaptel and then tap the ENTER key. 6. Using the arrow keys scroll up and down and ensure that a # is placed in the front of each of the entries in the file. If you have one of the cards listed please be sure to uncomment it. If you are running in a vmware system you only need the ztdummy choice uncommented. Now hold down the Ctrl key and hit the K then the X keys in order and your file will be saved. If you want to exit joe without saving hold down the Ctrl key and tap the C key You should see the screen below if the file was saved correctly Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 14

7. Now we can run genzaptelconf to correctly configure zaptel. In the CLI type genzaptelconf and then tap the ENTER key. If you get errors the first time you run genzaptelconf simply rerun it and you should see a screen similar to the one above. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 15

8. You can verify it by typing zttool in the CLI and then tapping the ENTER key. You should see a screen similar to the ones below. This essentially shows that the ztdummy is configured correctly. When you don t have a hardware card installed the ztdummy is required as a timing source. Network Configuration This should be one of the easiest parts of the install however some have reported a non sticky IP address which could cause problems so we will outline a workaround for it. 1. Gather the information you will need to create a static address. Have a look at the table below and fill it out prior to going on to step 2. If you are going to use a DHCP IP address skip this section entirely. A short explanation of each item is below the table. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 16

Table 1 Option Information Static IP Address Netmask Default Gateway Primary Nameserver - Static IP Address: This is generally one that your router does not assign by DHCP - Netmask: This is generally 255.255.255.0 for Class C non sub netted networks - Default Gateway: This is generally the IP address of your router - Primary Nameserver: This should not be the same address as the Default Gateway. You will need to look at your router configuration pages to get this number. 2. Log into the CLI using the root user and type netconfig and then tap the ENTER key 3. You should see a screen similar to the one below Using the left or right arrow select the Yes button and then tap the ENTER key Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 17

4. You should now see the screen below Tab down to the IP address field and fill out all of the information that is required. NOTE do not use the information contained in the image! Select the Ok button and tap the ENTER key 5. You should be back at the Linux CLI now. We need to reboot the system by typing shutdown 0r now and then tapping the ENTER key. 6. Your system will now reboot. Once the boot process has finished log back into the Linux CLI as user root and repeat steps 2 4 over again. This time when you get back to the Linux CLI type the following service network restart and then tap the ENTER key. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 18

7. Now let s test our connection type ping www.nerdvittles.com and then tap the ENTER key. You should see something similar to the screen below After you see a few lines of reply hold down the Ctrl key and then tap the C key. You have now set up a static IP address. If you see anything else than the screen above try rebooting the computer using Step 5 and try Step 7 again. Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 19

APPENDIX TWO Choosing a password Passwords used by PBX in a Flash can be of any length and are both case and punctuation sensitive. We recommend using at least eight characters, some of which are punctuation marks or other special keyboard characters. Shorter and simpler passwords weaken your defenses. For example, the password JOHNJOHN is quite weak, particularly if your name is John. J_O%H#N@ is slightly better, but it still contains elements of your name. A password such as F#LLL&*_ would be a better choice (Note: Please do not use this example). Lastly, try to use a password you will remember, but which others will not guess (easier said than done), and never, never, NEVER write your password down! We suggest using an easily remembered scheme such as the following that is almost impossible to guess: 1. Choose a nursery rhyme or other saying that you can remember. 2. Use the first letter of each word, either upper or lower case, in sequence to make up the password. 3. For words such as and, at, number or star use the symbols on the top row of the keyboard ( &, @, # or *. 4. For numbers use the actual number key rather than the word. 5. Use punctuation where appropriate. 6. For example, Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle! would generate the following password: HDD,tC&tF!. (Do not use this example as your password) Copyright 2007 Thomas A. King All Rights Reserved Page 21