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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING

The 5-Minute PBX: A Fresh Look at Oracle’s VirtualBox with Incredible PBX

Today we’re paying another visit to our favorite virtual machine platform and introducing four new VoIP images that let you compare features and performance of Asterisk® 11 running atop Ubuntu® 14 or Scientific Linux™ 6.5 with FreePBX® 2.11 or the just-released version 12 release candidate. Think of Incredible PBX™ as the VoIP glue stick that assembles all the necessary VoIP components and holds them together seamlessly. As with all Incredible PBX builds, you also get the full complement of goodies including dozens of text-to-speech apps, voice dialing, SMS messaging, fax support, reminders and wakeup calls, and SECURITY! The difference with the VirtualBox® platform is you get a turnkey install of everything on any desktop computer in less than 5 minutes! That includes Windows PCs, Macs, Linux desktops, and even Solaris machines.

Is VirtualBox merely a sandbox for experimentation? Absolutely not. With any of the beefier desktop computers available today, running Incredible PBX as a 24/7 VirtualBox image is every bit as feature rich with stellar performance that’s equivalent to using dedicated hardware. And there are some added advantages. Obviously, deploying a turnkey VoIP platform in under 5 minutes is a major plus. But, unlike using a dedicated Linux platform, you also get the ability to take snapshots of your system and do full backups in minutes instead of the hours required to bring down dedicated hardware, load a different backup application using a different operating system, perform a backup, and then reboot your VoIP server. And your backups won’t just run on the one server on which the backup was performed. You can restore the backup to any other computer that can run VirtualBox. For any of you that came from a network management background, you know what a big deal that really is. And there’s one more bonus. With Incredible Backup and Restore, you can move your image to dedicated hardware running the same operating system with Asterisk 11 and the same version of FreePBX in minutes.

Need to deploy VoIP servers at dozens of sites around the globe? Not a problem with VirtualBox. Just send a preconfigured VirtualBox image to each site and install VirtualBox on a local desktop computer. In 5 minutes, you have a functional VoIP server including interconnectivity to all of your other VoIP servers with a virtual private network already in place to provide secure VoIP connectivity between all of your sites.

Are there security compromises using the VirtualBox platform? Not at all. Incredible PBX still comes preconfigured with the Linux IPtables firewall that is locked down to a whitelist of local area networks, preferred providers, and your own IP addresses. You can expand the whitelist using the add-ip and add-fqdn scripts or use PortKnocker and Travelin’ Man 4 tools to let remote users gain instant access.

Why four different Incredible PBX images? Glad you asked. Ubuntu and Scientific Linux are a bit like French and Spanish. They’re both languages for communicating, but many of the words are different. Some prefer one or the other so now you have a choice. As for the FreePBX options, let us put in a plug for the FreePBX 12 release candidate. The FreePBX Dev Team has invested thousands of hours in this new software. It shows! Please take it for a spin and give the developers some feedback. To move to Asterisk 12 and 13, you’re going to need FreePBX 12 so you might as well start getting used to it. While there are many similarities in the user interface, the under-the-covers work that the FreePBX team has invested in this new product is nothing short of amazing. There’s very little of the FreePBX 2.11 code that hasn’t been either cleaned up or completely rewritten. We think you’ll like it so give it a try. Those that need a production environment probably should stick with FreePBX 2.11 for the time being. The new Virtual Box images also give you an opportunity to compare performance between the two operating systems and the two FreePBX versions. This isn’t 1999. Take advantage of the opportunity. It only takes a few minutes to spin up a new virtual machine and go for a test drive.

Getting Started. For today, we’ll provide a refresher course on loading VirtualBox and one of the Incredible PBX virtual images. Then we want to spend a little time explaining the secret sauce that goes into building these images so that you can do it yourself either to migrate to a different network or to deploy at multiple sites. When we’re finished, you’ll know everything we’ve learned about deploying VirtualBox machines and, unlike Grandma, we won’t leave an important ingredient out of the recipe just to be sure you never forget how good Grandma’s cookies really were. So let’s get started.

Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox

Oracle’s virtual machine platform inherited from Sun is amazing. It’s not only free, but it’s pure GPL2 code. VirtualBox gives you a virtual machine platform that runs on top of any desktop operating system. In terms of limitations, we haven’t found any. We even tested this on an Atom-based Windows 7 machine with 2GB of RAM, and it worked without a hiccup. So step #1 today is to download one or more of the VirtualBox installers from VirtualBox.org or Oracle.com. Our recommendation is to put all of the 100MB installers on a 4GB thumb drive.1 Then you’ll have everything in one place whenever and wherever you happen to need it. Once you’ve downloaded the software, simply install it onto your favorite desktop machine. Accept all of the default settings, and you’ll be good to go. For more details, here’s a link to the Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual.

Downloading the Incredible PBX Virtual Machines

A word of warning on the front end. Incredible PBX images featuring Asterisk 11 for VirtualBox are huge! The two Ubuntu images for FreePBX 2.11 and 12 are 1.5GB. The two Scientific Linux 6.5 images for FreePBX 2.11 and 12 are 2.3GB. We’ve added SourceForge hotlinks. So simply click on the desired images and download them to your desktop. Then go to lunch.

Importing & Configuring Incredible PBX Virtual Machines in VirtualBox

You only perform the import step one time. Once imported into VirtualBox, Incredible PBX is ready to use. There’s no further installation required, just like an OpenVZ template… only better. Double-click on the .ova file you downloaded to begin the procedure and load it into VirtualBox. When prompted, be sure to check the Reinitialize the Mac address of all network cards box and then click the Import button. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new Incredible PBX virtual machine in your VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window. We need to make a couple of one-time adjustments to the Incredible PBX VM configuration to account for differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

Click on the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine in the VM List. Then click Settings -> Audio and check the Enable Audio option and choose your sound card. Save your setup by clicking the OK button. Next click Settings -> Network. For Adapter 1, check the Enable Network Adapter option. From the Attached to pull-down menu, choose Bridged Adapter. Then select your network card from the Name list. Then click OK. Finally, click Settings -> System, uncheck Hardware clock in UTC time, and click OK. That’s all the configuration that is necessary for your Incredible PBX Virtual Machine. The rest is automagic.

Running Incredible PBX Virtual Machines in VirtualBox

Once you’ve imported and configured the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight IncrediblePBX Virtual Machine in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The boot procedure with your chosen operating system will begin just as if you had installed Incredible PBX on a standalone machine. You’ll see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and your virtual machine. Remember, you still have full access to your desktop computer. Incredible PBX is merely running as a task in a VirtualBox window. Always gracefully halt Incredible PBX just as you would on a dedicated computer.

Here’s what you need to know. To work in the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, just left-click your mouse while it is positioned inside the VM window. To return to your host operating system desktop, press the right Option key on Windows machines or the left Command key on any Mac. For other operating systems, read the dialogue boxes for instructions on moving around. To access the Linux CLI, login as root with the default password: password. To access FreePBX with a browser, point to the IP address of your virtual machine and login as admin with admin password set below. For the security of your server, we recommend that you log in to the Linux CLI at least once a week so that Incredible PBX updates get applied to your server regularly. This is critically important if you care about your phone bill.

When logging in for the first time, Incredible PBX will go through some setup steps and then reboot. Login again to complete the setup. status will always provide a snapshot of your system. To shut down Incredible PBX gracefully, click in the VM window with your mouse, log in as root, and type: halt. Be sure to complete the following setup steps from the Linux CLI:

  • Change your root password: passwd
  • Set your FreePBX admin password: /root/admin-pw-change
  • Set your correct time zone: /root/timezone-setup
  • Add WhiteList entries to firewall if needed: /root/add-ip or /root/add-fqdn
  • Store PortKnocker credentials in a safe place: cat /root/knock.FAQ
  • Enable SAMBA if desired: /root/samba-enable.sh
  • Enable Incredible Fax support if desired: (script in /root)
  • Login to your NeoRouter VPN server if desired: /root/nrclientcmd

Preparing Incredible PBX Virtual Machines for Migration

As the Linux operating systems have become more turnkey, one of the shortcuts that has been implemented on both the RedHat and Debian/Ubuntu platforms is storage of your network setup so that the server reboots more quickly. While that’s fine for rebooting on the same server, it’s a real problem if you attempt to move your setup to different hardware or a new network because eth0 will not load. That means no IP address! Here are two ways to assure that things will actually work after the move. Both assume that you will have a DHCP server at the new location just as you did at your existing site.

The Easy Way. If you have console access after the VM image is restored on the new platform (which means you don’t need a network IP address for the server in order to log in as root), then the easy way to prepare any of the Incredible PBX machines for relocation is to issue the following commands before you halt the system and make a VirtualBox backup:

touch /etc/update_hostconfig
touch /etc/update_serverconfig

Once you have halted the server, edit both the sound card and network card settings and disable both of them in VirtualBox Manager. Then choose File -> Export Appliance from the VirtualBox title bar and create a .ova backup image on your desktop. You now have an image that is similar to the Incredible PBX image that you originally downloaded, except it has all of your data and settings. All you have to do is repeat the install drill above at the new location using the .ova image you created and log in with whatever your current root password happens to be. You’ll get a two-pass automatic setup just as you did when you began today’s adventure.

The only drawback to this procedure is the fact that the extension 701 and default DISA passwords will be initialized when you first boot from your .ova image at the other location. Aside from that, you’ll have a clean platform with new SSH and DUNDI credentials as well as mostly sanitized log files.

The Hard Way. The other alternative is to manually prepare your existing system for migration before you shut it down. The primary reason for doing this would be to assure that you can log in with an SSH client at the other end as soon as the server is booted. The steps differ a bit depending upon whether you’re on the Ubuntu or Scientific Linux platform. But on both platforms you need to enter the IP address from which you will log in at the new site unless it is on one of the private LAN subnets that already is whitelisted in IPtables. Just issue the command /root/add-ip and choose 0 option to enable all services for the new IP address. Then…

On the Ubuntu platform, issue the following commands:

touch /etc/update_hostconfig
touch /etc/update_serverconfig
rm -f /var/lib/dhcp/*
rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/70*
halt

On the Scientific Linux platform, issue the following commands:

touch /etc/update_hostconfig
touch /etc/update_serverconfig
rm -f /var/lib/dhcpd/*
rm -f /var/lib/dhclient/*
rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/70*
halt

Once you have halted the server, edit both the sound card and network card settings and disable both of them in VirtualBox Manager. Then choose File -> Export Appliance from the VirtualBox title bar and create a .ova backup image on your desktop. Now you’re an expert. Enjoy!

Originally published: Monday, September 22, 2014


Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you’re bound to have questions. Blog comments are a terrible place to handle support issues although we welcome general comments about our articles and software. If you have particular support issues, we encourage you to get actively involved in the PBX in a Flash Forums. It’s the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it’s all free! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Our forum is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus.



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. []

The 5-Minute PBX: It’s Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine for VirtualBox

In our last article, we introduced the PBX in a Flash Virtual Machine for Oracle’s VirtualBox. To commemorate the end of the world today, we wanted to go out with a bang. So we’re pleased to introduce Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine. As with the PIAF-Green Virtual Machine, this new appliance features CentOS 6.3, Asterisk® 11, and FreePBX® 2.11 beta. In addition, it includes Incredible Fax with HylaFax and AvantFax, SMS speech-to-text messaging as well as SMS message blasting with Google Voice, and several dozen turnkey Asterisk applications including a speech-to-text phonebook dialer, text-to-speech news, weather, tide, and stock reports, a conference bridge for MeetMe conferencing, NeoRouter and PPTP VPN support, SAMBA for Windows Networking, ODBC database integration, Telephone Reminders and Hotel-Style Wakeup Calls, CallerID Superfecta, PBX End Point Manager, and Wolfram Alpha to name but a few. With the addition of free Google Voice accounts, you still get free voice and fax calling in 2013 throughout the United States and Canada. And, yes, Incredible PBX 11 still installs and is ready to go in under 5 minutes on any Windows, Mac, Linux, or Solaris desktop.

The Ultimate VoIP Appliance: Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine for VirtualBox

We broke new ground in the virtual machine development arena last week with the introduction of the PIAF Virtual Machine. Today we take it to the next plateau with a turnkey VoIP appliance that can be deployed and functional in less time than it takes you to shave. Today’s Incredible PBX Virtual Machine still gives you everything a bare metal install from source code would have provided. And, most importantly, the components are truly portable. They can be copied to a 4GB flash drive1 for the price of a good hamburger and installed from there onto any type of machine that happens to be in front of you. Five minutes later, you have a fully functional Asterisk server with FreePBX and exactly the same feature set and source code that you would have had installing Incredible PBX onto a dedicated server. Before you ask any questions, we urge you to try this VoIP appliance for yourself. The install process is as easy as 1-2-3:

  1. Download and install VirtualBox onto a Desktop Machine of your choice
  2. Download and double-click on Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine to import it into VirtualBox
  3. Select the Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button

Introducing Oracle VM VirtualBox

Here’s a quick review if you missed our last article. VirtualBox®, Oracle’s virtual machine platform inherited from Sun, is really something. It’s not only free, but it’s pure GPL2 code. VirtualBox gives you a virtual machine platform that runs on top of any desktop operating system. In terms of limitations, we haven’t found any. We even tested this on an Atom-based Windows 7 machine with 2GB of RAM, and it worked without a hiccup. So step #1 is to download one or more of the VirtualBox installers from VirtualBox.org or Oracle.com. As mentioned, our recommendation is to put all of the 100MB installers on a 4GB thumb drive. Then you’ll have everything in one place whenever and wherever you happen to need it. Once you’ve downloaded the software, simply install it onto your favorite desktop machine. Accept all of the default settings, and you’ll be good to go. For details, here’s a link to Oracle’s VM VirtualBox User Manual.

Introducing Incredible PBX Virtual Machine

To get Incredible PBX VM installed on your desktop is quick and easy. Because the image tips the scales at over 2GB and due to the 2GB file size limit on many systems, we’ve chosen to split this download into two pieces. You need both of them. Just download them onto any flavor desktop from SourceForge. Once you’ve downloaded the two files, reassemble them into a single file known as an Open Virtualization Appliance (.ova). Then verify the checksums for the reassembled file to be sure everything is in its proper place. Finally, double-click on the .ova file which will initiate the import process into VirtualBox.

So let’s begin by downloading the two halves from SourceForge: INCREDIBLEPBX11aa and INCREDIBLEPBX11ab.

The reassembly procedure depends upon your desktop operating system. For Windows PCs, you’ll need to drop down to the Command Prompt, change to the directory in which you downloaded the two files, and type the following command:
 
copy /b INCREDIBLEPBX11aa + INCREDIBLEPBX11ab IncrediblePBX11.ova

To check the MD5/SHA1 checksums in Windows, download and run Microsoft’s File Checksum Integrity Verifier.

For Mac or Linux desktops, open a Terminal window, change to the directory in which you downloaded the two files, and type the following commands:
 
cat INCREDIBLEPBX11a{a..b} > IncrediblePBX11.ova
md5 IncrediblePBX11.ova (use md5sum for Linux)
openssl sha1 IncrediblePBX11.ova

The MD5 checksum for IncrediblePBX11.ova is b17655785ef00381ffd70899a19375f9. The SHA1 checksum is 86ccd31d64d3b51e10a8e7429548be6ce15ecd9b. If you have a match, proceed. Otherwise, rinse and repeat.

Importing Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine into VirtualBox

You only perform the import step one time. Once imported into VirtualBox, Incredible PBX is ready to use. There’s no further installation required, just like an OpenVZ template… only better. Double-click on the .ova file you downloaded to begin the procedure and load VirtualBox. When prompted, be sure to check the Reinitialize the Mac address of all network cards box. Read and accept the license agreement. Then click the Import button. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new IncrediblePBX11 virtual machine in your VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window. You need to make a couple of one-time adjustments to the IncrediblePBX11 Virtual Machine configuration to account for differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

Click on IncrediblePBX11 Virtual Machine in the VM List. Then click Settings -> Audio and check the Enable Audio option and choose your sound card. Save your setup by clicking the OK button. Next click Settings -> Network. For Adapter 1, check the Enable Network Adapter option. From the Attached to pull-down menu, choose Bridged Adapter. Then select your network card from the Name list. Then click OK to save your setup. Finally, click Settings -> System, uncheck Hardware clock in UTC time, and click OK. That’s all the configuration that is necessary for Incredible PBX Virtual Machine. If you blinked, you probably missed it.

Running Incredible PBX Virtual Machine in VirtualBox

Once you’ve imported and configured Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight the appliance in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The boot procedure with CentOS 6.3 will begin just as if you had installed PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX on a standalone machine. You’ll see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and Incredible PBX.

Here’s what you need to know. To work in the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, just left-click your mouse while it is positioned inside the VM window. To return to your host operating system desktop, press the right Option key on Windows machines or the left Command key on any Mac. For other operating systems, read the dialogue boxes for instructions on moving around. Always shut down Incredible PBX gracefully! Click in the VM window with your mouse, log in as root, and type: shutdown -h now. Or, from the VirtualBox Manager Window, Ctl-Click on the IncrediblePBX11 VM and choose Close -> ACPI Shutdown.

Always run Incredible PBX VM behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure!

Linux CLI Setup. To begin, position your mouse over the VM window and left-click. Once the virtual machine has booted, log in as root with password as the password. Change your root password immediately by typing passwd at the command prompt. Now set up a secure maint password for FreePBX as well. Type passwd-master. If you’re not in the Eastern U.S. time zone, then you’ll want to adjust your timezone setting so that reminders and other time-sensitive events happen at the correct time. Issue the following command to pick your time zone: /root/timezone-setup. If you plan to use Incredible Fax to send and receive faxes, set an email address for delivery of incoming faxes: /root/incrediblefax-setup. To use SMS messaging in Incredible PBX, you’ll need a Google Voice account which is covered below. Once you have your credentials, edit extensions_custom.conf in /etc/asterisk and insert your username and password in the 767 extension. To use SAMBA for Windows networking, replace the Interfaces IP address in /etc/samba/smb.conf with your actual IP address. Next, run smbpasswd and assign a password for root access to your server. Then restart SAMBA: service smb restart.

FreePBX Setup. Use a browser to log into your Incredible PBX server by pointing to the IP address of the virtual machine displayed in the status window of the CLI. Click on the User button to display the Admin choices in the Main PIAF Menu. Click on the FreePBX Admin option to load the FreePBX GUI. You will be prompted for a username and password. For the username, use maint. For the password, use whatever password you set up with passwd-master above.

You’ll want to keep FreePBX up to date. The easiest way is to configure FreePBX for email notifications when there are updates. In the FreePBX GUI, choose Admin -> Module Admin -> Upgrade Notifications and plug in your email address. Updates are installed in this same window. Click Check Online -> Upgrade All -> Process and Confirm. Scroll to the bottom of the Status window and click Return. Then click Apply Config. Now you try it.

GOOGLE VOICE ALERT: For old-timers that used the previous Google Voice module in FreePBX 2.x, it’s a little different in FreePBX 2.11. It now is called Google Voice (Motif), and you’ll find it under the Connectivity tab instead of the Other tab. More importantly, the form has changed. Do NOT check all 3 checkboxes as you did previously, or your incoming calls won’t be answered. Leave last checkbox "Send Unanswered to GoogleVoice Voicemail" UNCHECKED!!

Incredible PBX supports SIP, IAX, and Google Voice trunks to handle your outbound and incoming calls. The easiest way to get started it to set up a couple of Google Voice trunks, one for voice calls and one for faxing. These trunks must be dedicated for exclusive use with Incredible PBX. If you’re logged into these Google Voice accounts elsewhere, Incredible PBX won’t receive incoming calls. Read our Incredible PBX Quick Start Guide for the procedure to register for new Google Voice accounts. Once you have your credentials and phone numbers, choose Connectivity -> Google Voice in FreePBX to set up the accounts in FreePBX. For each trunk, you also need to set up an Inbound Route to tell FreePBX how to route the incoming calls. For your Fax trunk, here’s the drill. Choose Connectivity -> Inbound Routes. Insert your 10-digit Google Voice number in the DID Number field. Check Enable CID Superfecta and, for Set Destination, choose Custom Destinations -> Fax (HylaFax). Click Submit and then click Apply Config.

Before your Google Voice trunks will work reliably, there are two final steps. First, restart Asterisk from the Linux CLI: amportal restart. Then, make at least one outbound call using each Google Voice trunk.

We’ve preconfigured SIP trunks for all of the major VoIP providers in Incredible PBX. All you have to do is sign up for a few accounts. This isn’t like the old Ma Bell days so take advantage of the redundancy that using multiple VoIP providers gives you. There’s a very special offer from one of the major sponsors of the PBX in a Flash and Nerd Vittles projects below. Take advantage of it and support our open source projects.

1-7-13 Security Alert: We’ve just released Incredible PBX 11.1.2 which includes Asterisk 11.1.2 and the latest FreePBX 2.11 beta. The Asterisk Dev Team announced a serious security vulnerability in Asterisk 1.8, 10, and 11 late last week. This update addresses that. You can read all about it in the readme file on SourceForge. If you still are using an earlier version of Incredible PBX 11, make certain that it is behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure. And you should immediately patch your server or, better yet, switch to this new release.

Now read the latest Incredible PBX Quick Start Guide and begin your VoIP adventure. Then you’ll want to do some reading on VirtualBox. We’ve barely scratched the surface. Setting up Headless VMs that run in the background on any server is a breeze. From the command line, here’s an article to get you started. But you also can start Headless VMs from within the GUI by highlighting the VM and clicking Shift->Start. REMEMBER: Always shut down VMs gracefully: Close->ACPI Shutdown. You’ll find more great tips at virtualbox.org and GitHub.

One of the real beauties of VirtualBox is you don’t have to use a GUI at all. The entire process can be driven from the command line. Other than on a Mac, here is the procedure to import, configure, and run Incredible PBX 11 Virtual Machine:
 
VBoxManage import IncrediblePBX11.ova
VBoxManage modifyvm "IncrediblePBX11" --nic1 nat
VBoxManage modifyvm "IncrediblePBX11" --acpi on --nic1 bridged
VBoxHeadless --startvm "IncrediblePBX11" &
# Wait 1 minute for IncrediblePBX11 to load. Then decipher IP address like this:
VBoxManage guestproperty get "IncrediblePBX11" /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP
# Now you can use SSH to login to IncrediblePBX11 at the displayed IP address
# Shutdown the IncrediblePBX11 Virtual Machine with the following command:
VBoxManage controlvm "IncrediblePBX11" acpipowerbutton

On a Mac, everything works the same way except for deciphering the IP address. Download our findip script for that.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Originally published: Friday, December 21, 2012 Updated: Saturday, December 22, 2012



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. []

The 5-Minute PBX: PIAF Virtual Machine for VirtualBox (Windows, Mac, or Linux)

For most of us, today marks the last time we’ll ever see the day, month, and year line up on the calendar in perfect harmony so Happy 12-12-12 to everyone. It’ll be 88+ years before it happens again. And the Mayans believe the world will be ending in 9 more days so there may be no need to worry about the 88 years anyway. Whatever happens, it seemed like an appropriate time to take stock of how we’re doing in the development of the Perfect PBX™. Such an assessment, of course, is in the eyes of the beholder. From our perspective, in addition to being feature-rich, it has to have three components: ease of installation, ease of use, and flexibility. The first two are self-explanatory but flexibility needs some explanation. Flexibility to us means a feature set that’s appealing not only to those just beginning the journey but also to those of us that need to make frequent changes and additions to the platform to keep it current or make it better. After all, that’s what open source is all about.

The real beauty of PBX in a Flash has not been that someone with sufficient expertise couldn’t assemble something just as good or even better. Watch the AstriCon presentations from this year if you have any doubts. The beauty of PIAF is it puts this technology down where the goats can get it. It provides a toolset that encourages further development by simplifying the learning curve for a broad cross-section of the VoIP community while not compromising functionality or flexibility. The source code for the major components is included in the build so you can customize and recompile Asterisk or load a new version of Asterisk or any additional Linux app in minutes without losing your existing setup.

As many of you know, we have literally hundreds of gurus on the PIAF Forum. That doesn’t mean any particular person or group knows everything. It’s merely a designation that a particular individual is an expert at something. The collective wisdom of the group is what makes PBX in a Flash as a project better because we’ve put in place a platform that experts from many different disciplines can build upon without needing to learn everything about everything. Simply stated, you can be a terrific chef without knowing how to build a stove!

Turning to Asterisk® 11 and FreePBX® 2.11, from everything we’re seeing, these new releases are shaping up to be a remarkable step forward both in terms of toolset and in the new mindset of the development community. That’s a good thing. For our part, we’ve wanted to get our latest preview release of PBX in a Flash with CentOS 6.3, Asterisk 11 and the new FreePBX 2.11 beta into as many hands as possible keeping in mind the objectives we outlined above.

The Ultimate VoIP Appliance: PIAF Virtual Machine for VirtualBox

Today brings us to a new plateau in the virtual machine development era. Thanks to the masterful work of Tom King on PBX in a Flash 2.0.6.3.1, we’re pleased to introduce a new product that can be installed in under 5 minutes and will run on any Windows PC, Mac, or Linux machine as well as Solaris. And, unlike the dedicated machine platforms and OpenVZ compromises of years past, today’s PIAF Virtual Machine gives you everything a bare metal install from source code would have provided. Most importantly, the components are truly portable. They can be copied to a 4GB flash drive1 for the price of a good hamburger and installed from there onto any type of machine that happens to be in front of you. Five minutes later, you have a fully functional Asterisk server with FreePBX and exactly the same feature set and source code that you would have had doing a bare metal PIAF install to a dedicated server. And we’ve built both a production-ready PIAF-Purple VM with Asterisk 1.8 and FreePBX 2.10 as well as a Pioneer edition PIAF-Green VM with Asterisk 11 and FreePBX 2.11 beta. The choice is yours. No Internet access required to perform the install. Sound too good to be true? Keep reading or, better yet, try the PIAF appliance for yourself. The install process is simple:

  1. Download and install VirtualBox onto a Desktop Machine of your choice
  2. Download and double-click on the PIAF Virtual Machine to import it into VirtualBox
  3. Select the PIAF Virtual Machine in VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button

Introducing Oracle VM VirtualBox

We’re late to the party, but Virtual Box®, Oracle’s virtual machine platform inherited from Sun, is really something. It’s not only free, but it’s pure GPL2 code. VirtualBox gives you a virtual machine platform that runs on top of any desktop operating system. In terms of limitations, we haven’t found any. We even tested this on an Atom-based Windows 7 machine with 2GB of RAM, and it worked without a hiccup. So step #1 is to download one or more of the VirtualBox installers from VirtualBox.org or Oracle.com. As mentioned, our recommendation is to put all of the 100MB installers on a 4GB thumb drive. Then you’ll have everything in one place whenever and wherever you happen to need it. Once you’ve downloaded the software, simply install it onto your favorite desktop machine. Accept all of the default settings, and you’ll be good to go. For more details, here’s a link to the Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual.

Introducing the PIAF Virtual Machine

We’ll walk you through installing the PIAF-Green Virtual Machine. It’s basically the same procedure with PIAF-Purple except you get to skip the reassembly step since the PIAF-Purple.ova image is only 1.3GB.

The PIAF-Green Virtual Machine tips the scales at over 2GB. Because of the 2GB file size limit on many systems, we’ve chosen to split this download into two pieces. You need both of them. Just download them onto any flavor desktop from SourceForge. Once you’ve downloaded the two files, we need to reassemble them into a single file known as an Open Virtualization Appliance (.ova). Then verify the checksums for the reassembled file to be sure everything is in its proper place. Finally, we’ll double-click on the .ova file which will initiate the import process into VirtualBox.

So let’s begin by downloading the two halves of PIAF-Green from SourceForge: PIAFGREENaa and PIAFGREENab. If you’d prefer production-ready code, just download PIAF-Purple.ova and skip the reassembly step. There’s also a new surprise offering that’s covered in the comments to this article. 🙂

The reassembly procedure depends upon your desktop operating system. For Windows PCs, you’ll need to drop down to the Command Prompt, change to the directory in which you downloaded the two files, and type the following command:
 
copy /b PIAFGREENaa + PIAFGREENab PIAF-Green.ova

To check the MD5/SHA1 checksums in Windows, download and run Microsoft’s File Checksum Integrity Verifier.

For Mac or Linux desktops, open a Terminal window, change to the directory in which you downloaded the two files, and type the following commands:
 
cat PIAFGREENa{a..b} > PIAF-Green.ova
md5 PIAF-Green.ova (use md5sum for Linux)
openssl sha1 PIAF-Green.ova

The correct MD5 checksum for PIAF-Green ( PIAF-Green.ova) is a86a018466c7045372e51100cddd42ea. For PIAF-Purple.ova, it’s 664b1afe75c3b1877029531b0fe28063. The correct SHA1 checksum for PIAF-Green is d883c5e137ac19ecb45c1e6f127180b78a9cd0af. For PIAF-Purple, it’s 15f94352745ca989fd9939d9a8ee8b765fc8388c. If you have a match, proceed. Otherwise, rinse and repeat.

Importing the PIAF Virtual Machine into VirtualBox

You only perform the import step one time. Once imported into VirtualBox, PBX in a Flash is ready to use. There’s no further installation required, just like an OpenVZ template… only better. Double-click on the .ova file you downloaded to begin the procedure and load VirtualBox. When prompted, be sure to check the Reinitialize the Mac address of all network cards box and then click the Import button. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new PIAF virtual machine in your VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window. Regardless of flavor, you’ll need to make a couple of one-time adjustments to the PIAF Virtual Machine configuration to account for differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

Click on the PIAF Virtual Machine in the VM List. Then click Settings -> Audio and check the Enable Audio option and choose your sound card. Save your setup by clicking the OK button. Next click Settings -> Network. For Adapter 1, check the Enable Network Adapter option. From the Attached to pull-down menu, choose Bridged Adapter. Then select your network card from the Name list. Then click OK. Finally, click Settings -> System, uncheck Hardware clock in UTC time, and click OK. That’s all the configuration that is necessary for your PIAF Virtual Machine. The rest is automagic.

Running the PIAF Virtual Machine in VirtualBox

Once you’ve imported and configured the PIAF Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight PIAF Virtual Machine in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The PIAF boot procedure with CentOS 6.3 will begin just as if you had installed PBX in a Flash on a standalone machine. You’ll see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and your PIAF VM.

Here’s what you need to know. To work in the PIAF Virtual Machine, just left-click your mouse while it is positioned inside the VM window. To return to your host operating system desktop, press the right Option key on Windows machines or the left Command key on any Mac. For other operating systems, read the dialogue boxes for instructions on moving around. Always shut down PIAF gracefully! Click in the VM window with your mouse, log in as root, and type: shutdown -h now.

Run the PIAF Virtual Machine behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure!

To begin, position your mouse over the VM window and left-click. Once the PIAF VM has booted, log in as root with password as the password. Change your root password immediately by typing passwd at the command prompt. Now set up a secure maint password for FreePBX as well. Type passwd-master. If you’re not in the Eastern U.S. time zone, then you’ll want to adjust your timezone setting so that reminders and other time-sensitive events happen at the correct time. While logged into your server as root, issue these commands to download and run the timezone-setup script:

cd /root
wget http://pbxinaflash.com/timezone-setup.tar.gz
tar zxvf timezone-setup.tar.gz
./timezone-setup

Next, use a browser to log into your PIAF server by pointing to the IP address of the PIAF VM that’s displayed in the status window of the CLI. Click on the User button to display the Admin choices in the main PIAF Menu. Click on the FreePBX option to load the FreePBX GUI. You will be prompted for an Apache username and password. For the username, use maint. For the password, use whatever password you set up with passwd-master.

Now read the latest PIAF Quick Start Guide and begin your VoIP adventure. Then you’ll want to do some reading on VirtualBox. We’ve barely scratched the surface. Setting up Headless VMs that run in the background on any server is a breeze. From the command line, here’s an article to get you started. But you also can start Headless VMs from within the GUI by highlighting the VM and clicking Shift->Start. Always shut down VMs gracefully: Close->ACPI Shutdown. You’ll find more great tips at virtualbox.org and GitHub.

One of the real beauties of VirtualBox is you don’t have to use a GUI at all. The entire process can be driven from the command line. Other than on a Mac, here is the procedure to import, configure, and run PIAF-Purple Virtual Machine:
 
VBoxManage import PIAF-Purple.ova
VBoxManage modifyvm "PIAF-Purple" --nic1 nat
VBoxManage modifyvm "PIAF-Purple" --acpi on --nic1 bridged
VBoxHeadless --startvm "PIAF-Purple" &
# Wait 1 minute for PIAF-Purple to load. Then decipher IP address like this:
VBoxManage guestproperty get "PIAF-Purple" /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP
# Now you can use SSH to login to PIAF-Purple at the displayed IP address
# Shutdown the PIAF-Purple Virtual Machine with the following command:
VBoxManage controlvm "PIAF-Purple" acpipowerbutton

On a Mac, everything works the same way except for deciphering the IP address. Download our findip script for that.

Enjoy!

Originally published: Wednesday, December 12, 2012



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…

  1. Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. []

5 Minute PBX With Any Virtual Machine

For those with an existing virtual machine platform either at home or at the office, today is your lucky day. We have an Incredible PBX image for VirtualBox, VMware, Proxmox, Windows WSL, Mac UTM, and Linux Containers LXC that will have an Asterisk® PBX with FreePBX® up and running in less than 5 minutes. If you’ve ever wanted to kick the tires on a fully-loaded, secure PBX that offers virtually every telephony feature on the planet, now’s your chance. And it’s FREE!

If you’d prefer to let someone else worry about hardware maintenance, networking, and power outages, we’ve even got an Incredible PBX offering in the Cloud that will only set you back $25 a year in your choice of locations: Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Germany, or The Netherlands. And that includes a free backup for a rainy day. Start here.

For those that are new to the open source community, finding free software is pretty easy. Finding good documentation to accompany it is more of a challenge. With Incredible PBX, you get both. My previous employer spent well over $150,000 for a PBX with less than half the features you’ll find in Incredible PBX out of the box. And you’ll never have to worry about upcharges every time you add a feature or an additional user or extension. Pick your free virtual machine platform below and enjoy the ride.

Incredible PBX 2027 for VirtualBox

For VirtualBox platforms, start by downloading the latest Incredible PBX 2027 .ova image from the Incredible PBX repository. You have a choice of operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 11. Then read our VirtualBox tutorial for setup and usage tips.

Incredible PBX 2027 for VMware

For VMware, start by downloading the latest VMware image for Incredible PBX 2027 and Ubuntu 22.04. Then read our VMware tutorial for setup and usage tips.

Incredible PBX 2027 for Proxmox 7

Our Incredible PBX 2027-U for Proxmox 7 tutorial will walk you through setting up a Proxmox server and building Incredible PBX 2027 virtual machines with Ubuntu® 22.04, Asterisk® 20, and FreePBX® 16 in minutes using a powerful little MiniPC.

Incredible PBX 2027 for Windows 11 WSL

If you’re strapped for cash and simply want to use an existing Windows 11 computer as the virtual machine host for Incredible PBX, you have a couple of options. First, you can install VirtualBox on your machine and follow the VirtualBox tutorial above. Another options is to deploy Microsoft’s own virtual machine platform for Windows 11. It’s called Windows 11 Subsystem for Linux (WSL). You’ll find step-by-step install instructions in this Nerd Vittles tutorial.

Incredible PBX 2027 for Mac UTM

With Apple’s new, proprietary processors, the days of using VirtualBox on a Mac are over. But, fear not. Apple has introduced their own virtualization platform: Mac UTM. You’ll find step-by-step instructions to deploy both UTM and Incredible PBX in this Nerd Vittles tutorial. For older Intel-based Macs, you still can deploy Incredible PBX with VirtualBox.

Incredible PBX 2027 for Linux Containers LXC

For those of you that have kissed Windows and Mac desktops goodbye, there’s now a virtualization platform for Linux desktop computers as well. You’ll find our tutorial for Linux LXC Containers here. You won’t be disappointed.

Adding a $1 a Month Phone Number with Free Incoming Calls

Last, but not least, let us point you to two of the best deals on the planet when it comes to acquiring a telephone number for your PBX with free incoming calls. CallCentric offers $1 a month residential DID with free incoming SIP calls. And a similar deal is available from LocalPhone with up to 100 free incoming calls of unlimited duration every day. We use both services and have never experienced an outage in over 10 years.

Originally published: Wednesday, January 24, 2024



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Deploying a Free Turnkey Phone System



To say the New Year is ushering in a scaled back constituency for self-managed telephony systems would be an understatement. Much of this migration from Asterisk® can be traced directly to the proliferation of cell phones coupled with the expansion of Zoom and Microsoft Teams deployments thanks to the COVID nightmare.

Despite Sangoma’s best efforts to commercialize Asterisk and FreePBX®, we think there’s still a place for free systems especially turnkey Asterisk PBX deployments that can coexist on Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops. For today, we’ll point you to tutorials that will let you download and then install a turnkey platform of your choice in just a couple minutes.

For Windows 11 and Zorin desktops, you can deploy Incredible PBX 2027 for Debian 11 and run it under VirtualBox. If you prefer an Ubuntu platform for Incredible PBX 2027, a tutorial is available here as well. If you’re using a Zorin desktop, keep in mind that VirtualBox must be reinstalled before use:

apt remove virtualbox-dkms
apt install virtualbox-dkms

Another turnkey Asterisk PBX option for Windows 11 desktops is WSL. Complete instructions for deployment and use are available here.

For Mac users, the available turnkey option of Incredible PBX depends upon whether you’re using an older Intel-based machine or a newer machine with Apple silicon.For Intel platforms, VirtualBox is an ideal platform for Incredible PBX 2027. For newer Macs with M1, M2, or M3 processors, simply deploy Incredible PBX with the UTM application.

Finally, for Linux desktops (and we prefer Zorin), you have two options. As noted above, you can deploy Incredible PBX with VirtualBox. For real-time performance, we prefer deployments using LXC Containers.

We’ll close with a few tips for the new year as you begin your new journey into the world of free Asterisk PBX telephony. Unlike some of the commercial offerings, the Incredible PBX platform offers a variety of support options. You can get first-hand support and hand-holding on the VoIP-Info.org Forum. Second, the Incredible PBX Wiki offers literally hundreds of tutorials and recommendations on every subject imaginable. Finally, the Incredible PBX Repository has download links for every platform and every script that has ever been produced.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Originally published: Sunday, December 31, 2023



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Virtualization Trifecta: $500 Buys a Perfect Hosting Platform



We’ve been raving about Zorin OS 16 last month as the best desktop operating system available. And today we combine it with a $500 MiniPC to provide not one, but three, virtualization platforms with a single machine. You get LXC Linux Containers, VirtualBox, and the Windows 11 WSL platform all rolled into one dual-boot desktop PC. On the Linux side with Zorin OS 16, you can run multiple LXC containers (shown above) and VirtualBox virtual machines simultaneously. And on the Windows 11 platform, you get the Windows Subsystem for Linux in addition to VirtualBox. For those clamoring for a multi-tenant Asterisk®, our question is why when you can securely run standalone platforms for each tenant on one PC.

Because UEFI protections have complicated deployment of Linux on Windows 11 platforms, the secret sauce to make this magic happen is finding a hardware supplier who has elected not to cripple Linux deployment. There may be others and feel free to post a comment sharing your successes, but our favorite supplier is MINISFORUM with their Venus Series of MiniPCs. We obviously haven’t tested all of their offerings, but we are actively using the NAB6 Mini PC featuring a 12th Gen Core i7-12650H processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe4.0 SSD. It’s available on Amazon today for $440. If you’re in the market for a gaming platform as well, the UM690 has gotten rave reviews and looks like a good fit for under $600.

As frequent visitors to our site know, referral revenue from Amazon helps keep the lights on at Nerd Vittles, but we also eat our own dog food. We recommend products we actually use.

Installing Incredible PBX 2027 with Windows 11 WSL

Let’s start with an easy virtualization platform, the Windows 11 Subsystem for Linux. To save you having to jump around behind tutorials, here’s a quick refresher on the process.

To get started, you’ll need Windows 11 (build 22000.*) or Windows 11 Insider Preview (builds 21362+) using any hardware platform that supports Windows 11. To begin, from the Windows 11 Start Menu, Search for powershell. Right click on the app and choose Run As Administrator.

Here are some wsl commands you’ll want to keep handy:

List Available Linux Offerings  : wsl --list --online
Show Installed Linux Platforms  : wsl -l -v
Install a Linux Virtual Machine : wsl --install -d {distro}
Startup a Linux Virtual Machine : wsl -d {distro}
Shutdown Running Virtual Machine: wsl --terminate {distro}
Remove any Linux Virtual Machine: wsl --unregister {distro}
Backup any Linux Virtual Machine: wsl --export {distro} {filename.tar}
Restore a Linux Virtual Machine : wsl --import {distro} {filename.tar}

Let’s begin by installing an Ubuntu Virtual Machine: wsl --install -d Ubuntu-22.04. You’ll be prompted to create a user account and password, e.g. nerd and password. If you’re not prompted to create a user account, reboot your Windows machine and reopen the Ubuntu-22.04 app from the Start menu. That will straighten things out. Once the Ubuntu CLI window appears, enter the following commands to set up the root user account and begin your Incredible PBX install. Then go have a very long cup of coffee.

sudo passwd root
su root
# enter password you created for root
cd ~
apt install wget -y
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2027-U-Win11.sh
chmod +x IncrediblePBX2027-U-Win11.sh
./IncrediblePBX2027-U-Win11.sh

While you’re waiting, notice that the Windows Start Menu now includes a new Ubuntu app which you will use to launch the Incredible PBX 2027-U virtual machine down the road.

When the install finishes, reboot.

Keep in mind that Incredible PBX will be running as an Ubuntu-22.04 virtual machine under Windows 11. So it’s important to know how to start things up and shut things down. As with any operating system, you don’t want to simply pull the plug and risk damaging both the file system and your MySQL databases.


To start the Ubuntu-22.04 virtual machine, you can do it in either of two ways. From the Windows Start Menu, double-click on the Ubuntu-22.04 app. Or from the PowerShell running as Administrator, type: wsl -d Ubuntu-22.04. Verify it’s running like this: wsl -l -v

Once the Ubuntu CLI appears, issue the following commands to activate all of the Linux components upon which Incredible PBX depends:

su root
# enter root password
cd ~
./update-IncrediblePBX
pbxstatus
# if pbxstatus shows non-fax apps down 
# then run startup below
./startup
pbxstatus

The LAN IP address is only accessible from your Windows machine. To run the Automatic Update Utility, you’ll need to SSH into this LAN address from the PowerShell running as Administrator where 172.19.180.143 is the LAN address shown in pbxstatus:

ssh root@172.19.180.143

To shutdown the Ubuntu-22.04 virtual machine, first open the Ubuntu-22.04 app and switch to the root user. Issue the halt command. This gracefully shuts down Asterisk, MySQL, and Apache. When the script completes, return to the PowerShell and issue this command to halt the virtual machine: wsl --terminate Ubuntu-22.04

Deploying OpenVPN with Incredible PBX. We strongly recommend deploying an OpenVPN client as part of your WSLg install and also on the Windows 11 desktop. It will simplify access to the server both from within Windows and also from any external source without having to wrestle with your firewall settings. This Incredible PBX Wiki article will walk you through creation of an OpenVPN Server platform, and this Incredible PBX Wiki article will walk you through the OpenVPN Client setup process. Simply name your Ubuntu .ovpn config file incrediblepbx.ovpn and save it in the /etc directory for automatic startup.

CAUTION: Be sure to create and use a separate .ovpn configuration file for your Windows desktop including these additional settings documented in the Wiki:

pull-filter ignore redirect-gateway
route-nopull
route 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0

Installing Incredible PBX with VirtualBox & Windows 11

Oracle’s virtual machine platform inherited from Sun is amazing. It’s not only free, but it’s pure GPL2 code. VirtualBox gives you a virtual machine platform that runs on top of many desktop operating systems including Linux, Windows, and Intel-based Macs. In terms of limitations, we haven’t found any. We even tested this on an Atom-based Windows 7 machine with 2GB of RAM, and it worked without a hiccup. So step #1 today is to download one or more of the VirtualBox 6.1 installers. Our recommendation is to put all of these 100MB installers on a USB thumb drive.1 Then you’ll have everything in one place whenever and wherever you happen to need it. Once you’ve downloaded the software, install it onto your Windows 11 desktop. Accept all of the default settings, and you’ll be good to go. For more details, here’s a link to the Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual.

NOTE: A VirtualBox 6.1 platform is required with Windows 11. Adjust screen size in View -> Virtual Screen.

To install Incredible PBX, download the Incredible PBX 2027-D image with Debian 11 (3.7 GB) or the Incredible PBX 2027-U image with Ubuntu 22.04 onto your desktop.

Next, double-click on the Incredible PBX .ova image on your desktop. Be sure to check the box to initialize the MAC address of the image if you’re using an older version of VirtualBox. Then click Import. Once the import is finished, you’ll see a new Incredible PBX 2027 virtual machine in the VM List of the VirtualBox Manager Window. Let’s make a couple of one-time adjustments to the Incredible PBX configuration to account for possible differences in sound and network cards on different host machines.

(1) Click once on the Incredible PBX 2027 virtual machine in the VM List. Then (2) click the Settings button. In System tab, check Hardware Clock in UTC Time. In the Audio tab, check the Enable Audio option and choose your sound card. In the Network tab for Adapter 1, check the Enable Network Adapter option. From the Attached to pull-down menu, choose Bridged Adapter. Then select your network card from the Name list. Then click OK. That’s all the configuration that is necessary for Incredible PBX.

Once you’ve imported and configured the Incredible PBX Virtual Machine, you’re ready to go. Highlight the Incredible PBX 2027 virtual machine in the VM List on the VirtualBox Manager Window and click the Start button. The standard Linux boot procedure will begin and, within a few seconds, you’ll get the familiar Linux login prompt. During the bootstrap procedure, you may see a couple of dialogue boxes pop up that explain the keystrokes to move back and forth between your host operating system desktop and your virtual machine. Remember, you still have full access to your desktop computer. Incredible PBX 2027 is merely running as a task in a VM window. Always gracefully halt Incredible PBX just as you would on any computer.

Here’s what you need to know. To work in the Incredible PBX virtual machine, just left-click your mouse while it is positioned inside the VM window. To return to your host operating system desktop, press the right Option key on Windows machines or the left Command key on any Mac. On Linux desktops, press the right Ctrl key. For other operating systems, read the dialogue boxes for instructions on moving around. To access the Linux CLI, login as root with the default password: password.

Deploying Incredible PBX with VirtualBox on Zorin

Now let’s reboot your machine and choose Zorin as the platform to load. The Incredible PBX setup is similar to the process used with Windows 11, but UEFI machines are temperamental about which non-Windows apps can run. To enable VirtualBox on the Zorin platform, here are the steps. First, run the Terminal app and reinstall VirtualBox:

apt remove virtualbox-dkms
apt install virtualbox-dkms

You’ll be prompted to set up a password for your new VirtualBox UEFI key (8 characters). Then reboot and register the new key when prompted. Enter the password when prompted. Now run VirtualBox from the Applications menu, and you should be good to go.

Once you have VirtualBox running successfully, you can install Incredible PBX 2027. Using the Firefox browser, download the IncrediblePBX2027-U with Ubuntu 22.04 image or the IncrediblePBX2027-D with Debian 11 image to your Downloads folder. From the File Manager, double-click on the .ova image to install it into VirtualBox. Click RUN to start up Incredible PBX 2027. The rest of the setup process is the same as what we described for Windows 11.

Deploying Linux Containers Using Static Routes

The beauty of Linux Containers is they run natively sharing the Linux kernel. So performance is outstanding. But, unlike VirtualBox, there is no simple way to create a Linux Container that obtains a DHCP address from the LAN’s DHCP server, so called bridge mode. This is especially true if your Zorin host is connected wirelessly. Read both of those sentences again to make sure you understand the network limitation of Linux Containers. Simply stated, networking with Linux Containers functions much like the NAT (as opposed to Bridge) option in VirtualBox. Here’s what that means.

Linux Containers are created on their own private subnet. If you wish to access them from a different device on the same LAN shared with your Zorin desktop hosting your Linux Containers, the simplest method is to create a static route to the private LXC subnet either on your LAN’s router or ON EVERY LAN DEVICE that needs to connect to your Linux Containers.

Here are the Mac and Linux commands to create, delete, and list static routes on the other LAN devices where 10.0.3.0 is the LXC subnet hosting the Linux Containers and 192.168.0.167 is the LAN address of the Zorin host PC:

sudo route add -net 10.0.3.0/24 192.168.0.167
sudo route -n delete 10.0.3.0
netstat -rn

Here are the Windows commands to create, delete, and list the same:

route add 10.0.3.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.167
route delete 10.0.3.0
route print

Deploying Linux Containers on the Primary LAN

If you are dead set in wanting to configure your Linux Containers to use IP addresses on the same subnet as your primary LAN, keep in mind that DHCP will not work for Linux Containers on a secured wireless network. For a tutorial on setting this up using static IP addresses, go here. It’s the only alternative that works.

Deploying Linux Containers with OpenVPN

A less painful way to accomplish the same thing is to install OpenVPN clients in your Linux Containers. To do this, you first must enable tun for Linux Containers. On your Zorin host machine, create a new 00-openvpn.conf file in /usr/share/lxc/config/common.conf.d:

lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:200 rwm
lxc.mount.entry = /dev/net dev/net none bind,create=dir 0 0
lxc.mount.entry = /dev/net/tun dev/net/tun none bind,create=file

Next, create an OpenVPN client config file for your Linux Container on your OpenVPN server. Now start up the Linux Container, switch to the root user, and copy the new config file (.ovpn) into the /etc folder naming it openvpn2027.ovpn. Then restart the Linux Container and wait for about 10 seconds for the OpenVPN client to load. Running pbxstatus now will show the OpenVPN IP address in your LAN listing, and the Linux Container is accessible from any device on your OpenVPN virtual private network.


Originally published: Monday, October 2, 2023



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



  1. Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. []

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Compromise All FreePBX Systems



If you’re a user of Asterisk® and FreePBX®, the DEFCON 31 Conference in Las Vegas did not disappoint this year. It exposed not one but three critical, unpatched vulnerabilities in affected FreePBX-based platforms that can compromise your servers in under a minute. I would hasten to add that all of these vulnerabilities were disclosed to Sangoma® months ago and remain unaddressed for months. What this meant was a hacker could easily get administrator privileges on your server with a blank check to make free calls on your nickel or further infect your server with additional hidden components.




 

How Vulnerable Are You? Here’s a quick summary of the bugs documented in the presentation above. If you expose a port on your server to configure SIP phones, you’re compromised. If your users have public IP access to the User Control Panel (UCP), you’re compromised. Any user can delete any asterisk-owned file from your server. Use a Digium® or Sangoma® VoIP phone? You’re compromised. Actually, all you need is the MAC address of one of these phones and its password login and the User-Agent header of any Digium Phone (Digium D60 2_7_0), and you’re compromised if the dphone API RestApp is running on your server. Are you running the API module in FreePBX with public IP address access to your server? You’re compromised because of a bug in the generateDocumentation function. These are classic command injection and authentication bypass issues in FreePBX that can even be triggered from the bad guys’ servers using generated access tokens.


Sangoma, Sangoma. Wherefore Art Thou? You can read all about Sangoma’s Bug Bounty Program here. It was conveniently deleted immediately after this zero-day vulnerability was reported. We’ve reproduced the page from the Wayback Machine. So what happened? According to the good pseudonym researcher, not much. Aside from an initial response indicating that the bugs had been addressed, there was never a follow-up response when the researcher advised that the patches did not work.




 

What Can You Do? Your safest bet is to switch to a security model that does not expose your server or its assets to the public Internet. Incredible PBX is an out-of-the-box platform that provides this security. It’s available for Rocky 8 (not recommended), Debian 11, Ubuntu 22.04 as well as virtualization platforms including VirtualBox, VMware, Proxmox, Windows WSLg, LXC Linux Containers, and Apple’s UTM platform. OpenVPN is also strongly recommended.

At the very minimum, put your server behind a hardware-based firewall with no public Internet exposure until these bugs are properly resolved. You’ve been warned!

Follow updated comments on this issue on the FreePBX Forum and the VoIP-info.org Forum.

Originally published: Sunday, September 17, 2023    Updated: October 13, 2023



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.
 



Introducing Incredible PBX 2027 for LXC Linux Containers



We introduced Zorin OS in our recent review of the latest Acer Aspire 5 notebook PC. If you’ve never heard of Zorin, it’s probably the best desktop operating system available. While it is Linux-based, it can look like any desktop you’re already familiar with including Windows 11 and even a Mac if you spring for the $39 Pro version. It can be installed on as many PCs as you personally own, and Zorin Pro provides an incredible assortment of apps including the full LibreOffice suite, VirtualBox, music apps including Clementine, video streaming with VLC Media Player, Gnome’s Gmail, Firefox, and a number of free photo editing tools. In short, any app that will run under Ubuntu will run under Zorin. If you’re a diehard OpenVPN fan like us, it works swimmingly under Zorin and is a breeze to install.


After walking you through a Zorin install, we want to introduce you to a new Linux virtualization solution called LXC Linux Containers. It offers many of the same features you’d find in the OpenVZ cloud platform including shared kernel access and almost instantaneous startups. On the Zorin platform, it’s a one-minute setup procedure. We’ve even built Incredible PBX 2027 LXC images for both Debian 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 servers so you can bring up one or more full-featured unified communications platforms in a matter of minutes.

Preparing Zorin 16 Installation Media

Prepare a USB stick after downloading the Zorin 16 ISO of your choice. The easiest method is to download and install balenaEtcher on your desktop machine. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Insert your USB stick into your desktop computer and then run the balenaEtcher app. Choose your Zorin ISO after clicking Flash from File. Choose your USB stick from Select Target. Be sure you don’t accidentally choose your desktop’s main drive! Click the Flash button to begin. Once the ISO is transferred, gracefully eject your USB stick from your desktop machine.

Configuring Windows 11 for Dual-Boot

We won’t bore you with a tutorial on setting up Windows 11. It works much the same way on almost any modern computer. Once you get Windows 11 installed, the only change we need to make is to shrink the main Windows partition so that there is some room to install and use Zorin. For Lenovo and HP machines, don’t waste your time trying to get Zorin installed. It won’t. For other machines, from the Windows desktop, tap the Windows key and Search for “Create and format hard disk partitions”. Highlight your main Windows drive, usually called “OS (C:)”. Control-tap on the Touchpad or Right-Click your mouse in that partition and select “Shrink Volume”. Choose the amount of space to shrink the Windows partition and allocate to Zorin. We chose 250GB, but that’s your call. Reboot your machine for the changes to take effect. When the boot logo appears, press F2 repeatedly to enter the BIOS setup. Click on the Security tab and set a Supervisor Password. No other changes are necessary. If you can disable UEFI do so, but it’s not required. In the boot options, specify your USB drive as the primary boot source so we can install Zorin from a USB stick. Move to the Exit tab and choose Exit and Save Changes to initiate a reboot.

Installing Zorin 16 on a Desktop PC

Now we’re ready to install Zorin on your desktop machine. Insert the USB stick and turn on or reboot the computer. If the machine doesn’t boot Zorin from the USB stick, you may need to make the USB port your primary boot device in the BIOS settings. Choose the LIVE Session option to make sure Zorin will start on your machine. Also make sure you can configure WiFi in the Settings -> Network tab. If all goes well, click the Install Zorin link on the desktop to install Zorin onto your empty partition when prompted. Upon reboot, if UEFI is enabled, be sure to register Zorin in the UEFI whitelist when prompted. In some BIOS configurations, you may need to set NVME:ubuntu as Primary in the Boot setup’s Drive Priorities after installing Zorin. This was the case on our favorite MiniPC desktop, the MINISFORUM Venus Series NAB6 Mini PC (shown below). Now reboot and choose Zorin from the dual-boot menu.


One final tip. If you’ve activated OpenVPN on your Zorin 16 machine, all of the LXC Containers can connect to other OpenVPN servers without the need to install an OpenVPN client on each of the LXC Containers.

Setting Up LXC Containers on a Linux Desktop

1. After loading Zorin, drop down to the Terminal window from the desktop. If you haven’t previously configured the root user account, issue the following commands:

#Set up a very secure root password
sudo passwd root
# Login as root with your root password
su root

2. Install the LXC Linux Container components:

su root
apt install lxc lxc-templates lxctl
lxc-checkconfig

3. Download, install, and configure an IncrediblePBX2027-U LXC container (3GB):

su root
cd /
wget https://filedn.com/lBgbGypMOdDm8PWOoOiBR7j/IncrediblePBX2027-LinuxContainers/iPBX2027U.tar.gz
tar zxvf iPBX2027U.tar.gz
lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-U
lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-U
/etc/profile.d/helloworld.sh
reboot
su root
cd ~
pbxstatus
./update-IncrediblePBX
passwd root
./admin-pw-change
./apache-pw-change
./timezone-setup

4. Download, install, and configure an IncrediblePBX2027-D LXC container (3GB):

su root
cd /
wget https://filedn.com/lBgbGypMOdDm8PWOoOiBR7j/IncrediblePBX2027-LinuxContainers/iPBX2027D.tar.gz
tar zxvf iPBX2027D.tar.gz
lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
/etc/profile.d/helloworld.sh
reboot
su root
cd ~
pbxstatus
./update-IncrediblePBX
passwd root
./admin-pw-change
./apache-pw-change
./timezone-setup

5. Every time you start or restart the container, be sure to issue these commands:

iptables-restart
fwconsole restart
/root/update-IncrediblePBX
pbxstatus

Mastering LXC Container Commands

Here’s a quick list of the main LXC Container commands together with examples:

Switch to root user to begin or add sudo prefix to every command!

1. List LXC Containers: lxc-ls
2. Start LXC Container: lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
3. Information about LXC Container: lxc-info -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
4. Activate Console for LXC Container: lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
5. Duplicate/clone an LXC Container: lxc-copy OrigContainer -N NewContainer
6. Stop an LXC Container: halt | lxc-stop -n IncrediblePBX2027-U
7. Create Debian 11 image: lxc-create -t download -n DEBIAN11 — -d debian -r bullseye -a amd64
8. Delete/Destroy an LXC Container: lxc-destroy -n IncrediblePBX2027-D

Originally published: Monday, September 11, 2023



Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.


 

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors


FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!
 

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.