JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX Wiki
We don’t often celebrate New Year’s Day in August, but 2024 is different. And the hits keep coming thanks to the yeoman’s work of Joe McConnaughey, aka @kenn10. We finally have a new Incredible PBX 2024 offering that incorporates the latest releases of Asterisk® and FreePBX®. Better yet, it offers a choice of Linux platforms including Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Debian 12. While the choice is yours to make, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is a platform no-brainer for us because it provides up to 12 years of support from Canonical with their Ubuntu Pro Expanded Security Maintenance (extra 5 years) and Ubuntu Pro Legacy Support (extra 2 years). That gets you to 2036 assuming Asterisk and FreePBX make it that long.
We used to recommend dedicated hardware as the platform of choice for Incredible PBX deployments, but we’ve had a change of heart as virtual machine platforms now provide equivalent performance with a much easier methodology for backing up critical data with a couple of button clicks. In future weeks, we’ll introduce you to the latest and greatest Proxmox 8. But let’s get started today with the latest release of Incredible PBX 2024 using dedicated hardware. Then you can rebuild on the Proxmox platform after school begins in the fall.
To begin, download the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO to your desktop. If you haven’t previously installed it, download and install Etcher to your desktop as well. Next, using a 4GB or larger USB flash drive, use the Etcher application to burn the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO image to the USB drive.
On the computer you will be using as your Incredible PBX 2024 platform, boot the x86 machine and reconfigure the BIOS. Set the initial startup sequence to boot from a USB drive in legacy mode. Now insert your new Ubuntu 24.04 flash drive and reboot. Follow the traditional Ubuntu installation scenario. Choose Install Ubuntu Server to begin. Choose your Language and Keyboard Layout. Select Ubuntu Server (minimized). Configure a IPv4 Network Interface. Leave the Proxy Address blank. Accept the Ubuntu Archive Mirror default. Deselect the LVM Disk option. Accept the Default Storage Configuration. Create a nerd user with a password of your choice, and enter ubuntu as the server name.. Skip the Ubuntu Pro upgrade option. Enable the OpenSSH Server install option. Skip enabling any Ubuntu Feature Snaps. Wait for the install to complete and then choose Reboot Now. Remove the USB flash drive as the reboot begins, and the server will boot into Ubuntu 24.04.
Login to your new server as nerd. Issue the following commands to reset Ubuntu for management from the root user account by assigning a new root password:
sudo passwd root logout
Log back into your server as root and issue the following commands to permit SSH access as the root user at the IPv4 address shown:
ip a sed -i 's|#PermitRootLogin prohibit-password|PermitRootLogin yes|' /etc/ssh/sshd_config systemctl restart ssh logout
Using SSH or Putty from your desktop, log back into your new Ubuntu server as root at the IPv4 address revealed above. Issue the following commands to kick off the Incredible PBX 2024 install:
apt install wget tar nano -y wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2024.sh chmod +x IncrediblePBX2024.sh ./IncrediblePBX2024.sh
If you need text-to-speech (TTS) support for Incredible PBX 2024, follow this installation tutorial and then go here to sign up for service.
If you’d like to run Incredible PBX 2024 on a Raspberry Pi 5, follow this tutorial.
Originally published: Monday, August 19, 2024
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