We’re two weeks late, but here’s a belated Happy New Year 2025 with an all-new Incredible PBX release. And we’re two days early celebrating the 20th birthday of Nerd Vittles. The good news is the hits keep coming thanks again to the yeoman’s work of Joe McConnaughey, aka @kenn10. The new Incredible PBX 2025 offering 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 2037 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 2025 using dedicated hardware. Then you can rebuild on the Proxmox platform after school begins again next week.
To begin with Ubuntu 24.04, download the Ubuntu 24.04.2 ISO to your desktop.
To begin with Debian 12, download the Debian 12 ISO to your desktop.
NOTE: If you have difficulty downloading the ISO files from the above links, the ISO files also are available in Nerd Vittles Internxt Repository: Ubuntu 24.04 ISO and Debian 12.10 ISO.
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 downloaded ISO image to the USB drive.
On the computer you will be using as your Incredible PBX 2025 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 flash drive and reboot.
For Ubuntu install, follow the traditional Ubuntu installation scenario. Choose Install Server to begin. Choose your Language and Keyboard Layout. Select Server (minimized). Configure a IPv4 Network Interface. Leave the Proxy Address blank. Accept the 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.
For Debian install, follow the traditional Debian installation scenario. Choose your Language. Choose your Location to set your time zone. Choose your Keyboard. Leave the default Hostname set to debian. Set the Domain Name to incrediblepbx.com. Create a very secure root user password. Create a nerd user with a password of your choice. Choose your Time Zone. Choose Use Entire Disk for the partitioning with All Files in One Partition. Choose Yes to write changes to disk. Choose the nearest Debian Mirror for your server. Leave the Proxy blank. For Software Selections, choose SSH Server and Standard System Utilities options only. Install GRUB boot loader on Default Drive that is displayed. Wait for the install to complete and then choose Continue to Reboot. Remove the USB flash drive as the reboot begins, and the Debian server will boot.
On Ubuntu, login to your new server as nerd. Issue the following commands to reset the OS for management from the root user account by assigning a new root password:
sudo passwd root logout
On Debian, simply login as root using the password you assigned during installation. Delete the nerd account which will not be needed.
deluser nerd --remove-home
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 server as root at the IPv4 address revealed above. Issue the following commands to kick off the Incredible PBX 2025 install:
apt install wget tar nano -y wget http://incrediblepbx.com/IncrediblePBX2025.sh chmod +x IncrediblePBX2025.sh ./IncrediblePBX2025.sh
Near the end of the scripted install, you’ll be prompted to create a password for your admin account to access FreePBX using a browser. Immediately after that, you’ll get prompts for a default Postfix email setup. On Ubuntu, just press the Enter key three times for now. On Debian, press TAB then ENTER three times. Postfix will be automatically configured when you run the enable-gmail-smarthost script in the /root directory.
Let’s finish up by installing the Incredible PBX utilities and sound files:
fwconsole restart cd / wget http://incrediblepbx.com/ipbx2024.tar.gz tar zxvf ipbx2024.tar.gz wget https://filedn.com/lBgbGypMOdDm8PWOoOiBR7j/Debian12/iPBX-custom.tar.gz tar zxvf iPBX-custom.tar.gz apt-get update fwconsole reload
Order 100K of SpeechGen tokens for $9.99 here. Then remember to add your SpeechGen API credentials in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/speechgen.php. Complete Nerd Vittles tutorial for SpeechGen is available here.
If you’d like to run Incredible PBX 2025 on a Raspberry Pi 5, follow this tutorial.
Originally published: Friday, January 17, 2025 Updated: April 1, 2025
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Hey …any chance of providing Incus compatibility with the ProxMox image? The infrastructure is the same but Incus is truly/fully open-source and it supports all VM and container types, even Docker! Nice work; My home phone has been on Incredible PBX for as long as I can remember!
I have tried 3 times now and this fails to install on Ubuntu 24.04.1
It says it cant find fwconsole.
I tried to download just 24.04 but it is no longer at ubuntu or any mirrors… it just shows 24.04.1 even in the 24.04 folder.
[WM: Here’s an idea. Follow the tutorial and download Ubuntu 24.04 from the link provided. However, the preferred platform for iPBX 2025 now is Debian 12 because of incompatibilities that have cropped up in Ubuntu 24.04.]
I just tried your script, and while people should know. But your script would not work when logged into a normal user in ubuntu, if you’re going to run that script it might be prudent to tell people to use "sudo bash IncrediblePBX2025.sh"
[WM: Root user permissions have always been required to install Incredible PBX. The tutorial makes that clear.]
People need to RTFM before installing this. Go to the tutorial and follow it before you post about stuff not working. I recommend sticking with Debian-12 since Ubuntu can be something of a moving target at times.