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    Things to know before you start installing FreePBX

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    jareds guide to freepbx 13freepbxfreepbx setuppbx
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    • JaredBuschJ
      JaredBusch
      last edited by JaredBusch

      Finally, you need to look at the general way calls are handled in your organization.

      This list contain many if not most of the things you should know prior to to picking a phone system.

      How your company uses these features currently, as well as how well you design the new system going forward, can be a huge driver for acceptance or problems.

      • Paging
      • Intercom
      • Music on Hold
      • Conferencing
      • Call Parking – Putting calls on hold on “Line 1”
      • Voicemail
        • VM to Email
      • What buttons need to be where on the screen of each phone.

      All of these features are fairly self explanatory, so I will not detail each of them. I will just say that you need to understand how these features currently work and how your new PBX implements them.

      The one point I do want to highlight is endpoint management.

      • Endpoint Management – How to manage desk phones

      This one is going to be one that seriously hampers your day if you have any kind of scale at all. You most definitely want to have some centralized form of endpoint management setup.

      By default FreePBX has a TFTP server enabled. If you are on a LAN, this makes things simply. If you are not it gets more complicated, but only for initial setup.

      Almost every brand of phone takes config files. These are typically plain text files with a bunch of configuration information including the extension login credentials and the button configuration.

      The Yealink phones that I like use two files. One based on the model of the phone and one based on the MAC. Setting these files up means getting a replacement phone is as simple as renaming a MAC file and booting up the new phone.

      On top of doing this manually, FreePBX has a commercial module that you can purchase to allow you to configure things int he FreePBX GUI. This module is well worth the additional cost if your PBX is on the LAN. Because, not only can it create all the files for you, it does discovery and can push the config to the phone and force an update.

      Whichever way you go, you need to look at setting up something. Nothing sucks quite as much as having to manually log into 60 phones to change a BLF on each phone because someone has had a name change.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • NerdyDadN
        NerdyDad
        last edited by

        Considerations for physical versus virtual?

        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @NerdyDad
          last edited by

          @NerdyDad said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

          Considerations for physical versus virtual?

          Yes, are you installing a PBX? Then virtual. It's a server like any other. If you need special hardware, consider doing it externally to the server or a passthrough to the VM. There is a possibility that you will have unique hardware that cannot handle virtualization - but you should consider not having that hardware if it forces you to violate decent good practices. Typically PBXs and phones are of some importance, so you want to treat the as such and that means virtual.

          DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • DashrenderD
            Dashrender @scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            @scottalanmiller said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

            @NerdyDad said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

            Considerations for physical versus virtual?

            Yes, are you installing a PBX? Then virtual. It's a server like any other. If you need special hardware, consider doing it externally to the server or a passthrough to the VM. There is a possibility that you will have unique hardware that cannot handle virtualization - but you should consider not having that hardware if it forces you to violate decent good practices. Typically PBXs and phones are of some importance, so you want to treat the as such and that means virtual.

            This is funny - While I do agree, what Scott says makes total sense, but how many SMBs have you known (I'm not asking Scott) that have ever had a redundant phone system? Also, pre server based PBX, they were hardware setups that were fairly robust. Of course now moving them to little more than a software platform that runs on commodity hardware, we need to consider the reliability of that hardware compared to our need for uptime and decide where we draw the line. With that said being that this is just software running on a commodity hardware, we shouldn't treat this any different than we do a Windows or Linux based server. Virtualize unless there is a specific thing preventing us from doing so.

            scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • JaredBuschJ
              JaredBusch
              last edited by

              still need to type up point 4... but have to take the kids out.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                last edited by

                @Dashrender said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                This is funny - While I do agree, what Scott says makes total sense, but how many SMBs have you known (I'm not asking Scott) that have ever had a redundant phone system?

                More importantly.... what difference does it make that you rarely see SMBs doing it? We aren't asking what SMBs who are failing to do IT well are doing, we are asking what we should do. And intentionally do something poorly because it is common to do it poorly is not good logic. Physical PBXs are both more expensive and more fragile. No upsides. SMBs have been easily mislead in the past, don't be those SMBs.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                  last edited by

                  @Dashrender said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                  Also, pre server based PBX, they were hardware setups that were fairly robust.

                  "Fairly robust" is a relative term. The baseline of robustness is vastly higher today, those old PBXs are not robust in today's terminology. They were comparable to other technology of their day. They are laughably unexceptionable today. And their cost was always ridiculous.

                  Lots of things were done in the past that were acceptable then because there were not better options that should never be remotely considered today.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                    last edited by

                    @Dashrender said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                    Of course now moving them to little more than a software platform that runs on commodity hardware...

                    That's all that they normally ever were. Just it wasn't exposed for you to put it on quality commodity hardware or have failover or recovery options.

                    JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • JaredBuschJ
                      JaredBusch @scottalanmiller
                      last edited by

                      @scottalanmiller said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                      @Dashrender said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                      Of course now moving them to little more than a software platform that runs on commodity hardware...

                      That's all that they normally ever were. Just it wasn't exposed for you to put it on quality commodity hardware or have failover or recovery options.

                      This is why I did not even make a point for virtual or not. It will be virtual or you did something wrong.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • JaredBuschJ
                        JaredBusch
                        last edited by

                        ok finally posted details for point 4.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • bigbearB
                          bigbear
                          last edited by bigbear

                          Would love to see how you provision phones using FreePBX without endpoint manager. Been searching the Wiki but all I have found involves their EPM.

                          JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • JaredBuschJ
                            JaredBusch @bigbear
                            last edited by

                            @bigbear said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                            Would love to see how you provision phones using FreePBX without endpoint manager. Been searching the Wiki but all I have found involves their EPM.

                            that is on my to do here, but I posted this process within the last week for someone on this forum. let me try and find the thread.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • JaredBuschJ
                              JaredBusch
                              last edited by

                              @bigbear I gave an example config in this thread specifically because you asked.

                              https://mangolassi.it/post/279515

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • bigbearB
                                bigbear
                                last edited by

                                Yeah that guy was an ass... lol

                                What folder on the server do you place the config files in for https?

                                JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • matteo nunziatiM
                                  matteo nunziati
                                  last edited by matteo nunziati

                                  +1 on everything @JaredBusch . Not needed now but valuable for future!
                                  @Dashrender ans @scottalanmiller currently we use one of these

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • JaredBuschJ
                                    JaredBusch @bigbear
                                    last edited by

                                    @bigbear said in Things to know before you start installing FreePBX:

                                    Yeah that guy was an ass... lol

                                    What folder on the server do you place the config files in for https?

                                    it all goes in the /tftpboot folder. FreePBX handles that in the apache vhost config. port 1443 goes there.

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