ALERT FreePBX 13 Alert

[Johann]

I am running PIAF 2.0.6.5, Asterisk 11, FreePBX 12.

How do I upgrade to FreePBX 13 (e.g. with FreePBX upgrader module) or would you recommend against that?

Regards.

 

[randy7376]

@Johann

You do realize that FreePBX 13 is still beta. It's probably fine for testing on a development machine. However, it appears you have an older (production?) system based upon the specs you posted. You might want to reconsider.

Should you decide to upgrade, just make sure you have a full-image backup for when things go wrong.

 

[wardmundy]

Strongly recommend sticking with FreePBX 12 for the foreseeable future. Didn't think it was possible but FreePBX 13 is considerably more proprietary than FreePBX 12.

 

[krzykat]

Proprietary ?? How can open source software be proprietary?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FreePBX is a web-based open source GUI (graphical user interface) that controls and manages Asterisk (PBX), a voice over IP server.[1]

FreePBX is licensed under the GNU General Public License[2][3] and is a component of the FreePBX Distro (a CentOS Linux system with the PBX pre-installed); it is also included as a key piece of various third-party distributions like PBX in a Flash.

FreePBX was taken over by Schmooze.com in early 2013;[4] that firm was in turn taken over by Sangoma Technologies Corporation on Jan 2, 2015.

 

[hecatae]

Strongly recommend sticking with FreePBX 12 for the foreseeable future. Didn't think it was possible but FreePBX 13 is considerably more proprietary than FreePBX 12.

@wardmundy I'm currently in the freepbx github, the framework and core are still GPL V3, see https://github.com/FreePBX

which modules concern you?

 

[wardmundy]

Try loading one of the modules from FreePBX GitHub into FreePBX 12 or 13 and see how that works for you.

Just download one of the GitHub modules to your desktop. Then crank up FreePBX 12 or 13. Choose Module Admin -> Upload Modules -> Upload from Hard Disk and point to the module you downloaded to your Desktop. Enjoy the fireworks in Status.

Further Details: http://nerdvittles.com/?p=13832

 

[Johann]

Thanks for the answers.
And FreePBX 13 being more proprietary, what consequences does this have for me as a user?

Just for fun tried the upgrade to 13 using FreePBX upgrader on another non-production PIAF machine in VM. This didn't work at all and rendered the whole GUI unusable.

Correction: The upgrade ended with a screen full of errors, which made me think that the upgrade had failed. That's not the case, the errors were related to a particular module. It seems it is working fine, but I have not done a lot of testing with it.

 

[wardmundy]

Haven't played with FreePBX 13, but I have heard what they're up to and we will cover that on Nerd Vittles down the road a bit. Suffice it to say, they don't like our grabbing their "real GPL modules" (which actually work properly inside the FreePBX GUI).

 

[smarks]

The last straw for me was the sysadmin module dumbing down fail2ban and making it impossible to customize and use most of the features. Didn't matter if you used the EPEL version or their prorpietary version. So now the only way to use most of the features of fail2ban and do any sort of customization is to uninstall sysadmin module......which is just silly.

That seems to go against what everyone else is doing with Linux. EPEL is considered to be a safe repository that never conflicts with other repos....the exception seems to be schmooze. Fail2ban and prosody are the 2 that seem to cause problem for me.

Haven't spent much time on it but I shudder to think how much worse it can get on v13. Now they have this firewall module which is yet another tentacle to cause more problems and break things that didn't need fixing in the first place.

 

[smarks]

Thanks for the answers.
And FreePBX 13 being more proprietary, what consequences does this have for me as a user?

Just for fun tried the upgrade to 13 using FreePBX upgrader on another non-production PIAF machine in VM. This didn't work at all and rendered the whole GUI unusable.

Correction: The upgrade ended with a screen full of errors, which made me think that the upgrade had failed. That's not the case, the errors were related to a particular module. It seems it is working fine, but I have not done a lot of testing with it.

The GUI has always been kind of flaky for upgrades so this is nothing new. I do most things from CLI now. Usually if you do amportal (now fwconsole) restart and amportal a r and amportal chown and spin around 2 or 3 times and do a couple back flips it starts working again. Sometimes you get one module causing problems. That has gotten worse with these 'improvments' they have been making to make things more proprietary and restrictive. Pretty much any 3rd party module causes problems now (some internal modules too sometimes). That is probably by design unfortunately. If any 3rd party module does still function properly I am sure they are hard at work making sure it won't for much longer.

 

[wardmundy]

If any 3rd party module does still function properly I am sure they are hard at work making sure it won't for much longer.

One of the main reasons we now have our own GPL module repository. New modules don't get pushed into our repo until they are thoroughly vetted. Think of them as refugees.

 

[smarks]

One of the main reasons we now have our own GPL module repository. New modules don't get pushed into our repo until they are thoroughly vetted. Think of them as refugees.

Do you (or will you) have your own module repository for v13? Is there a way to point my existing install (not incrediblepbx or PIAF) at these repos? I realize that I will probably get that signature warning unless I disable it but I'm ok with that.

 

[wardmundy]

As I said, we haven't yet looked at v13 so... there are no plans at the moment.

 

[RPi-Fan]

I've been building a new FreePBX 13 system on a weekly basis, hoping to find that it has settled down and become stable, as I really like its cosmetic overhaul. I would love to migrate from my current FreePBX 2.11 + Asterisk 11 to FreePBX 13 + Asterisk 13. While problems are continually being fixed, more and more continue to pop up. It's still not at a point I would feel comfortable using it in a production environment.

 

[luckman212]

I dropped in to ask if these plans have changed at all now that it is possible to install FPBX13 from "scratch" on CentOS7. I understand the proprietary Sangoma modules are still a thorn in everyone's side but if we don't care about the System Admin module etc and just want a very basic PBX with the shiny GUI, would that be possible?

 

[smarks]

I dropped in to ask if these plans have changed at all now that it is possible to install FPBX13 from "scratch" on CentOS7. I understand the proprietary Sangoma modules are still a thorn in everyone's side but if we don't care about the System Admin module etc and just want a very basic PBX with the shiny GUI, would that be possible?

I have been running vanilla CE7,Asterisk13,Fpbx13 for a few weeks now and so far no major problems.

 

[wardmundy]

No plans for FreePBX 13 GPL modules at this time. But the New Year is just around the corner.

 

[luckman212]

 

[smarks]

No plans for FreePBX 13 GPL modules at this time. But the New Year is just around the corner.

Hi Ward. Are there technical issues with migrating to fpbxv13? I am aware of the lack of trust the former owner(s) have generated. I am also aware of some of the funny business you pointed out that the developer(s) has been up to changing variable names and what not for no apparent reason to intentionally break things.

I'm also aware of the signed modules thing and how it ties in with the above. Oh and sysadmin module....oh yea and now the firewall module.

Besides all that....

 

[ou812]

Hopefully Ombutel will be open source and a competitive gui interface for Asterisk, counting the day to it's release.

gary