TIPS Migrating Incredible PBX 13.0.192.19

[gregarican]

So I am moving this VM to a new vCenter, which should be relatively straightforward (hopefully ). My question is pretty basic. What are the cleanest steps to gracefully power off the VM before I move it over? I am assuming issuing a stop gracefully command in the Asterisk CLI, and then issuing a shutdown -h now command from the CentOS console?

 

[kenn10]

Before shutting down Asterisk and Linux, I would make a FreePBX backup and store it on a local PC as an added measure. If your system has IncredibleBackukp installed, I'd also run that and save the backup file on a local PC.

Also, rather than stopping Asterisk from the Asterisk CLI, I would recommend you issue amportal stop from the Linux CLI instead of "stop gracefully."

 

[gregarican]

Will do. Thanks for the tip! But the two commands above should gracefully power the VM off, correct? I don't any any SSL certs or anything with potential date expirations in place on the server, so I don't anticipate any potential issues there...

 

[gregarican]

...so after the amportal stop I should then issue the shutdown -h now command, correct? I know I'm perhaps being overly cautious but I just want to ensure that the VM has a smooth shutdown.

 

[kenn10]

If you're moving the VM anyway, this would be the best time for you to upgrade and create a new IncrediblePBX 2021 on the new VM. Depending on the size of the PBX, it might involve a lot of cut and paste from the old system, but at least you'd be up to current standards. FreePBX 13 is deprecated and is now at release 15. Asterisk 18.2 is the current release.

 

[kenn10]

...so after the amportal stop I should then issue the shutdown -h now command, correct? I know I'm perhaps being overly cautious but I just want to ensure that the VM has a smooth shutdown.

Yes.

 

[gregarican]

@kenn10 thanks for the insight. And I do realize that this iPBX version is a bit behind the times. It's just that I recall reading some horror stories about upgrades (especially involving restoring configuration) hitting some major bumps in the road. Seeing I'm migrating a dozen or so core server VM's between these vCenters I'm too buried to want to introduce another potential snag into the process. Once I have everything migrated and see performance stability for awhile then I can start testing out the iPBX upgrade in a separate environment later on. Appreciate your replies!

 

[kenn10]

I understand. There is no easy upgrade from FreePBX-13 to FreePBX-15 due to changes to the database and the database engine. Changes to Asterisk and FreePBX are rolling out fairly rapidly. The longer you wait, the more painful the process. Most of us found that out the hard way.

The chan_sip is falling by the wayside and you will have to learn about the pjsip stack and how to provision it in the newer system. There is a lot of help on this forum when you get there.

The biggest change is that the current IncrediblePBX 2021 runs on Debian instead of CentOS since IBM has mangled Red Hat and CentOS. Debian 10 and Unbuntu Server are now the standard.

 

[Eliad]

As far as i know IncrediblePBX you should use halt command from the Linux CLI, this will shut off gracefully your VM. There is a discussion on this on another thread, I cant remember which