TIPS Container Install of IncrediblePBX

[Halea]

Maybe this was not a good idea to begin with but I decided to give a try anyway.

I am trying to install IncrediblePBX in an lxc container. To that end I created a container in Proxmox, installed Ubuntu 18.04.1-1. Then I went for the Incredible PBX 13 13-10 installation script, which completed successfully.

Nothing looked out of ordinary during install. Webmin works. Apache is installed. But the main page of IncrediblePBX doesn't come up, although the web server gets the requests and returns data.

When I did a traffic dump I got the impression that the php scripts are not being processed, they are basically being looked at like html scripts, and obviously they don't work.
I am suspecting that this is a php version 5.x vs version 7.x issue, but I am not sure.

Anyone has tried to install Incredible PBX in a basic lxc container, either this particular version or a newer one?

My only reason to stick to version 13 13.10 is that it has an installer for Ubuntu and I am not too keen about setting focus on Centos. But I'd like to hear about any outcome on any platform actually.

The reason for which I am suddenly interested in virtualizing ipbx with a container is how little overhead those containers actually have. This past week I successfully shifted an entire back end processing platform from kvm to a container that yields the same performance on a cpu that costs half the price.

 

[wardmundy]

With 13-13, you need PHP 5.4 (preferably) or 5.6. 7.x won't fly at all.

 

[Halea]

@wardmundy : Thanks for the input. PHP 5.4 seems to be there, at least there are some left overs of it. PHP7 is installed too. It wasn't intentional, I am assuming that during the many rounds of automatic updates it upgraded itself. I remember being able to run multiple versions of PHP on the same system in the past, so I am not sure what caused PHP5 to break.
Incidentally, as I searched around for similar attempts I found people who successfully dockerized FreePBX/Asterisk, which is one notch more complicated than just containerizing it with lxc.
https://github.com/tiredofit/docker-freepbx (this is the most current, only a couple of months old, there are others which go back a few years)
Any thoughts about giving a try?

 

[wardmundy]

Would love to see a Docker writeup that actually works. Please start with Incredible PBX 2020 with CentOS 7.

 

[Eliad]

I use Proxmox and the best bet is to install Centos7 in a VM container not a CT container. Since this is dedicated VM for PBX I dont see much difference between Centos and Ubuntu except you have to use yum instead of apt-get. The documentation for IncrediblePBX for Centos7 is awesome, the support from Ward and this forum is outstanding. FreePBX is using Centos only. Personally is see a great benefit of using Centos instead of Ubuntu for this application, using Centos will make you able to do future updates and upgrades. For other applications I use Ubuntu myself but for IPBX i did not even try Ubuntu since is not well supported and is not going to be in the future either.

 

[Samot]

For the record: SNG7, the FreePBX Distro OS, is based on RHEL7.x now not CentOS.

 

[Eliad]

For the record: SNG7, the FreePBX Distro OS, is based on RHEL7.x now not CentOS.

CentOS is a community-developed and supported alternative to RHEL.
IncrediblePBX is Centos7 based and I assumed FreePBX is too.

 

[Samot]

The FreePBX 13 Distro (Distro6) and previous distro releases were CentOS based. That changed with SNG7.

 

[jerrm]

I recntly ran the ipbx2020 script in a centos7 lxd container, all seemed fine with limited testing.

 

[Eliad]

I just did a test install in Proxmox 6. This time I used a CT with a Centos7 template. You have to run
yum install openssh-server nano
then edit the sshd_config to allow you to ssh into the server
then follow Ward instructions on how to install on Centos7
The installer works with no problem
Back in the days of Centos6 and Incredible 13-13, the installer did not work for a CT, it worked only in a VM

 

[Halea]

CentOS is a community-developed and supported alternative to RHEL.
IncrediblePBX is Centos7 based and I assumed FreePBX is too.

Actually CentOS is a pure recompile of RHEL source code under a different name with the incentive, blessing and support of Red Hat, which is the trademark owner of Red Hat and RHEL. Of course they do not include any of the Red Hat closed source software either.
They do it to have a crystal clear line of demarcation between their paying (enterprise) customers and non-paying (open source) users. The reasoning behind that approach is not technical but legal. Some time ago their attorneys came to conclude that liability differentiation is better handled that way.

 

[Halea]

I recntly ran the ipbx2020 script in a centos7 lxd container, all seemed fine with limited testing.

Did you have any issues with starting the database automatically?

 

[wardmundy]

And, since last July, RedHat is now an IBM company.

 

[jerrm]

Did you have any issues with starting the database automatically?

Not that I noticed, it all seemed to work, but I think I still have the image. On the road now, but will fire it up later after and see.

I think I had already setup openssh (out of habit) before starting the script like @Eliad.

 

[Halea]

I finally got it to work. Two things needed some TLC; PHP and The DB. The first one was badly damaged. It required to be reinstalled. The config files were a mess, I had to transplant them from a working system and manually touch them up. Not sure if I was able to fix everything but php works (checked many scripts and phpadmin). As for the database, that's quite odd. It actually doesn't start automatically. I wrote a two-liner bash script to get it going. Without it it just sits there. So the long and short of it is that 13-13.10 works in an ubuntu 18.04 lxc container. I ran basic functionality; incoming & outgoing calls, multiple calls simultaneously. Extension to extension, Call transfer. Voice mail. All good.

 

[dallas]

And, since last July, RedHat is now an IBM company.

When I worked for IBM Unix/Linux was spelt AIX.

 

[Eliad]

I did a bit more experimentation on Proxmox 6. You can install current IncrediblePBX2020 in a CT with no issues.
Problem arises with incrediblefax2020 install. The install seems to run fine but Hylafax fails to load. I did not try to troubleshoot it much because I have working system installed in a VM and does not have this problem.

 

[Halea]

It has been over a week now since I was able to run my legacy IPBX in an lxc container and I've been collecting stats from the proxmox host where both the container and vm versions have been running simultaneously.
Each one of them has been handling 6 DIDs with an average of 70 calls a day with roughly equal number of incoming and outgoing ones.
The stats show that the VM gets an average of 10% of processing power while remaining within the 8% to 12% band. The container on the other hand takes about 6% of CPU time while remaining within a narrower 5% to 7.5% band. Both instances were provided the same number of cpu cores and RAM. They ran off the same SSD.
So, it looks like the container approach is indeed more efficient than kvm. In previous tests i had already noticed that kvm was also significantly more efficient than virtualbox.