Purple, backup, and install questions

[markgruber]

Let me just say that the PIAF team is doing a great job (product, documentation, community, etc) and I appreciate all of the effort you guys put in. I have installed many Trixbox systems but now have moved on to PIAF and I'm really enjoying it.

In the course of installing several PIAF systems, I have a few questions:


1) Is the Purple payload production ready? The installation script indicates it may not be best choice for production. If not, why, and when would it be ready? I like the idea of using the latest software with all of the security improvements, bug fixes, etc.

2) I am confused on the backup options: Incredible Backup (used this once on a broken PC and it worked great in moving the configuration to new and different hardware); daily and disk backup, FreePBX backups, and finally I saw mention of something called Mondo backup. What are the differences? Which should I be using?

3) Can I make a copy of my installation (component level - similar to say trixbox , or one that has the install components on it - not an image) on a DVD that does not require on-line access; this would allow me to build an installation on new hardware in the event I did not have Internet access, if a component site were down, or worse yet if a site were to fold. If I have multiple installs that use the same components this would also make my installs faster for each one. My customers would also feel more secure knowing that all of the software needed to reinstall/recover their phone system were on a DVD in their safe, and not somewhere in the cloud where they may or may not have access to it in a few years should the need arise. Being an install DVD (vs an image), I could put it on different hardware.

Thanks for your help!

Mark

 

[darmock]

Good questions

1. Depends.... While it is steadily improving I still am waiting for our long term test boxes to "not break" In the meantime the other colors all work with a proven track record. Thus the EXPERIMENTAL moniker will stay in place for a while on the purple installs.

2. For backups use one or all of the methods available. I run daily/disk backup on all of my commercial machines with never a problem. Incredible backup is used if you installed incredible pbx. Mondo is part of the whole disk backup package.

3. Nope you are stuck with having an internet connection. This will not change anytime soon. The actual compilation process of asterisk connects to the digium servers for code. This is not something we put into the installer program rather this comes from Digium itself.

Simply image the drive after everything is installed and then do a restore from that. Almost the same as having the original software.

I appreciate your viewpoint but at this time the PIAF team is committed to our current methodology for installs.


Good luck with your endeavors

Tom

 

[wardmundy]

There's always Clonezilla if you prefer the install DVD.

 

[markgruber]

1) Are you seeing specific issues with purple or letting it run until you see problems? Purple = asterisk 1.8 + Freepbx 2.8 + centos 5.5 + PIAF goodies + other components (e.g. mysql). Each individual component is production ready so is it the combination that needs to be proven?

2)Incredible backup will run on PIAF without installing Incredible PBX - it seems the most flexible of the backup options but is the slowest to restore. Whole disk backup will do an image while online but I have heard there are problems with the restore process (Mondo?). Clonezilla is reliable but the PBX must be shutdown for some time in order to create the image. FreePBX has a backup option but since there are these alternatives I am assuming there must be some issue with it?

3) Don't get me wrong, I love the PIAF methodology, was just wondering if the components could be assembled locally for the build instead of remotely. Image-based solutions require identical hardware if I'm not mistaken. For me this is a problem as by the time something breaks it is usually cannot be replaced.

Mark

 

[darmock]

1. There are some problems with our test boxes over time using the purple load. The problems vary from test system to test system. They are irregularly irregular in their nature. These odd problems do not occur on the other colors. So for the moment purple is still experimental. You can ignore this moniker if you want. I still wont install purple, just yet, in a commercial environment. Once we identify a problem it gets passed onto digium directly.

2. The daily backup actually uses both the freepbx backup and the incredible backup methodologies if you have read the conf file included with the program. It also does a complete dump of mysql if desired. We prefer to provide a "toolbox" with a number of ways to do backups. Some people have had problems with mondo usually when using LVM. so far I have had none of these problems on my commercial installs. your mileage may vary. I also use clonezillia when the PIAF system is put into production as an alternative form of backup. As for identical hardware yep being hardware is cheap we always sell 2 identical boxes to the client. Course when the second box dies it is a good time to reinstall PIAF with the latest version of it. The few times I have had to use mondo is worked just fine. We generally test mondo on new hardware to ensure there are no gotchas. Some hardware platforms just will not work with mondo reliably period.

3. I understand your point. Some of the digium source would need to be tweaked in order to accomplish your goals. It could be done however it would be an ongoing thing and the PIAF dev team already spend an inordinate amount of time already, unpaid, with PIAF.

I suspect this would have to be amortized over a number of people who are willing to pony up some money on an ongoing basis. For example Digium just released upgrades to purple,bronze, and silver yesterday. We spent about 14 hours upgrading the payloads, testing each color to ensure no "surprises" exist. Installing them on real and virtual machines, and then ensuring they work on both 32/64 bit platforms. Not to mention that we also test upgrade-source for each color also. Then his morning they were moved over into piaf space so all new installs are up to date. Also digiumsource.conf was updated so when people want the latest and greatest they simply run update-source. (BTW upgrading every time a new version of source is released is not something we recommend however you have the right to go to hell in your own way)

While all of the members of the team do this as we love our aggregation we still have to put food on the table and there is just not enough time in the days for what you ask. All the words of praise we get are most appreciated but our bankers just won't take that to pay our mortgages

It sucks to actually have day jobs which take us away from what we really want to do which is work on PIAF.


Tom

 

[markgruber]

Thanks for the info on Purple and the backup clarification. Believe me, I appreciate being in the position to have multiple options on backup!

And please don't take my inquiry on the local build as a request for that feature. I was just curious to see if this could be done or if anyone had thought of it. Maybe that is something that I could look into and contribute to the project .

Interesting that the Asterisk build requires a remote connection....