Install XFCE on FreePBX OS

Distro Discussion & Help
1

I installed SNG7 and I want to install XFCE on it, I ran the following commands:

yum groupinstall "XFCE" "Graphical Administration Tools"
ln -sf /lib/systemd/system/runlevel5.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target
reboot

Unfortunately my system becomes unbootable and leaves me unable to inspect the issue.

I need it to use teamviewer since I will be managing the box remotely and I don’t want to expose the local network to the internet. Using teamviewer is the easiest solution for this situation.

Is there any recommended procedure on how to install a desktop GUI on SNG7?

If this is not possible I will install Debian instead, hopefully I will still be able to use commercial modules in the future with some tweaking.

2

You gotta be kidding. Three easy solutions:

  1. In Putty (or other ssh client), set up forwarding so that you can access the FreePBX GUI or other hosts on the remote LAN, whenever you have an ssh session open. No new software required. Less than a minute to configure.

  2. In your firewall, allow access to FreePBX from only the specific IP address(es) from which you will be managing the system. Also requires no new software.

  3. Install an OpenVPN server on FreePBX or another device on the remote network. Takes somewhat more effort but is more flexible.

3

I understand your train of thought and I knew these comments might come up so that’s why I mentioned it. However this is a home connection and I rather not mess with the router settings since they might get reset in the future and the network has dynamic IP addresses. It will make things a bit more complicated, at least for me.

My colleagues all don’t have an IT background so I can’t tell them to troubleshoot it, and I will be in a different country so I can’t access the physical box anymore. Teamviewer is a lot more user friendly in that aspect. This being said I will this look into your solution and potentially use both.

Besides, any reason why it shouldn’t be possible to install a GUI on the box? It might be not the “optimal” solution for a server but I don’t see any downsides to it.

4

You have a Catch22

If you open 443 (selectively) then you can get to the FreePBX GUI, if you don’t , you get neither The FreePBX GUI nor TeamViewer.

Also there is no reason wht you cant add any gui desktop of your preference , I do it myself to get to recalcitrant lan phone http servers when necessary, just dont have it running by default, (wasteful) and add one of Xforwarding , xrdp or perhaps vnc . Whichever you are comfortable privisioning and firewalling

5

Thanks! I will keep this in mind, could’ve stumbled over that issue.

Which OS are you using and which desktop environment? What installation instructions worked for you?

When I last used these solutions the performance was much worse than teamviewer.

6

Teamviewer is not a better solution than any of the three Stewart listed…in fact it’s far worse because SNG7 is not intended to support an X environment and will likely break again in the future even if you get it working now. I trust the FreePBX web interface, VPN and ssh far more than teamviewer. Sounds like maybe you need a cloud installation of FreePBX - if you really expect a router is going to get reset or switched out out of your control, hosting a PBX at that office is going to be a problematic because you will lose all access and FreePBX will almost certainly stop working at some point. SIP servers are just sensitive to firewall and routing issues.

7

Thanks for your advice. Problem is that I will receive a physical antenna which I need to attach to hardware myself. So I need to actually have physical hardware in order to make the setup work.

Maybe I could connect the freepbx box that’s attached to the antenna to a cloud installation but I’m afraid it will add extra latency to the calls. And server prices in the (Asian) country I’m deploying are expensive so it would also add unnecessary cost.

You guys have inspired me to dive into dynamic DNS as a potential solution though, I will try to make it work without GUI and teamviewer.

8

Put in a raspberry pi with Anyedsk or Teamview and control it that way. That will give you the access you need and you dont need to mess with the pbx

2 Likes
9

That’s a great tip, thanks! I will consider this.

10

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