Migrating from AsteriskNOW 2.0.2 to FreePBX (latest stable)

General Help
1

I am administering an ancient AsteriskNOW 2.0.2 PBX with Asterisk 1.8.15 and FreePBX 2.10.1.9, as a pro bono project for a state division of a national non-profit public-service organization. It works acceptably but we are doing a move to a new facility with better hardware and I really and truly want to take that opportunity to migrate the system to the latest stable FreePBX.

We have several dozen IP (SIP) phones scattered around the state, two PSTN interface boxes servicing 6 phone lines, a few dozen queues, and some other stuff, that would take weeks to re-create by hand in the new installation… a level of effort that as a practical matter just isn’t going to happen.

Looking for advice on the best way to do the upgrade, and any tools available to automate at least most of the process. I did try (on a throwaway VirtualBox virtual machine that was well backed up on a revision control server) backing up from A.Now.202 and restoring to the latest stable FreePBX, which of course didn’t work, not that I expected it to, and left me with a blank screen where the FreePBX screens used to be.

Anyone who can suggest a way ot ease this transition would be much appreciated.

Thanks…

Eric

2

If it was me - I’d do the following:

  1. print out each extension’s settings screen.
  2. If you have a “bulk update” module on your AsteriskNOW server, save the file as a CSV.
  3. print out the screens with DAHDI and SIP interface information.
  4. Start new and update by hand.

Backup/restore is your enemy in this endeavor, and since it’s a parallel implementation, and in-place upgrade is probably a non-starter.

With a limited number of phones and lines, it is sometimes easiest to start out fresh and make the changes by hand. The extension information, if you can get it into a CSV file, can be installed using the Bulk Extension (SIC) module in the new system.

An alternative method for creating the extensions (the most time consuming part) is to create a CSV file with your extension information in it (by hand) and import that through the bulk updater.

There are many significant changes to the system that make “simple” upgrades not so simple. Bulk extension updates are a pretty cool and the guys have made quite a few changes that make it work pretty well.