Thoughts on a NUC

[CraigT]

Hi all,
Any thoughts on an Intel NUC7PJYH4 as a FreePBX server. I know that dicko has stated elsewhere that he only uses i5’s in this format, but the above box is a quad core Pentium silver cpu(J5005) 1.5 to 2.3 GHz and it would be fitted with 8Gb ram and 120Gb SSD. It is to replace a Celeron box that is struggling.
Setup would be for <10 extns, 1 or 2 voicemail and call flow with a couple of announcements. Small office setup. A true i5(NUC7i5BNH) is double the price wholesale and could be too much for a volunteer site.

Comments please…

[dicko]

for that load a raspberry pi should be adequate, but given a good network driver you would be equally good

[sorvani (Jared Busch)]

@CraigT

Any thoughts on an Intel NUC7PJYH4

For a fast price, Amazon says that is $300.

That is 60 months on Vultr’s $5 instance, and 50 months if you add automatic backups for $1.

Why bother with iffy hardware when you can have it hosted on way better hardware?

[CraigT]

Thanks guys, but in Oz Vultr isn’t in the mix. I should have added that they have 4 channels so it’s not a one line operation. Don’t you fellas every sleep? I didn’t expect a reply for a few hours.

[Charles_Darwin]

I have been using NUCs for years at four locations, e.g. Intel NUC BOXNUC7I3BNH.
Never had any issues. My OS is Linux Mint 64-bit and freePBX runs within Virtualbox. Each pbx uses a PJSIP/SIP Trunk with four external lines/channels and a couple of IAX2-Trunks…and about 8 extensions.

[CraigT]

Thanks Charles. Similar load on the box so all looks good. Adds another option.

[comtech]

@CraigT Pi Reading:

Raspberry Pi Documentation - Raspberry Pi hardware

http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/

(Unofficial) FreePBX on Pi

There’s a few ways to install FreePBX on a Pi, but they all seem overly complicated, and as a bunch of us ex-FreePBX people were all hanging out last week, I took the opportunity to grab the brain trust and throw together my Unofficial one-step FreePBX install script using the latest Raspbian (Based on Debian 10). Enjoy! –Rob #!/bin/bash wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ buster main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d…

Commercial modules are not supported (mileage varies) outside the official distro (not compatible on Pi)

[sorvani (Jared Busch)]

@Charles_Darwin

I have been using NUCs for years

Not knocking the NUC specifically. More the why would anyone seriously consider on premises today for something the size specified.

[sorvani (Jared Busch)]

@CraigT

they have 4 channels

Yeah so? That’s like 400k bps on ulaw/alaw. It is nothing.

@CraigT

but in Oz Vultr isn’t in the mix

That was a simple example. There are options available everywhere. First google hit was for https://www.crucial.com.au/vps/

They list a Linux VPS at $10 AUS. That is $6.81 USD, so comparable.

[dicko]

The nice thing about the NUC is that you can stick it on the back of your monitor out of the way and it has the balls to happily multitask. For example , at home I have my Debian Desktop, A FreePBX instance (native 5 extensions and a fax machine) and a full-on PLEX server and a WEEWX weather station with time-lapse recording. It’s an I5 with 16G memory. All systems run perfectly smoothly (No gaming here) , so in this case the cost of my ON-Prem VOIP is essentially $0

[mvogel4949]

The NUC has been great to us. I would agree with another poster who encourages the cloud but there are just some customers who demand on premise I suppose. We used the Nuc5 but that seems to be going out of date. We just recently switched to the NUC7CJYH and put in our own SSD and RAM

[Charles_Darwin]

Because I want to own things. I even use my own cloud based on ownCloud
I don’t use software which I have to subscribe to…etc
I also think that a pbx in the cloud is vulnerable to attacks…whereas separate pbxs behind different Fritzboxes without portforwarding are much safer…but I might be wrong…I am just a hobbyist.
Besides…I don’t trust automatic backup solutions either…
Actually I hate commercial clouds…because I read the stuff Edward Snowden and Julian Assange published…but that’s another story

[sorvani (Jared Busch)]

@Charles_Darwin

I even use my own cloud based on ownCloud

FYI, I hope you have updated to Nextcloud.

@Charles_Darwin

Actually I hate commercial clouds

You realize that we are talking about voice traffic right? It traverses the various SS7 backbones where you have no control over what it being intercepted.

[Charles_Darwin]

No I like ownCloud…the idea is to have a private cloud, which is based on software, which isn’t very common.

It is not about interception over the www, I think it is a different problem. I am afraid that someone hacks my freePBX machine and I have to pay for calls to China.
As you know, Intel implements „bugs“ in their CPUs as requested by the NSA. Only a few of them are known to the public.
Based on this knowledge any average IT-company e.g. in Israel can access any virtualmachine in any big commercial cloud without much effort. I am sure that you read about Apple…they do not fully encrypt stuff in their iCloud anymore, because the NSA told them to do so.
I don’t think that anyone wants to intercept MY phonecalls…but it is a matter of principle

[jasonmm388 (Jason M)]

I’m in Oz and have been using Vultr with their Sydney servers for years. Pretty happy with it, easy and quick to setup, runs well and 1-2 ms ping to my sip provider.