Tips for server migration

General Help
1

OK, I am preparing to finally get our system off of the complete mess that is Trixbox 2.2.4 at this point and move to a new, non-Trixbox machine. I’d love to use AsteriskNOW, but it’s in beta. Anyhow, I wanted to see if anyone can double-check my planned steps to find the inevitable things I am forgetting. We run this box with a Sangoma A101 card:

1.) Install Linux
2.) Install Asterisk/Zaptel/etc
3.) Build Sangoma RPM and install
4.) Install FreePBX and update to latest.
5.) Take current system offline to avoid new CDRs/calls/voicemails/etc. PRI will fail over to another line while server is down.
6.) Verify current system is also updated to latest FreePBX (already at 2.5.1)
7.) Backup existing configuration using FreePBX backup module
8.) Copy backup file to new system and restore using FreePBX Backup module
9.) Copy /var/spool/asterisk/monitor directory to new system because backup module does not.
10.) Copy /tftpboot directory and enable tftp server for Cisco phone provisioning.

OK, I must have forgotten 50 important steps, but I don’t know which! Any insight appreciated.

Tom

Edit: I also know that I will be moving from Asterisk 1.2 to Asterisk 1.4 as a result of this upgrade, but I am under the impression that FreePBx ought to take care of any gotchas there, with the exception of any custom code I have introduced in my *_custom files.

2

you have the basics.

In the backup enable all backup options.

Phone configurations and deployment? we use tftp for the phones here and thus we need to backup the /tftpboot directory and all files.

You can also edit the amportal.conf file and you should have the following lines: if not add them…

# AMPPROVROOT=/var/ftp /tftpboot
# One or more directories where there are provisioning files that should be included in the backup. Currently
# these get backed up only, the FreePBX utility does not automatically restore them.
#AMPPROVROOT=/var/ftp /tftpboot
#
# AMPPROVEXCLUDE=/var/ftp/exclude-from-file-list
# a list of files to exclude, to be used in tar's --exclude-from argument
#
#AMPPROVEXCLUDE=/var/ftp/exclude-from-file-list

un comment AMPPROVROOT and add any directories you want backed up. Just realize that they will not restore automatically, you’ll need to do it manually but they will be in the backup file that you move. it is a tarball of multiple tarballs.

3

Thanks for the pointer to /tftpboot. I’m sure I would have remembered in the process, but… I edited my first post to include that step. I’ll also take a look at the amportal.conf file.

Tom