Trixbox CE 2.8.0.3 Install on Trixbox Appliance

How to install Trixbox CE 2.8.0.3 on a Trixbox Appliance with a Sangoma A200/Remora card.

Background

My most recent trixbox appliance from 888 VOIP Store (I’ve bought 3) was all messed up.  It was shipped by the wrong carrier, cleared customs through the wrong broker, was send to the wrong address, and wasn’t pre-configured.  The previous appliances I’ve received had the Remora card installed and Trixbox CE pre-configured and fired-up right out of the box. This one didn’t have the card installed (not a big deal) and started up with a dual-boot Pro vs. CE.   Somehow in the process of setting it all up I screwed up the config to the point where Asterisk would not start, nor would it recognize the Remora card.  Faced with a re-install, I thought I would take the opportunity to upgrade from Trixbox 2.6 to Trixbox 2.8.

References

• Trixbox 2.6 with USB CD-Rom
• Wanpipe RPMS for Trixbox CE

How-To

This procedure too a few tries to get right, but seems quite straight forward.  Trixbox appliances don’t have CD-ROM drives, so this procedure uses a USB CD-ROM.  If installing this in VMWare, add two NICs and and two hard drives to mimic the appliance hardware.

Install

1. Download and burn Trixbox CE 2.8.0.3 iso to a cd.
2. Boot the machine with the cd installed in a USB CD-ROM (Press F12 to enter Boot Selection Menu, then USB-CDROM)
3. At the installer prompt, type ‘appliance linux usb’
4. Answer any questions the installer might have about keyboards and timezones, and enter a root password.
5. There may be an error about a missing kickstart file.  Count to 30, then press OK.  To see what’s going on with usb-storage modules, etc. press Ctrl-Alt-F2.  press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to return to the installer.
6. Answer any more questions the installer might have, but if it starts asking about partition schemes or package selection, something is wrong – those questions should be answered automatically by the kickstart file.
7. There may be an error about a dahdi module requiring a kernel – this does not seem to impact the installation.
8. Installer will finish and system will reboot.

Basic Config

1. Login as root.
2. Connect box to network and config using ‘system-config-network’.  eth0 is the on-board NIC (WAN) and eth1 is the 4-port NIC (LAN).
3. Change web interface password: ‘passwd-maint’
4. Change root password: ‘passwd’
5. Connect to web interface (user: maint)
6. Check ‘Packages’ for updates (none at time of writing)
7. Check “PBX->PBX Settings -> Module Admin->Check for Updates Online” (3 at time of writing).  Click upgrade-all, then ‘process’.

Sangoma Config

The wanpipe packages available through the Trixbox package manager do not work, but RPMS do exist that can be installed simply:

1. Login as root
2. ftp or wget ftp://ftp.sangoma.com/linux/custom/yannick/RPMS/RPMS_trixbox-2.8.0.3/wanpipe-modules-2.6.18-1.28.1.10.el5-3.5.10-0.i686.rpm
3. ftp or wget ftp://ftp.sangoma.com/linux/custom/yannick/RPMS/RPMS_trixbox-2.8.0.3/wanpipe-util-3.5.10-0.i686.rpm
4. Install: ‘rpm -ivh *.rpm’
5. Don’t run wancfg – run ‘setup-sangoma’ instead.
6. Answer questions.  Mostly say ‘Yes’ to everything.
7. Reboot
8. Verify – run ‘dmesg’ and look for wanpipe messages, then run ‘asterisk -r’ and type ‘dahdi show channels’ and ‘dahdi show status’