TIPS Quick 1-2-3 tutorial: OK?

MacNix

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So, it seems that we've got a hit on piaf setups in another country - doing several of these in mission schools down south has netted us over a DOZEN requests for systems installs in 7 days by local business people..

I'm trying to rapidly bring a couple guys up to speed on doing this (in another language and culture, no less).. So asking them to read thru a 50 minute web page on installation is just not going to cut it.

I'm trying to provide them a BASIC setup for immediately having a no-frills operational Piaf (with InPBX and InFax11 both running)..

here's what I've cut/pasted out of Ward's online install pages.. Can somebody review this and tell me if I'm missing something? I don't want ANY unnecessary steps for a basic setup, and no extraneous noise about add-ons or other frills.. I'm assuming the installer already understands static IP, NAT, and is fully responsible to get his own box to see the web..

Please enlighten on anything I've missed..

Macnix 1-12 steps...

1. Download CENTOS 65.iso from either 32 bit or 64bit here:
2. Burn to CD, or burn to flash card
- Mac users, use Disk Utility for CD, or follow this in terminal for USB: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx
3. Boot to flash disc (or CD)
a. Make sure all other drives are removed (to prevent erasing!)​
b. set date/time in BIOS to correct date/time​
4. Format new/blank HDD, install CentOS
5. Reboot
6. Login to root (using pwd you made during install)
7. fdisk –l (to confirm drives are mounted/mounting)
8. sed -i 's|no|yes|' /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
ifup eth0​
yum -y install wget nano​

wait a while for install, then….

yum -y install ntp​
service ntpd stop​
ntpdate time.nist.gov​
service ntpd start​
wget --no-check-certificate http://nerd.bz/pbxinaflash3
mv pbxinaflash3 piaf3-install.tar.gz​
- alternate site below if SourceForge is down​
tar zxvf piaf3-install.tar.gz​
/piaf3-install​
(this takes a while)​
9. reboot
10. Install Piaf
(recommended: green/11)

11. Install InPBX11
cd /root​
unzip incrediblepbx11.gz​
chmod +x incrediblepbx11​
/incrediblepbx11​
12 install inFax11
login
/root/incrediblefax.sh
 

MacNix

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yup, nobody don't want no daddy.... :(

what/where should I put the date/time part?

If this can be made correctly, I'll spit out a PDF of it with a link here, so people can have a quick one-pager for installation (I find it a LOT easier myself to have a piece of paper in hand when doing a thing like this)..
 

wardmundy

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Setting the time after the CentOS install:
Code:
yum -y install ntp
service ntpd stop
ntpdate time.nist.gov
service ntpd start
 

MacNix

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How big are these sites (phonewise)? Have you looked at the Pogoplug?? $10.95, no moving parts. Turnkey setup. Hand 'em a box, plug in the power and network cables. Done.

thx.. updated the page - is that correct?

These are varying sites - some small biz locations with a single phone, up to a resort complex with 25 separate apartments and a dozen other extensions.

I'm trying to standardize on something that is simple, without having to educate people who can barely read 5th grade Spanish, on a process. I am simply unwilling to add in ANY rabbit trails for them to get lost on. Anything dependant on the largess of Google is not going to cut it, or a computer that we can't source from 50+ different vendors, or something that's not upgradeable hardware.

I really hadn't considered anything like the Raspii or beagle, etc, because of the chances of issues, the likelihood that these folks are going to be using a wide variety of hardware, the various challenges of international transport/import, support, etc.. Simplify, simplify, simplify... that's what we have to do..
 

AndyInNYC

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I have a question that may provide an answer.

How 'smart' is Centos in upgrading itself if it finds that hardware has changed?

What about shipping a pre-installed (either physically shipping a disk or an ftp site) of an existing image backed up with Clonezilla as a self-restoring disk?

If Centos is smart enough to decipher changes in hardware and install drivers then the user is up and running in 15 minutes. Then YOU can decide what sits on the image and what doesn't.

If the original image is made on a the smallest possible drive, the image will restore and expand to whatever drive they are actually using.

I'll let someone smarter than I am tell me how wrong I am.

Andrew
 

MacNix

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I've tried the clonezilla route, thus far unsuccessfully... Perhaps it's me...

I have a HDD cloner which seems to be working, but we've not gone far enough thru the testing process to confirm that it's 100% (and the last thing we need is 25 sites with corrupted installs!).....
 

AndyInNYC

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When you say clonezilla has been unsuccessful, what does that mean?

The restore to different hardware may be an issue - unsupported/different NIC, etc. But if Centos 'automagically' adapts by loading the right one, that would really be the only issue - if the driver isn't available then it can't get to the 'net to get the right driver.

Andrew
 

MacNix

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not really sure why, but i've not been able to get it to clone 'bootable' volumes...

I have a sata->sata sector-based HDD duplicator, so will probably move to that, as it seems to be working. Time will tell.
we're working on two fronts right now:

1. getting a firewall & pbx package down to a small physical form factor and
2. getting both working on less than 80watts without issue..

This allows us a bunch of advantages, the biggest beiing that we're putting some in locations where reliable power is nonexistant, so a 600w UPS being able to keep a phone system online all day is a MUST.... we're very close, but of course then you add in POE and....... o_O

When you say clonezilla has been unsuccessful, what does that mean?

The restore to different hardware may be an issue - unsupported/different NIC, etc. But if Centos 'automagically' adapts by loading the right one, that would really be the only issue - if the driver isn't available then it can't get to the 'net to get the right driver.

Andrew
 

LesD

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Have you considered a Virtualbox VM which can be run on virtually any hardware.

I would have thought rolling that out in volume would be the easiest.

We switched to this a couple of years ago and have never looked back.
 

MacNix

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how much config do you end up doing WRT eth ports and configs? if you drop a VM on a new box, etc.....
 

LesD

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None on eth ports as long as you do not change the mac address.

The steps I follow:

1. Take an appropriate working system, shut it down and Do an "Export Appliance". This creates an .ova file
2. Install Virtualbox on the target PC/server (I have always used Windows machines)
3. Copy over the ova file and double-click on it.
4. Two minutes later it is ready to run

If the local network is not compatible with the network from which the ova came then the network definition inside the VM needs to be changed (typically just change the internal IP of the machine) but that is not difficult.

I have not done this for a couple of months so the above may not be complete but it is basically right.

An other major advantage for me is the ease of doing backups. I just create a new ova export and that is is. Reinstalling it is as simple as copying back the file and doing a double-click on it. Not something I have had to do often but it has been occasionally necessary and I could do it all remotely.
 

wardmundy

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There are a couple of steps that will eliminate all of the pain insofar as ethernet setup on the next machine is concerned.

First:

rm -f /var/lib/dhcpcd/* (this subdirectory may be dhcp or dhcpd depending upon your server so check to see which one is there)
rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/70*

Second:

After you shutdown the VM, go into the settings for the VM and disable BOTH the sound card AND the network card before you make a backup image to export.

Third:

When you bring up the image on the new server, always choose the option to initialize the network port.

Finally:

Once the VM is installed, edit and enable the sound and network settings for your new platform. DHCP is strongly recommended if that's what you had on the original VM.
 

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