FYI PIAF Care and Feeding

[bobwdn]

Some years back, at a company that is now closed up, I administered a Trixbox. I remember occasionally pulling my hair out finding information but, I usually found the answers I needed, sooner or later. Now, I don't have any hair left (on top anyway) and I am configuring a PIAF box. Don't get me wrong, things are going pretty well considering I forgot all that stuff from years ago (that's what I get for sleeping.)

So, having said that, I am finding that some older articles have had links added (near the beginning) that indicates there is a newer article available. But I still find locating information challenging and confusing. Five minutes or so into an article (sometimes longer) I realize that the article is referencing an older version. Then when I go into my GUI, it looks different. I am glad to see the improvements. But, back to finding an article that references what I am working on. (Travelman3??)

I am still enjoying finding my answers (thanks to the community) but sometimes the articles are in depth. That can be good but, time consuming. I enjoy the challenge of capturing knowledge but perhaps someone could cull some of the older, out of dated articles?

Just the random thoughts of a man and his machine. In this case a PIAF machine. Thanks for the great distro. I looked at the others and I like PIAF the best.

Food for thought?

Thanks again.

 

[Dan Lawrence]

I just ran across this message while reading through all forum posts from present to Jan 1, 2013 for the same reasons.

I'm looking for a "care and feeding" type document for PIAF installations. update-fixes, update-programs and update-source get mentioned every now and then in tutorials, but I'm looking for sticky post that says something along the lines of "every week, to a update-programs then update-fixes; never do update-source" (or whatever the correct advice should be)

Should I be doing a "yum upgrade" periodically? Or will that tend to break things and I should leave well enough alone knowing the firewall (with no forwarded ports) will protect me against newly found exploits?

What are the dos and don'ts once you have a PIAF system up and running? Seems like that is a sticky that everyone would be well advised to read after setting up a system.

 

[wardmundy]

Nerd Vittles articles cover all of our software releases. Nerd Vittles articles are in chronological order, newest to oldest. There is a list of all the Nerd Vittles articles at the bottom of every article. They, too, are in chronological order, newest to oldest. SourceForge downloads are in chronological order, newest to oldest. We rarely update old Nerd Vittles articles. We write new ones when new software is released. We try to include links in older articles to the latest articles. Aside from that, little editing of older articles occurs. Same goes for PBX in a Flash and Incredible PBX releases. HINT#1: Use our latest stuff! HINT#2: Use our latest stuff!

This really shouldn't be that hard. Start at the top of the article list on Nerd Vittles and find a match for what you want to install: a PBX in a Flash base install, an Incredible PBX system, a virtual machine for your desktop, a cloud-based server, a Raspberry Pi, etc. Once you find what you're looking for, READ THE ARTICLE. It should never tell you there's a newer release if you start at the top of the list! And the article will always include a SourceForge link for the appropriate download.

As for care and feeding, the rule of thumb is... If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It. Read the RSS Feed at the web address of your server using a browser regularly. Security alerts are in chronological order, newest to oldest. See the pattern?? If the date of your software release is later than the date of the security alert, then the security issue has been addressed either in the software itself or in update-fixes which is run automatically as part of every new install.

What version should you install? In the old days, we'd write pages and pages about choosing between the various versions. We're past that because Asterisk 11 and FreePBX 2.11 are both incredibly stable now. So... install PIAF-Green with FreePBX 2.11 and call it a day. If you want to add Incredible PBX, use Incredible PBX 11 and Incredible Fax 11. Simple as that!

If there's not a new security alert, leave well enough alone. NEVER RUN YUM UPGRADE. It breaks things. Only run update-source to upgrade Asterisk or Linux if there is a security problem. Only run update-fixes if there is a reason to do so. These reasons will appear in the RSS Feed if they are serious. For minor fixes, they will be documented in the Bug Fixes section of the PIAF Forum. For FreePBX module updates, our recommendation is similar. If your system is running reliably, leave it alone. If not, post a question on the forums before "improving" anything.

If you have heeded our advice and installed your server behind a hardware-based firewall with no Internet port exposure to your server, there is virtually no way for the bad guys to get you if you use very secure passwords with your VoIP providers.

Sleep well.

 

[Dan Lawrence]

Excellent information and a sticky to boot. My hero!

 

[Hyksos]

bobwdn
http://nerdvittles.com/?p=815

 

[bobkoure]

HINT#1: Use our latest stuff! HINT#2: Use our latest stuff!

Ward, one of the very first places I look is NerdVittles, usually with google "site:nerdvittles.com whatever-I'm-looking-for". The only issue is that google returns in closest-match order rather then chronological.
Any chance of adding a 'posted on...' field somewhere near each headline?

 

[tycho]

There is a posted-on notation at the end of each article; I often look for that when I pull up something older...

 

[bobkoure]

Ah - thanks!