TIPS Backing up / restoring / moving PIAF to new machine

imekul

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A few months ago, I was asking about how to clone a PIAF installation from one computer to another.

Now I'm realizing that I don't need to necessarily clone my HD. I just want to move my entire PIAF installation from one computer to another, with slightly different hardware.

What would be the best way to do this? I tried cloning the drive (using Clonezilla and Acronis), and I also tried physically moving the old HD to the new computer. Neither of these worked. I got "Kernel panic" errors when starting up on the new computer.

I don't want to have to reconfigure anything if I don't have to, since I ended up making a lot of small changes here and there that I don't want to lose.

So what is the ideal way to move? Some sort of backup/restore?

It would be awesome if somehow I could move the entire installation -- extensions, recordings, settings, and all -- without too much difficulty.

Thanks!
 

arainero

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I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I think using rsync might work. It will sync your new box to reflect the same changes that your old box had. Just rsync the PBX folders.

(I am not a Linux expert. I do not know if PIAF is built to any specific hardware configuration when installed, if it is, then rsync will probably not work)
 

imekul

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Thanks for the suggestion! I actually thought of something along the lines of rsync, but I also wasn't sure if that would do it, or if something more advanced needs to be done.
 

arainero

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Also, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't the FreePBX interface let you backup all of your configuration files including recordings and such? You could just make a backup and then restore that backup on your new machine. That would be your safest bet.
 

wardmundy

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New-Obama-Shirt-Vaporware.jpg
 

mvoip

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A few months ago, I was asking about how to clone a PIAF installation from one computer to another.

Now I'm realizing that I don't need to necessarily clone my HD. I just want to move my entire PIAF installation from one computer to another, with slightly different hardware.

What would be the best way to do this? I tried cloning the drive (using Clonezilla and Acronis), and I also tried physically moving the old HD to the new computer. Neither of these worked. I got "Kernel panic" errors when starting up on the new computer.

I don't want to have to reconfigure anything if I don't have to, since I ended up making a lot of small changes here and there that I don't want to lose.

So what is the ideal way to move? Some sort of backup/restore?

It would be awesome if somehow I could move the entire installation -- extensions, recordings, settings, and all -- without too much difficulty.

Thanks!
I used to build my PIAF server in vmware, configure it and then use acronis (in vmware) to make an image. The image would then be restored on a physical machine. I did not have any problem with centos 5 but with centos 6, the asterisk would crash in physical machine. To solve this, I recompile asterisk in physical machine and everything works fine.
Before making acronis image from vmware, make sure you delete the following file:

/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

otherwise restored image in physical machine would not find ethernet. this file will be recreated during boot-time in the physical machine.
 

Fala

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I running PIAF1.7.5.6 (FreePBX Version 2.9.0.9) on an bootable 8 GB USB Stick, using an HP Thin Client (T5720) and I would like to make a backup of my entire install on the USB Thumb Drive. What are my best backup options so that if the Drive becomes corrupted in anyway, I can quickly restore the drive? I have a Pogoplug Pro and can also buy another 8 Gig Drive if required.

Also, if I did a clean install of one of the newer PIAF, can I backup the configuration files only and be able to apply them to the new install without have to go back and create the Inbound/Outbound call routes, Trunks, Extensions, etc.? Thx
 

rossiv

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What he meant is a new backup solution for the already released PIAF2 if my memory of forum threads serves me correctly.
 

imekul

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Ah-hah. I gotcha.

Well, I think I did this successfully. Here's what I did:

Installed a fresh copy of PIAF (same version, 1.7.5.7) on my new machine, and I followed the guide at http://nerdvittles.com/?p=682 for Incredible Backup and Restore.

All seemed to work well, except some of my hand-edited configuration files, like fail2ban settings, iptables, and aliases, were not copied over. Fortunately I had access to the old files, so I just copied and pasted the info.

From what I can tell, though, everything is functioning! :) That wasn't too painful!
 

imekul

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Oh no! I think I may have spoken too quickly.

When I tried to do my first orange-bar reload, I got an alert that there was an error.

When I go to the status, it shows:

retrieve_conf failed, config not applied

Reload failed because retrieve_conf encountered an error: 255
Added 9 seconds ago
(freepbx.RCONFFAIL)
Argh! :-(
 

darmock

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That is usually from a permission error. Now as to where that is....... who knows. Try running update-fixes and see if it corrects it beyond that....


Tom
 

imekul

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Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried that, and then retried applying the configuration changes, but got the same error.

Anything else you could think of for me to check?

Thanks!
 

darmock

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Nope all that code is archived now as PIAF 175X is in emergency security fix only mode.

Tom
 

imekul

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Makes sense!

Any advice you would have on what to do? I still have the old machine in fine working order, so I can create another backup, or I can upgrade it, or... anything. Perhaps upgrade to PIAF 2 and redo the backup/restore?
 

darmock

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There is no real way of doing that plus Centos 6.2 might not run on older hardware.

Some have tried to use the freepbx backup facility and then restored to a similar version on a 2061 box with mixed results.

We dont support upgrades from 175x to 206x. Too much else to support these days. Unless you are running a couple hundred extensions and say 50 to 75 trunks it is just as easy to scrub and reinstall.


Good luck.


Tom
 

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