[CentOS] FreePBX 14 and Asterisk 16 installation on CentOS 7

Laurab

FreePBX is a web-based open source GUI (graphical user interface) that controls and manages Asterisk (PBX), an open source communication server. FreePBX is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), an open source license.  We will install FreePBX and Asterisk on freshly installed CentOS 7.

WARNING

CentOS 7 reached the EOL June 30, 2024:

https://blog.centos.org/2023/04/end-dates-are-coming-for-centos-stream-8-and-centos-linux-7/

Because of this, you may encounter some repository issues. We recommend that you reinstall another OS that has not yet reached EOL.

If you are using CentOS 7 and encounter a mirror issue, please check out this guide to resolve the problem.

Prerequisites

Install CentOS 7 in the Client Area:
Login to your VPS using SSH

Let's update our freshly installed OS:

yum update

1. Let's check if SELinux is disabled as this can be a cause for unexpected troubles:

sestatus

In results, you should see "Disabled"

2. Install additional packets that we need to set up FreePBX and Asterisk:

yum -y groupinstall core base "Development Tools"

Install additional dependencies:

yum -y install lynx tftp-server unixODBC unixODBC-devel mysql-connector-odbc mariadb-server mariadb httpd ncurses-devel sendmail sendmail-cf sox newt-devel libxml2-devel libtiff-devel audiofile-devel gtk2-devel subversion kernel-devel kernel-headers git crontabs cronie cronie-anacron wget vim uuid-devel sqlite sqlite-devel net-tools gnutls-devel python-devel texinfo libuuid-devel libxml2-devel libsrtp-devel libtool-ltdl libtool-ltdl-devel e2fsprogs-devel keyutils-libs-devel krb5-devel libogg libselinux-devel libsepol-devel libxml2-devel libtiff-devel gmp audiofile-devel libogg-devel openssl-devel zlib-devel perl-DateManip sox git wget net-tools psmisc speex-devel gsm-devel libtool libedit-devel libtool-ltdl libtool-ltdl-devel xmlstarlet

3. Let's add repositories for PHP 5:

rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Install PHP 5.6 for FreePBX

yum -y install php56w php56w-pdo php56w-mysql php56w-mbstring php56w-pear php56w-process php56w-xml php56w-opcache php56w-ldap php56w-intl php56w-soap

4. Setup nodeJS:

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash --
yum install -y nodejs

5. Setup MySQL autostart for "cdr" record data saving from Asterisk:

systemctl enable mariadb.service
systemctl start mariadb

Setup secure settings for MySQL:

mysql_secure_installation

Attention! Do not set up any of user "root" password

6. Add user "Asterisk"

adduser asterisk -m -c "Asterisk User"

7. Set up Apache to autostart and star it:

systemctl enable httpd.service
systemctl start httpd.service

8. Add Perl extension:

pear install Console_Getopt

9. Set up "srtp" for create a possibility to Asterisk send encrypted "rtp" data:

cd /usr/src && wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/srtp/files/srtp/1.4.4/srtp-1.4.4.tgz

tar zxvf srtp-*.tgz &&
sed -i 's/RTPW\=rtpw/RTPW\=\.\/rtpw/' /usr/src/srtp/test/rtpw_test.sh &&
cd srtp && autoconf &&
./configure CFLAGS=-fPIC --prefix=/usr &&
make &&
make runtest &&
make uninstall &&
make install

10. Setup libjansson

cd /usr/src

wget -O jansson.tar.gz https://github.com/akheron/jansson/archive/v2.10.tar.gz
tar vxfz jansson.tar.gz
rm -f jansson.tar.gz
cd jansson-*
autoreconf -i
./configure --libdir=/usr/lib64
make
make install

11. Download Asterisk packets:

cd /usr/src &&
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/lame/files/lame/3.98.4/lame-3.98.4.tar.gz &&
wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/dahdi-linux-complete/dahdi-linux-complete-current.tar.gz &&
wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/libpri/libpri-current.tar.gz &&
wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/asterisk-16-current.tar.gz

12. Setup Lame for MP3 format coding:

cd /usr/src &&
tar zxvf lame-3.98.4.tar.gz &&
cd lame-3.98.4 &&
./configure &&
make &&
make uninstall &&
make install 

13. Setup and compile Dahdi and LibPri:

cd /usr/src &&
tar xvfz dahdi-linux-complete-current.tar.gz &&
cd dahdi-linux-complete-* &&
make all &&
make install &&
make config

cd /usr/src &&
tar xvfz libpri-*.tar.gz &&
cd /usr/src/libpri-* &&
make &&
make install

14. Setup and compile Asterisk 16:

cd /usr/src &&
tar xvfz asterisk-16*.tar.gz &&
cd asterisk-16.*

Configure:

./configure --libdir=/usr/lib64 --with-pjproject-bundled --with-crypto --with-ssl=ssl --with-srtp

contrib/scripts/get_mp3_source.sh

make menuselect

make && make install && make config && ldconfig

15. Change owner privileges:

chown asterisk.asterisk /var/run/asterisk &&
chown -R asterisk.asterisk /etc/asterisk &&
chown -R asterisk.asterisk /var/{lib,log,spool}/asterisk &&
chown -R asterisk.asterisk /usr/lib64/asterisk 

16. Change apache settings:

sed -i 's/^upload_max_filesize = .*/upload_max_filesize = 120M/' /etc/php.ini
sed -i 's/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf &&
sed -i 's/^\(User\|Group\).*/\1 asterisk/' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
systemctl restart httpd.service && systemctl enable httpd

FreePBX installation and setup

17. Download FreePBX:

cd /usr/src
wget http://mirror.freepbx.org/modules/packages/freepbx/freepbx-14.0-latest.tgz
tar xfz freepbx-14.0-latest.tgz

Setup it:

cd freepbx
./start_asterisk start
./install -n

18. Setup FreePBX to autostart:
Create a file:

nano /etc/systemd/system/freepbx.service

And insert this script:

[Unit]
Description=FreePBX VoIP Server
After=mariadb.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/fwconsole start -q
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/fwconsole stop -q
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Autostart of FreePBX:

systemctl enable freepbx.service

systemctl start freepbx

Check if FreePBX started correctly:

systemctl status -l freepbx.service

19. By default the port 80 for http connection is filtered on our CentOS template as you can only access this port from the actual localhost and not from any other public host. To open a port 80 on we need to add an iptables rule. For this template uses firewall-cmd. First, add your port 80 rule with a following command:

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent

Once you add the above firewall rule reload firewall service:

firewall-cmd --reload

And check whether the port was added to ipatables rules:

iptables-save | grep 80

-A IN_public_allow -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT

And you are DONE!  FreePBX documentation: http://wiki.freepbx.org/