AsteriskNow 1.5 + installation and configuartion

AsteriskNow 1.5 was recently released. I already had a box with 1.0.2 version and thought of giving the new version a try. Downloaded the ISO from the site and burned it to a CD. The new version is built on CentOS 5.3. I installed the new version in the same system overwriting 1.0.2. Note that the installation did not detect the old version nor did it give me any option for upgrade. Since my server was not in production i went ahead removing all the partitions and reinstalled the new version. If you have a production box backup the configuration files or install the new version in a test system and then copy the existing setup/accounts. You have been warned.

I installed AsteriskNow with the default partitions schema ( it creates all partitions under a single LVM). Once installation is complete, remove the CD and click reboot. After the OS boots it asks to configure the following:

Authentication, Firewall, Network, System Services

Authentication - Configure any extra authentication such as ldap.
Firewall - You can enable firewall (remember to allow all required ports like sip, iax & zap) if needed.
Network - Configure you network interfaces. This config sets the IP address of all interfaces in the system. Note that eth0 alone is enabled by default. Other interfaces must be enabled manually(Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-interfaces/ifcfg-ethx and set ONBOOT=yes).
System Services - Disabled any unwanted services.

After the above is done exit the wizard to login to the box. You will also have to restart the network service to enable all interfaces after login to the system as root. Immediately after the first login i ran a update

# yum update.

This installed a new version of kernel(2.6.18-128.1.6.el5), asterisk and dahdi modules. So i rebooted the box.(Default kernel is 2.6.18-128.1.1.el5).

After the system reboots, open the web interface in your favourite browser: http://<your-asterisk-server-ip>. When you click the FreePBX Administration link it asks you to enter the password. Asterisk 1.5 by default has two administrator user accounts with default password as specified below.
Username admin, Password - admin
Username freepbx, Password - fpbx

We will now change the default password of both admin accounts and secure the system. First let us change the admin user's password. In the web interface select Administrators tab in the Basic section. Click the admin user (in the top right) and give the new password of your choice. We are done.

Note: I did the following changes from root login in the asterisk box. The web interface prompts you to reload the config after every change you do. You can reload the config after all the changes are done.

To change freepbx user's password you have to change the entries in two files (we will backup the original files) and also change the mysql password.

# cd /etc/
# cp amportal.conf amportal.conf.orig
# vi amportal.conf
AMPDBPASS=<new password>

# cd /etc/asterisk
# cp cdr_mysql.conf cdr_mysql.conf.orig
# vi cdr_mysql.conf
password=<new password> 

Now we will change the password for mysql:

# mysql -p  (Just press enter in the password Prompt)
mysql > SET PASSWORD FOR freepbx@localhost=PASSWORD('new password'); 

The web interface reports the following errors at this point (Yes, these errors are there in the fresh installation itself).

Notice Memory Limit Changed - To fix this edit /etc/php.ini and change memory_limit=100M. (You have to restart httpd after this).

Default Asterisk Manager Password Used:

You have to change this in two files

# cd /etc/
# vi amportal.conf
AMPMGRPASS=<new password>

# cd  /etc/asterisk
# cp manager.conf manager.conf.orig
# vi manager.conf
secret = <new password> (Must be same as what you gave for AMPMGRPASS in amportal.conf). 

No email address for online update checks - Go to General Settings Tab under Basic and give an email address in the Update Email: text box. (I have given my email id here).

Could not reload FOP server - For this we will first install the newest FOP version and then setup httpd to run as asterisk user (By default httpd runs as apache user).

# cd /root
# wget http://www.asternic.org/files/op_panel-0.29.tar.gz
# cd /var/www/html/panel
# cp op_server.pl op_server.pl.orig
# cp operator_panel.swf operator_panel.swf.orig
# tar zxfv /root/op_panel-0.29.tar.gz
# cp op_panel-0.29/flash/operator_panel.swf .
# cp op_panel-0.29/op_server.pl .
# cd /var/lib/asterisk/bin/
# ./retrieve_conf

# cd /etc/httpd/conf
# cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.orig
# vi httpd.conf
Find the line User apache and change it to User asterisk. Save the file and exit.
# service httpd restart 

After this click on Apply Configuration Changes in the web interface. Then the webinterface reports about module upgrade. Goto Module admin tab and click Check for upgrade online. Click Upgrade all and then click Process. Press Confirm. All modules will upgrade automatically.

Now there won't be any errors or other warnings in the web interaface. You can create extensions, inbound/outbound settings as required.

I found fixes from the following links:
http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/users/freepbx-panel-flashing-red-and-green
http://www.asternic.org/
http://www.freepbx.org/support/documentation/faq/changing-the-asterisk-manager-password