How to install FreePBX 16 on Ubuntu

FreePBX is an open-source web graphical user interface for controlling and managing Asterisk.

In this article, we explain how to install FreePBX on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, but the procedure is also valid for most distributions based on Debian.

System preparation:

The first thing you need to do is update the repositories:

# apt update && apt upgrade -y 

Install the dependencies required to install Asterisk:

# apt install unzip git gnupg2 curl libnewt-dev libssl-dev libncurses5-dev libsqlite3-dev build-essential libjansson-dev libxml2-dev uuid-dev subversion -y

Installing Asterisk

Download the Asterisk package and extract it:

# wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/asterisk-18-current.tar.gz
# tar zxf asterisk-18-current.tar.gz

Now go to the directory and install the required dependencies:

# cd asterisk-18.*/
# contrib/scripts/get_mp3_source.sh
# contrib/scripts/install_prereq install

During installation, you will be asked for the country calling code:

Now you will need to configure Asterisk:

# ./configure
# make menuselect

Once you run the commands above, a tab will appear with the required add-ons (you only need to enable the modules marked with *):

You also need to enable the sound modules, the Music on hold packages and the Extras Sound:

To exit and save, press F12.

To install Asterisk with its respective templates, use the following commands:

# make -j2
# make install
# make samples
# make config
# ldconfig

Asterisk configuration:

Now you need to create a user and group for Asterisk, then add the user to the appropriate group:

# groupadd asterisk
# useradd -r -d /var/lib/asterisk -g asterisk asterisk
# usermod -aG audio,dialout asterisk

Assign ownership permissions to the Asterisk user:

# chown -R asterisk.asterisk /etc/asterisk
# chown -R asterisk.asterisk /var/{lib,log,spool}/asterisk
# chown -R asterisk.asterisk /usr/lib/asterisk

Now open the /etc/default/asterisk file and set the Asterisk user as the default user by uncommenting AST_USER and AST GROUP.

# sed -i 's/#AST_USER="asterisk"/AST_USER="asterisk"/' /etc/default/asterisk 
# sed -i 's/#AST_GROUP="asterisk"/AST_GROUP="asterisk"/' /etc/default/asterisk 

Try the above first; otherwise, check whether it works, or you can do it manually:

# nano /etc/default/asterisk

AST_USER="asterisk"
AST_GROUP="asterisk"

Now open the /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf file and uncomment both runuser and rungroup:

# sed -i 's/;runuser = asterisk/runuser = asterisk/' /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf 
# sed -i 's/;rungroup = asterisk/rungroup = asterisk/' /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf 

Try the above first; otherwise, check whether it works, or you can do it manually:

# nano /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf
runuser = asterisk
rungroup = asterisk

Restart Asterisk:

# systemctl restart asterisk

At this point, if you check the status:

# systemctl status asterisk

You will see the following error:

radcli: rc_read_config: rc_read_config: can't open /etc/radiusclient-ng/radiusclient.conf: No such file or directory

To resolve it, use the following commands to replace and modify the configuration errors:

# sed -i 's";\[radius\]"\[radius\]"g' /etc/asterisk/cdr.conf
# sed -i 's";radiuscfg => /usr/local/etc/radiusclient-ng/radiusclient.conf"radiuscfg => /etc/radcli/radiusclient.conf"g' /etc/asterisk/cdr.conf
# sed -i 's";radiuscfg => /usr/local/etc/radiusclient-ng/radiusclient.conf"radiuscfg => /etc/radcli/radiusclient.conf"g' /etc/asterisk/cel.conf

Now, if you restart the service and check the status, everything should be fine:

# systemctl restart asterisk
# systemctl status asterisk

Finally, connect to the command line using the command:

# asterisk -vvvr

To exit the CLI, use:

# exit

Installing FreePBX

Install nodejs, mariadb, apache2 and php so you can install FreePBX:

# apt install nodejs apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php7.4 php7.4 php-pear php7.4-cgi php7.4-common php7.4-curl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-gd php7.4-mysql php7.4-bcmath php7.4-zip php7.4-xml php7.4-imap php7.4-json php7.4-snmp

Now download and extract FreePBX.

# wget http://mirror.freepbx.org/modules/packages/freepbx/freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz
# tar -xvzf freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz

Now install and go to the freepbx folder; at this point, you can install FreePBX:

# cd freepbx
# ./install -n

You should get a result similar to:

Now you will need to replace the apache user and enable the AllowOverride All option in apache:

# sed -i 's/^\(User\|Group\).*/\1 asterisk/' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
# sed -i 's/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Then you will need to configure the maximum upload size in PHP:

# sed -i 's/\(^upload_max_filesize = \).*/\120M/' /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini
# sed -i 's/\(^upload_max_filesize = \).*/\120M/' /etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini

You can now enable apache2 and restart it to apply the changes.

# a2enmod rewrite && systemctl restart apache2

FreePBX configuration

Go to the address: http://your-server-ip/admin where you can enter the administrator username and its corresponding email address:

Done. You can now enjoy your server with FreePBX 16!

We hope this article has helped you. If you still have questions about this or any other issue related to your servers on Clouding, write to us at soporte@clouding.io. We're here to help! 😉