Upgrade to PBXact 17

Keeping your PBXact system up to date is an important aspect of maintenance.

You'll need to be on a current Peace of Mind Plan support contract (POMP) to upgrade your PBXact system. See the How to Purchase Support Credits wiki for more information on how to purchase POMPs.

PBXact 17 represents a significant milestone and a major upgrade in software capabilities.

Key highlights of PBXact 17

• Debian OS:  A move to Debian will allow PBXact customers and users to perform inline upgrades in the future as well be able to install PBXact on any public cloud Debian native image. PBXact will rely on vanilla Debian ISO images going forward which will remove the need for Sangoma to build custom ISO and custom packages, which will result in faster OS and Security updates.
  

• PHP 8.2 Support: Keeping current with PHP support, PBXact 17 uses PHP 8.2, with security support guaranteed through until December 2026.
  

• Asterisk 21 Support - 17 is the first PBXact version to support Asterisk 21. Included in 17 are major updates to PBXact generated dialplan to accommodate:

  • removal of the chan_sip sip driver

  • Move from the deprecated Asterisk Macro application to GoSub.

  • removal of the Asterisk MySQL application(s)
    

• Updated NodeJS and Front End Libraries: Staying current with technology and security trends, PBXact17 incorporates the NodeJS v18.16 release and updates numerous front-end libraries, security improvements, including jQuery, Bootstrap, and their dependencies.  

How to upgrade to PBXact 17

There is no direct upgrade path from previous PBXact versions to PBXact 17, primarily due to the complete transition to a new host operating system. PBXact 17 is now built on a clean installation of Debian 12.x.

We recommend to build a fresh system with PBXact 17 first , restore your configuration and perform testing before switching PBXact 17 to the production.

Please follow below steps to install PBXact 17 -

1. Install Debian 12.x ISO.

   1. ISO Download link amd64-netinst.iso.

   2. Follow step by step guide Step By Step Debian 12 Installation to install the Debian ISO.
      

2. PBXact 17 Install -

   1. ssh to the Debian 12 system as 'root' user and run the following commands

      cd /tmp
      wget https://github.com/FreePBX/sng_freepbx_debian_install/raw/master/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh  -O /tmp/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh
      bash /tmp/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh  

   2. If you are installing PBXact 17 on our appliance and currently using any hardware card or plan to use the hardware cards in the future then please run the script with the “ --dahdi” option,
      

      cd /tmp
      wget https://github.com/FreePBX/sng_freepbx_debian_install/raw/master/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh  -O /tmp/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh
      bash /tmp/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh  --dahdi

3. Activate your PBXact 17 deployment.

   1. Refer to How to Move a PBX Deployment to a New PBX

4. Restore your configuration.

   1. Restore module steps wiki Backup and Restore Version 15+

PBXact 17 should be up and running with your configuration.

PBXact 17 on Sangoma’s appliances

We have tested all our appliances with Debian 12.5 ISO