How to Install FreePBX 16 on Debian 11 with Asterisk 16

This manual-install method builds a FreePBX system with the following specifications:

• FreePBX 16

• Asterisk 16 from the Debian Bullseye package repository

• PHP 7.4, standard with Debian Bullseye

• 64-bit Intel/AMD (x86_64) platform

Step-by-step guide

All commands are to be run as the root user, either by directly logging in as root or by using sudo su - . 

Start from a base Debian 11 installation. All necessary packages will be installed through the following commands.

Prerequisite recommended OS update

Update the OS to current.

• apt-get update

• apt-get upgrade

Install all the necessary packages

• apt install -y util-linux apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client php php-curl php-cli php-pdo php-mysql php-pear php-gd php-mbstring php-intl php-bcmath curl sox mpg123 lame ffmpeg sqlite3 git unixodbc sudo dirmngr postfix asterisk odbc-mariadb php-ldap nodejs npm pkg-config libicu-dev

Prepare Asterisk

• systemctl stop asterisk

• systemctl disable asterisk

• cd /etc/asterisk

• mkdir DIST

• mv * DIST

• cp DIST/asterisk.conf .

• sed -i 's/(!)//' asterisk.conf

• touch modules.conf

• touch cdr.conf

Configure Apache web server

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

• sed -i 's/\(^memory_limit = \).*/\1256M/' /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini

• sed -i 's/^\(User\|Group\).*/\1 asterisk/' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

• sed -i 's/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

• a2enmod rewrite

• systemctl restart apache2

• rm /var/www/html/index.html

Configure ODBC

• cat <<EOF > /etc/odbcinst.ini
[MySQL]
Description = ODBC for MySQL (MariaDB)
Driver = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/odbc/libmaodbc.so
  FileUsage = 1
EOF
  
  

• cat <<EOF > /etc/odbc.ini
[MySQL-asteriskcdrdb]
Description = MySQL connection to 'asteriskcdrdb' database
Driver = MySQL
Server = localhost
Database = asteriskcdrdb
Port = 3306
Socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
Option = 3
EOF

Install FreePBX

• cd /usr/local/src

• wget http://mirror.freepbx.org/modules/packages/freepbx/7.4/freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz

• tar zxvf freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz

• cd /usr/local/src/freepbx/

• ./start_asterisk start

• ./install -n

Get the rest of the modules

Only a very basic system is installed at this point. You will probably want to install all the modules. Alternatively, you can skip this and pick-and-choose the individual modules you want later.

• fwconsole ma installall

Note on modules that fail to install

digiumaddoninstaller, firewall, and xmpp will not install. Firewall will not work without sysadmin (a free but commercial module); xmpp will not work without MongoDB. If you want XMPP, install MongoDB from the vendor's repo first.

ucp will install but the UCP node server will not start due to an incompatibility with NodeJS 12.x. A ticket and patch have been submitted to resolve the incompatibility and this note will be removed when ucp has been updated.

Apply the current configuration

• fwconsole reload

Set symlinks to the correct sound files

• cd /usr/share/asterisk

• mv sounds sounds-DIST

• ln -s /var/lib/asterisk/sounds sounds

Perform a restart to load all Asterisk modules that had not yet been configured

• fwconsole restart

Set up systemd (startup script)

• cat <<EOF > /etc/systemd/system/freepbx.service
[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
EOF
  
  

• systemctl daemon-reload

• systemctl enable freepbx

Asterisk and FreePBX 16 are installed! Go to the web interface at http://YOUR-IP to finish setup.