Activate server

Owned by Kelli Higdon
Apr 29, 2024
2 min read

New PBXtra servers typically have to be activated before you can begin using them.  We'll assume that the software is already installed on the server and it boots up, for the purposes of this article.

  1. Once the server has booted up to an "inactive login" prompt, to begin, type:
    activate

  2. It will go through network setup first.  We usually recommend picking "automatic" or "DHCP" for now (have a network cable hooked up by this point).  Then select the option to continue (usually #3).

Tip: If you set a static IP, use these DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 or 4.2.2.2

  1. it will ask you for your admin login credentials.  Typically your username is "fonalitySERVERID" or "tbadminSERVERID" (e.g. "tbadmin000000").  It will not show the password as you type it - this is normal.

  2. If you have an enterprise-class firewall, make sure that it isn't doing packet filtering on incoming traffic, nor should it block outbound traffic on certain ports - the PBX needs to download packages via FTP and HTTP/S.

  3. The PBX will check your Internet connection, and then continue setup.

  4. If prompted to activate the secondary network interface, this is for an optional phone-only network.  This is only used if you want to have all your phones on their own switch with the PBX acting as the sole DHCP server (the IP range is hard-set to 10.116.116.2-10.116.119.254).  This shouldn't be shared with any other devices. 

Unless you have a specific reason to use the phone-only network interface, we suggest answering "no" and hooking the phones to the same local network as your PCs and other network devices.

  1. After it downloads and updates numerous packages (depending on the speed of your Internet connection), it will say that setup was successful, and you can press Enter to continue.  And you'll be at the idle screen, with the "ip/ip" login option.

  2. At this point, it's likely that you can log in at the web admin panel ( http://cp.trixbox.com, or http://panel.fonality.com for Dell customers).

 

Unable to activate server

There are typically only three situations where activation fails for PBXtra .

  1. The software was not properly installed.

    1. With the installation CD inserted into the CD-ROM drive of your server, please reboot your server

    2. After the options for hard drive configuration (SATA, IDE, etc.) you will see a menu offering an option for media check.  Please answer 'yes' when offered the option of performing a media check

    3. The installation disk will automatically try to verify itself.  If this media check fails, please run an md5sum against the ISO found online to make sure the download was successful

    4. If the md5sum fails, please re-download the ISO and re-create a bootable CD-ROM

  2. Your networking equipment is blocking outbound connections on ports 8000 and/or 80.

    1. Please allow TCP ports 8000 and 80 inbound and outbound to your PBXtra .  These ports are required by PBXtra in order to communicate with Fonality's Data Center

  3. Your admin username and/or password is incorrect.

    1. If you are re-activating your server and you changed the original admin password to include non-alpha-numeric characters (! $ # % etc.) the activation may fail.  Please contact Fonality Support to have your admin password reset to alpha-numeric only.

    2. If you lost your admin username and/or password, please click on the Forgot your username or password? link.

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