Failover Setup Issue

[Grant Moxom]

Hey Guys,
According to the documentation to setup failover I should create an identicall server with the same FQDN

For scenarios where the Active/Primary and Passive/Failover servers are behind different public IP addresses, when you first complete the installation of the Passive server and you run through the installation options, your public FQDN will be rewritten to the public IP of the Failover server. To re-write your external FQDN to resolve back to the public IP of the Active server, you need to edit the license for your primary server in “Settings” > “License” and click on “OK”, to switch back the FQDN to the 3CX primary server and restart its services.

That's all well and good - but when I try to choose the FQDN at https://portal.3cx.com/ it tells me the FQDN is already in use... which is correct... cos it is... but that's exactly what I want.. How can I get this to work?
I'm following this document
https://www.3cx.com/docs/failover/

 

[Saqqara]

What 3CX license do you have, you require an enterprise license

 

[Grant Moxom]

What 3CX license do you have, you require an enterprise license

Heya,
Yeah both keys are with an enterprise license - the failover setup in the 3cx console isn't the issue - I simply am not able to create a second server with the same FQDN using the PBX express wizard and that is a required step

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

@Grant Moxom

Are you perhaps using a different License Key for the secondary PBX? You should use the same exact license key as the one being used on the Primary PBX which is already bound to the desired FQDN.

 

[ChrisKoll]

You can not "Install" the failover server, you need to "Restore" from backup

 

[Grant Moxom]

@Grant Moxom

Are you perhaps using a different License Key for the secondary PBX? You should use the same exact license key as the one being used on the Primary PBX which is already bound to the desired FQDN.

Ah I think chris has stated the issue - I have to "Reinstall" the existing key onto a new server, then re-activate the old server and that should do it - I will try this and report back confirming and giving info on how it can be done

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

If the second server is on a different public IP then the DNS record will be updated with that IP upon installation. Because of this, we recommend performing this task during out of office hours as this will affect remote clients. Once the installation for the secondary server is complete, on the primary server, simply restart the System Service and then go to Settings >> License, click on Edit >> OK and then "Refresh License Key Information". By doing so, the DNS record should be updated with the Primary Server's IP. It will take some time to propagate globally though.

Regarding restoring the backup, you could restore it during installation as GlobalSiteGuard said, but, since you'll be using the same remote backup location for both PBXs, you could simply install a "blank" PBX and then enable scheduled restore with "Do not start services after restore" enabled.

 

[Grant Moxom]

If the second server is on a different public IP then the DNS record will be updated with that IP upon installation. Because of this, we recommend performing this task during out of office hours as this will affect remote clients. Once the installation for the secondary server is complete, on the primary server, simply restart the System Service and then go to Settings >> License, click on Edit >> OK and then "Refresh License Key Information". By doing so, the DNS record should be updated with the Primary Server's IP. It will take some time to propagate globally though.

Regarding restoring the backup, you could restore it during installation as GlobalSiteGuard said, but, since you'll be using the same remote backup location for both PBXs, you could simply install a "blank" PBX and then enable scheduled restore with "Do not start services after restore" enabled.

Hey this all makes sense and I just did a trial - however it's been an hour now and it hasn't changed back over. I was under the impression that with the enterprise servers there's a 30 second delay? any way to speed this up? If it's going to give this much down time then we have an issue

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

DNS TTL with an Enterprise Edition License Key is 5 minutes. That said though, we can't guarantee this will be the case for global DNS propagation.

If you have fixed remote sites where the clients are at, what you can do is have those remote sites use Google's DNS for the whole site (8.8.8.8) instead.

I'll PM you for more info.

 

[Grant Moxom]

Ok guys here is how it works in case you didn't know

In the customer portal click "Reinstall" to install a brand new instance of the same license
Once the install finished the FQDN will change-over to the new instance so do it out of office hours. Then quickly change it to the passive failover server so it stops all services - this is important, if you don't do this the FQDN won't change back.
Now go back to the primary server (you have to use the IP address of course) and edit the license, press ok and click "refresh license" .
Once that's done the FQDN will eventually swap over - in enterprise this takes about 5 minutes.
I've just tested and can confirm that this works =)

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

Glad to hear that everything has been taken care of!

I just want to add that, to ensure the FQDN got updated with the Primary Server's IP, I'd also recommend restarting the "3CX PhoneSystem 01 System Server" from within "Dashboard >> Services" on the Primary Server once all the steps have been completed.