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Hi all,
I thought you may find the following instructions useful if you want to install 3CX on a Linode server... The instructions assume familiarity with Linode and the Linux command line.
**EDIT** As per Chris's comment below, this results in an unsupported installation.
Provision a Nanode/Linode (referred to as the server from hereon) to whatever size/location you need. It doesn’t matter what OS you choose, you’re going to zap it anyway. From experience, a small PBX will run quite happily in the $5/month Nanode!
Once the server is created and running, shut it down.
Under server settings, disable shutdown watchdog (this will stop it rebooting when you don’t want it to).
In disks:
Open LISH and at the console:
In 'configuration', rename the configuration to ‘3CX’ and make sure it has:
Because Debian is expecting to find the CDROM drive at /dev/cdrom and the server has no concept of CDROMs, the device doesn’t exist, so an error pops up - “No common cd-rom drive was detected error”. To resolve this, we need to tell Debian that the CDROM drive is actually /dev/sdc. The easiest way is to create a link between /dev/sdc and /dev/cdrom. With the error message still displayed on the console:
When partitioning disks, do it manually – just create one partition on sda, format it and mount it at / (if you do it automatically, it tries to partition the ISO image disk and it all goes wrong!). Use sdb for swap.
The installation process will run up to the point GRUB tries to configure itself and it will fail (the installer tries to configure grub for /dev/sda which grub doesn’t like). Click ‘continue’ and then ‘continue without bootloader’ from the menu. Ignore the message about the kernel parameters – it does that even though it warns you.
It should complete the installation and then go through to reboot. At this point, click in the Linode console to boot from the original configuration. You should be able to complete the installation in GLISH and then from the web.
Once everything is up, in the server settings, re-enable the watchdog.
Because the installation uses standard Linode disks, Backup can be added to the server (at an additional cost).
I thought you may find the following instructions useful if you want to install 3CX on a Linode server... The instructions assume familiarity with Linode and the Linux command line.
**EDIT** As per Chris's comment below, this results in an unsupported installation.
Provision a Nanode/Linode (referred to as the server from hereon) to whatever size/location you need. It doesn’t matter what OS you choose, you’re going to zap it anyway. From experience, a small PBX will run quite happily in the $5/month Nanode!
Once the server is created and running, shut it down.
Under server settings, disable shutdown watchdog (this will stop it rebooting when you don’t want it to).
In disks:
- Delete the large disk – if you try to use it, it just won’t work, it’s best to start from scratch.
- Create a disk for the installation ISO – 400MB.
- If you want a larger swap size, delete swap disk and re-create to whatever size you want
- Create disk for 3CX – remainder of space (or as big as you want) and name it ‘3CX’
Open LISH and at the console:
- “wget https://downloads-global.3cx.com/downloads/debian10iso/debian-amd64-netinst-3cx.iso”
- “dd if=debian-amd64-netinst-3cx.iso of=/dev/sda”
- “shutdown -h now”
- Press Enter when prompted
In 'configuration', rename the configuration to ‘3CX’ and make sure it has:
- Paravirtualisation
- Latest 64 bit kernel
- Default level
- No memory limits
- /dev/sda -> 3CX
- /dev/sdb -> swap
- Root: /dev/sda
- Disable all helpers
- Direct disk access
- Set to boot from sbc
- Sda – OS disk
- Sdb – Swap disk
- Sdc – ISO disk
- Root: /dev/sdc
- Disable all helpers
Because Debian is expecting to find the CDROM drive at /dev/cdrom and the server has no concept of CDROMs, the device doesn’t exist, so an error pops up - “No common cd-rom drive was detected error”. To resolve this, we need to tell Debian that the CDROM drive is actually /dev/sdc. The easiest way is to create a link between /dev/sdc and /dev/cdrom. With the error message still displayed on the console:
- “<alt>+<f2>” to switch to the second virtual console
- “<enter>” to activate it
- “ln /dev/sdc /dev/cdrom” so Debian knows where the ‘CDROM’ drive is.
- “<alt>+<f1>” to switch back to the first console
When partitioning disks, do it manually – just create one partition on sda, format it and mount it at / (if you do it automatically, it tries to partition the ISO image disk and it all goes wrong!). Use sdb for swap.
The installation process will run up to the point GRUB tries to configure itself and it will fail (the installer tries to configure grub for /dev/sda which grub doesn’t like). Click ‘continue’ and then ‘continue without bootloader’ from the menu. Ignore the message about the kernel parameters – it does that even though it warns you.
It should complete the installation and then go through to reboot. At this point, click in the Linode console to boot from the original configuration. You should be able to complete the installation in GLISH and then from the web.
Once everything is up, in the server settings, re-enable the watchdog.
Because the installation uses standard Linode disks, Backup can be added to the server (at an additional cost).
Last edited:
