I have a backup. Now what?

[Noel Evolution]

I have a backup that I downloaded. Recordings and all (call center).

I tried to restore/upgrade but the recordings had to be removed from the archive (why is there a size limit on a restore/upgrade on pbxexpress?0

Now I want to make a backup; open the archive; reinsert the recordings; upload the backup; restore.

For the life of me I don't see any way to upload a backup into the system.

Server is the new v18 on Azure.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

Do you still have the old PBX up and running? If yes, take a new backup but do not include recordings. Also copy all recordings from the server directly to an offsite location. Do not uninstall the old PBX or delete anything, I recommend simply shutting it down and only deleting it after you've confirmed the new one is up and running.

You can use that backup to restore the PBX via PBX Express. Once the PBX is up and running, you can move the Recordings to the default location:

/var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Recordings

The PBX should be able to access all recordings thereafter.

Alternatively, what we recommend for deployments with a large volume of recordings is actually using a separate drive which you could mount and use exclusively for holding the recording files.

Whatever you do, just remember to set the appropriate recordings path in the "Management Console >> Recordings >> Location" section after you've moved the recording files.

 

[Noel Evolution]

As mentioned, this is on Azure. I am not sure how to drop files in when there is only SSH access

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I'm not sure if Azure provides an easy way to access the file system of instances via their control panel, but, you can definitely use an SFTP client such as WinSCP to do this.

Something I forgot to mention is that you should also make sure that the permissions for the "Recordings" directory and all subfolders/files are as follows:

Permissions: wxr-xr-x
Owner: phonesystem
Group: phonesystem

 

[Noel Evolution]

I will look up WinSCP. Will it use the same UN/PW as SSH?

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

Yes, authentication credentials should be the same as it's the SSH File Transfer Protocol.

 

[Noel Evolution]

I am getting permission denied when trying to add files to the folder "Recordings"

 

[Noel Evolution]

Nor can I create a folder

 

[Noel Evolution]

it looks like pbxexpress only has read and execute permissions

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I am getting permission denied when trying to add files to the folder "Recordings"

Are you doing this via SFTP? It probably means that the user you used does not have the appropriate permissions for that directory.

looks like pbxexpress only has read and execute permissions

If you're talking about SFTP this has nothing to do with PBXExpress, it has to do with the SFTPs user's permissions.

You would probably have to change the Recordings directory permissions via SSH before attempting to SFTP. As mentioned previously, the Recordings folder has:

Permissions: wxr-xr-x
Owner: phonesystem
Group: phonesystem

So users apart from "phonesystem" (and root of course) only have read and execute. You would have to add write permissions via SSH, complete the file transfer, via SFTP and then SSH and set the permissions back to their original state.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Let's be a bit more specific, let's assume you want to upload your recordings to /var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Recordings/ .

1. First give full permission to all users to write in that folder: sudo chmod -R 777 /var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Recordings
   
   
2. Upload the recordings to this folder via SFTP (now you should be able to) and make sure the directory structure is the same, which means that in the Recordings folder, there should be subdirectories for the extension numbers.
   
   
3. Once you have uploaded the files, set the permissions back as they were: sudo chmod -R 755 /var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Recordings
   
   
4. Now also make sure the the owner of this folder and all subdirs is "phonesystem": sudo chown -R phonesystem:phonesystem /var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Recordings
   
   That should do the trick.
   
   Just to make sure though you are understanding what you are doing, I would suggest before doing any of this to research the commands and understand what they do and why they are necessary.[/CODE]