Unsupported Looking for manual installation method for SBC on Linux / Raspberry Pi

[jandalf]

After the filesystem of the SD-card of my Raspberry server turned itself to ReadOnly, resulting in a system that would no longer boot, i am now facing the challenge to reinstall a new system on a new SD-card (no backup unfortunately).

What really gives me a hard time, is the installation of the 3CX Session Border Controller, which had been running on the old system before. The installer that can be downloaded from this website unfortunately insists on a provisioning link, which however is not (and will not be) availiable in this case. Without this link, the installation can only be aborted. An option for a manual configuration is (for whatever reason) not provided.

As far as i remember, i got arround this with "apt install 3cxsbc" (after adapting the packet sources) when i set up the old system.
Unfortunately this is no longer an option, since there is a dependency to "libssl1.0.0." which ist not installable on the new system (installing libssl1.0.2 is possible, however doesn't help due to incompatibilities).

Of course it is possible to copy the 3cxsbc binary from the old SD-card and run it manually (along with the old config file, everything seems to work fine). However the SBC should of course start automatically (which had apparantly been realized by systemd on the old system) and besides that i'm not sure wha may be missing with this kind of "installation" and what side effects this might possibly have. That way i'd like to perform a correct installation of the SBC.

Does anybody know how to achieve such a manual installation?

 

[jandalf]

I was able to solve the problem:
After changing the appr. entry in /etc/apt/sources.list to:

deb http://downloads-global.3cx.com/downloads/debian buster main

i was able to install the SBC by "apt install 3cxsbc". The config file i had alreay copied from the old system ( /etc/3cxsbc.conf ) remained untouched. My current Raspberry OS is now "bullseye" (Debian 11 ) for which an appropriate SBC release does not yet exist, but the Debian10 version apparantly runs on Debian 11 either.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

That way i'd like to perform a correct installation of the SBC.

A correct installation of the SBC would be re-flashing the SD with the ISO and installing the SBC so since you won't be following this installation path we won't be able to guarantee normal functionality or that it will work at all regardless of what other method you use to deploy it.

May I ask why the provisioning link is not currently available?

What you could try but again is not a supported method is:

1. Install the SBC using the guide above.
2. Use the provisioning link of a different PBX to complete the installation.
3. Once up and running stop the SBC service:

sudo service 3cxsbc stop

4. Copy over your old SBC config (the one you currently have on the read-only sd) and overwrite the following file:

/etc/3cxsbc.conf

5. Start up the SBC service:

sudo service 3cxsbc start

Check if the SBC connection is up on the PBX you want it to be (check in SIP Trunks section) and if yes delete the SBC entry on the other PBX you used to deploy.

You should of course redeploy using the ISO should you face any issues with this.


EDIT: Glad to see you found a workaround but I do have to mention that you config is an unsupported one for which we cannot guarantee normal functionality so do bear that in mind in case you face issues with this particular SBC instance.

 

[jandalf]

The only purpose of the SBC ist to attach my home internet router to the company PBX, so i don't have to use a softphone (i generally don't like softphones, but the surface of the 3CX Windows client is really more than ugly) and can use my existing phones to comfortably receive and make office calls without any private phone numbers being involved.
It's great that you offer an ISO for installation, but since the Rasperry server has several other (home) functions, i prefer to pick and install the OS myself. I did not encounter any problems with this setup in the past and i certainly don't expect any guarantees, so i'm aware that this is not a standard solution and i'm fine with that.
My company currently only supports the 3CX Windows client, hence there is no appropriate link for the installer (using the SBC is allowed though and i was provided the tunnel password, but besides that i'm on my own with that solution).

I just don't understand, why 3CX seems to completely insist on this plug-and-play thing (it is great, when you OFFER that, but you shouldn't FORCE it). It would certainly not be a big deal to implement a manual installation option at the installer that allows to perform a complete installation that generates an empty config file that can then be edited manually.