How to Install FreePBX 16 on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7

In this post, we will cover how to Install FreePBX 16 on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7. FreePBX is an open source GUI tool for administering Asterisk PBX systems. FreePBX is written in PHP and available for both Red Hat and Debian Linux family.

This setup assumes you already have a working Asterisk Server. We have a guide for installing Asterisk LTS on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 below:

• Install Asterisk 16 LTS on CentOS 7 / Fedora
• How To Install Asterisk PBX 18 LTS on CentOS 7

Step 1: Setup Pre-requisites

Disable SELinux

setenforce 0
sudo sed -i 's/\(^SELINUX=\).*/\SELINUX=disabled/' /etc/selinux/config

Update CentOS system and Install Development Tools.

sudo yum -y update
sudo yum -y groupinstall  "Development Tools"

Install other required dependencies:

sudo yum -y install lynx tftp-server ncurses-devel sendmail sendmail-cf sox newt-devel libxml2-devel libtiff-devel audiofile-devel gtk2-devel subversion kernel-devel git crontabs cronie cronie-anacron wget vim php-xml uuid-devel sqlite-devel net-tools gnutls-devel unixODBC mysql-connector-odbc

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database server

FreePBX requires a database server. Run the commands below to install MariaDB database server.

curl -LsS https://downloads.mariadb.com/MariaDB/mariadb_repo_setup | sudo bash -s --
sudo yum install MariaDB-server MariaDB-client MariaDB-backup

Start and enable MariaDB server service:

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

Confirm service status

systemctl status mariadb

Step 3: Installing Node.js LTS

FreePBX has Node.js as a dependency, install it on your system by using our guide below:

sudo yum -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
sudo yum -y install nodejs npm

Once installed, confirm version using:

$ node -v
v16.14.1

Step 4: Install and configure Apache Web Server

Install httpd package using yum package manager:

sudo yum -y install httpd

Then change Apache user to asterisk and turn on AllowOverride option :

sudo cp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf_orig
sudo sed -i 's/^\(User\|Group\).*/\1 asterisk/' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
sudo sed -i 's/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Remove default index.html page

sudo rm -f /var/www/html/index.html
sudo rm /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf

Start and enable httpd service

sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

Step 5: Install PHP and required extensions

FreePBX is dependent on PHP, we shall install PHP 7.4 on the system. Start by enabling Remi RPM repository.

### CentOS 7 ###
sudo yum -y install epel-release yum-utils
sudo yum -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

### RHEL 7 ###
sudo yum -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
sudo subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-rpms \
  --enable=rhel-7-server-extras-rpms \
  --enable=rhel-7-server-optional-rpms

Enable PHP 7.4 repo:

sudo yum-config-manager --disable remi-php54
sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php74

run the following commands to install php and required extensions.

sudo yum -y install wget php php-pear php-cgi php-common php-curl php-mbstring php-gd php-mysql php-gettext php-bcmath php-zip php-xml php-imap php-json php-process php-snmp

Change php maximum file upload size:

sudo sed -i 's/\(^upload_max_filesize = \).*/\120M/' /etc/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/\(^memory_limit = \).*/\1256M/' /etc/php.ini

Step 6: Install FreePBX 16 on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7

Download the latest version of FreePBX using wget or curl command.

sudo yum -y install wget
wget http://mirror.freepbx.org/modules/packages/freepbx/7.4/freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz

Extract the file:

tar xfz freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz
rm -f freepbx-16.0-latest.tgz

Install FreePBX on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7

cd freepbx
sudo systemctl disable --now asterisk
sudo ./start_asterisk start
sudo ./install -n

If you have a root password for database server, use:

./install -n --dbuser root --dbpass dbpassword

Replace password with the root database password.

Sample installation output:

Done. All modules installed.
Updating Hooks...Done
Done installing modules
Taking too long? Customize the chown command, See http://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FOP/FreePBX+Chown+Conf
Setting Permissions...
Setting base permissions...Done
Setting specific permissions...
32451 [============================]
Finished setting permissions
Generating default configurations...
Finished generating default configurations
You have successfully installed FreePBX

Install all Freepbx modules using fwconsole command:

sudo fwconsole ma disablerepo commercial
sudo fwconsole ma installall
sudo fwconsole ma delete firewall
sudo fwconsole reload
sudo fwconsole restart

Restart httpd service

sudo systemctl restart httpd

If you have an active firewalld firewall service, open http & https ports

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

You have successfully installed FreePBX on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7.

Create a systemd unit for auto-starting the service:

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/freepbx.service<<EOF
[Unit]
Description=FreePBX VoIP Server
After=mariadb.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/fwconsole start -q
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/fwconsole stop -q
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Enable the service to autostart

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable freepbx

Step 7: Access FreePBX Web Interface

Open your web browser and connect to the IP address or hostname of your new FreePBX server.

1. Create the first admin account

When done providing admin user details, click “Create Account” to create the account. On the next page, you’ll get a login console.

You’ll get to FreePBX dashboard where you can manage your Asterisk PBX.