In this project I have set out to build a fully featured phone system I could deploy virtually. This project covers the initial build of the PBX but once done you would be in a position to configure the internal workings of the system and hook up a trunk to it connect it to the outside networks.
See below the image file to download and the recommended requirements for this project.
For normal deployments requiring the full Virtual Edition feature set, capacity and storage.
PABXStage_PRO.ova
Dual CPU Core 3.0GHz
2GByte RAM
512GByte Disk
Quad CPU Core 3.0GHz
4GByte RAM
512GByte Disk (SATA II or equivalent throughput)
In VMWare VirtualCenter, this is done from the file->import menu.
Enter either the URL of the download image, or browse for the local file on your computer where it was saved.
You will then be prompted to accept the ipcortex licence agreement which you must do in order to proceed. The import wizard will then step you through the VM creation process. Accepting the defaults is mostly OK for an evaluation/development environment, with a minimal resource footprint on your virtualisation platform, but please note the following if you intend to use the image heavilly:
– You should review the recommended requirements in the above Prerequisites tab and consider increasing the VM resources in line with these.
– Using “thick provisioned, eager zeroed” will take longer to initially provision the PBX, but will enable more consistent performance.
Once the VM is installed, you are ready to configure and licence the unit. These next steps will require that the PBX has network connectivity, but please note that the virtual network adapters are initially disabled in the image file. This is because the PBX could conflict with other devices on your network on its default IP address of 10.0.0.1.
Connect to the unit via console using the following logins:
Username: pabx
Password: pabx
Note – These logins will only work via console and not across the network.
Using the keyboards up/down and enter keys, select the Network configuration and edit each field to configure the details of the network interface. Hit OK to finish.
If you are adding the PABX to an existing data network which already has DNS and DHCP servers then you must read the Getting Started section of the Installation and Administration Guide to determine how to configure the existing DNS and DHCP servers to incorporate the PABX into the existing network. In this case, perform this configuration and then skip to Licencing below.
Running DHCP on the PBX can make phone provisioning much more straightforward as the DHCP and built in DNS server on the PBX will guarantee the correct settings for phone provisioning.
To do this, go into the DHCP option on the PABX console and either select the DHCP Server option using the space bar to toggle the settingt as required.
If enabled, clicking OK takes you to a subsequent screen where the DHCP range, default server, and DNS servers given to DHCP clients can be set.
Note that the DHCP server will not actually come up until after you complete the licencing step below, so you will need to set a static IP address on the device you are using to access the web interface in the step below.
After setting these correctly, select OK, and then Save and Exit. The PABX will then reboot when you accept the prompt.
If you haven’t already done so, enable the first virtual NIC on the PBX VM and connect it to the network that it will be operating on. Use a browser on a network connected device to access the web interface of the PABX by typing the IP address into the URL bar, then login using:
Username: admin
Password: password
To licence the unit, you will need the activation key which can be acquired from IPCortex. Once you have this to hand, click on the licence information text, then on the licencing sceen click “Fetch new Key, enter your activation key and click OK.
Once the licence fetch is confirmed, you need to click submit to actually apply the new licence that was generated using the activation key. After 30 seconds or so, when you navigate around the web interface, the new licence will have been applied and the warning message dissapears. Your PBX image is now ready to use.
See below a video tutorial which guides you through the entire process discussed above. This tutorial however has no audio.
Now that the phone system has been deployed virtually, the next step would be to configure call routing and get some IP handsets on your network to make it fully functional. This is out of the scope of this project, but I hope this shows that actually deploying a virtual enterprise level phone system truly is as easy as setting up any other type of networked appliance.