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Backup/Restore Problem

Posted by rraborg on Fri, 02/15/2008
Forums
Thirdlane platform General Questions

Hi all!.
First I had an older version of Thirdlane PBX, then I upgraded it to Thirdlane PBX version 5.0.52 but I had a problem with webmin (no scroll bars appear on the screen when the page was larger than the screen). I was advised to backup all the configuration ( Tools --> Backup/Restore ) and then download the latest version ISO file (5.0.52 the same one I had) and install it, which I did. Everything came back to normal (now the scroll works fine) but the only problem I have is when I go to the option Tools --> PBX Information I don't see any information from the Asterisk, I only see = "Unable to connect to remote asterisk (does /var/run/asterisk.ctl exist?)" on all the options "PBX Version", "Uptime", etc...
Please advice.
Regards,
Roq.

Submitted by mattdarnell on Fri, 02/15/2008 Permalink

I have only gotten that error when Asterisk is not running.

What if you type 'asterisk -r' at the command line?

-Matt

Submitted by rraborg on Sat, 02/16/2008 Permalink

Hi Matt,

It's running, I have some phones registered to it.

When I run the command 'asterisk -r' I get the following:

[root@thirdlane ~]# cd /etc/asterisk/

[root@thirdlane asterisk]# asterisk -r

Asterisk 1.4.17, Copyright (C) 1999 - 2007 Digium, Inc. and others.

Created by Mark Spencer

Asterisk comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; type 'core show warranty' for details.

This is free software, with components licensed under the GNU General Public

License version 2 and other licenses; you are welcome to redistribute it under

certain conditions. Type 'core show license' for details.

========================================================

Unable to connect to remote asterisk (does /var/run/asterisk.ctl exist?)

[root@thirdlane asterisk]#

I cannot get in.

Please advice.

Regards,

Roq.

Submitted by thirdlane on Wed, 02/20/2008 Permalink

This is actually a combination of a wrong assumption (bug) in Thirdlane PBX and inconsistency in asterisk that is already fixed (in Thirdlane PBX), but unfortunately requires existing systems to be manually corrected.

The problem has to do with the ownership of the /var/run directory (it is owned by root) and running Thirdlane PBX as asterisk user. A better way would be for asterisk to be configured to put its ctl and pid files into /var/run/asterisk (by default) which would be owned by asterisk users. We changed the default behavior of asterisk by 1) creating /var/run/asterisk 2) tweaking asterisk.conf to make asterisk write pid and ctl to /var/run/asterisk and 3) changing permissions.

If this sounds complicated please send an email to alex@thirdlane.com and i'll try to help.

Best regards,

Alex

Submitted by eeman on Wed, 02/20/2008 Permalink

you never ever ever EVER want to run asterisk as anything but root. I hope I emphasized this enough. Running asterisk as anything but root prevents asterisk from setting the correct TOS bits on the IP header making QoS policies completely impotent. VoIP without QoS is like partial circumcision. Either go all the way or forget it lol.

Submitted by telecolink on Sat, 07/05/2008 Permalink

I am encountering the same problem as rraborg's problem and I need instructions how to fix it so that I get PBX manager running. Can you please post the steps? Also I do not want to compromize with QoS as it is crutial. I did not really understand why eeman commented with not running asterisk as anything but root and how that relates to what Alex suggested for a solution. Thank you