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I run a small PBX based on the FreePBX distro of Asterisk. The installation has been steadily upgraded but for various reasons, we want to start again on a new server with a clean install from the distribution media.

Will I be able to take a backup from the old server and restore it to the new server, even though the installs are different versions? How sensitive are FreePBX backups to the build version? Is it possible to get at least a partial restore?

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Generally you're best off bringing both machines to the same version before trying to restore.

If you don't go that route the thing to watch out for is schema changes between versions.
Read the changelog carefully, and mount a scratch monkey before sacrificing your production environment (while virtual machines won't work for VOIP they are fine for testing a restore...)

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  • Good advice on the VM, I will certainly do that.
    – Tim Long
    Commented Jul 4, 2012 at 9:57
  • How Sensitive are the Asterisk Versions? From What I have found with FreePBX going from 2.X.** to 2.X.** is fine but going from 2.X.** to 2.Y.** won't work. AKA Major revisions, but from what I read, asterisk 1.8/11 is compatable with FreePBX 2.8-12 (somewhat) so can I restore a backup with same PBX versions but different Asterisk>?
    – FreeSoftwareServers
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 19:42
  • @FreeSoftwareServers My experience has been that Asterisk isn't the problem but rather it's the underlying FreePBX libraries and database structure that get confused when you restore across versions. FreePBX can configure a number of different versions of Asterisk (there's a command-line tool that picks the active version in their distribution), so what I'd do in your situation is configure identically, restore, and then run the script to change Asterisk versions.
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 21:42
  • That's more for FreePBX distro... I'm steering more custom since I'm attempting to get to CentOS 7. To bring my configs across so much upgrading is proving difficult!
    – FreeSoftwareServers
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 22:01
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    But as FreePBX is becoming more closed source (more modules are encrypted PHP, and require licensing) there is a trend away from the 'distro' and towards the open source only offering. More specifically responding to the question, we've seen companies restore a backup from a system with identical FreePBX base version, but different module versions and the system would not start. Schmooze posted a warning a while back to only restore onto the same system you backed up, and only with the same modules & versions. Any change in versions (even minor module versions) and you risk corruption.
    – TSG
    Commented Jun 25, 2017 at 22:14

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