The FreePBX Distro is a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

unified communications Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including ...

software system that consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) for configuring, controlling, and managing

Asterisk PBX Asterisk is a software implementation of a private branch exchange (PBX). In conjunction with suitable telephony hardware interfaces and network applications, Asterisk is used to establish and control telephone calls between telecommunication e ...

software. The FreePBX Distro includes packages that offer VoIP, PBX, Fax, IVR, voice-mail and email functions. The FreePBX Distro Linux distribution is based on CentOS, which maintains binary compatibility with

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop ...

. FreePBX has contributed to the popularity of Asterisk.

Installation

The Official FreePBX Distro is installed from a CD-ROM image available by web download, that includes the system CentOS, Asterisk,

FreePBX FreePBX is a web-based open-source graphical user interface (GUI) that manages Asterisk, a voice over IP and telephony server. FreePBX is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. It is a component of the FreePBX Distro, which is ...

GUI and assorted dependencies.

Support for telephony hardware

The FreePBX Distro has built-in support for cards from multiple vendors, including

Digium Digium, Inc. is a communications technology company based in Huntsville, Alabama, and since 2018, a subsidiary of Sangoma Technologies Corporation. The company makes VoIP business phone systems, IP phones, and hardware products. It was founded ...

, OpenVox, Alto, Rhino Equipment, Xorcom and Sangoma.The 159
/ref> The FreePBX Distro supports a large number of phone models via open-source modules.

Development

made its debut in 2004 as the AMP project (Asterisk Management Portal). The FreePBX Distro was released in 2011 as an All-In-One solution for building a PBX using Asterisk, CentOS and FreePBX. FreePBX has over 1 million active production PBXs and over 20,000 new systems added each month. Supported PBX phone manufacturers include Aastra Technologies, Algo, AND, Audiocodes,

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

, Cyberdata,

, Grandstream,

Mitel Mitel Networks Corporation is a Canadian telecommunications company. The company previously produced TDM PBX systems and applications, but after a change in ownership in 2001, now focuses almost entirely on Voice-over-IP (VoIP) products. Mitel ...

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

Polycom Poly, formerly Polycom, a part of HP Inc., is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeffrey Rodman. In 2018 ...

, Sangoma,

Snom Snom Technology GmbH is a German company which manufactures Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, based on the IETF standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Snom's products are targeted at the small- to medium-sized business secto ...

, Xorcom and Yealink. The core telephony engine is

Asterisk (PBX) Asterisk is a software implementation of a private branch exchange (PBX). In conjunction with suitable telephony hardware interfaces and network applications, Asterisk is used to establish and control telephone calls between telecommunication e ...

, as configured by the Open Source

GUI. The version numbering system summarizes the versions of core components of the FreePBX Distro. As an example, the ''FreePBX Distro 2.210.62-1'' version string has the following components. The first number (2) represents the major track number. This second number (210) refers to ''FreePBX 2.10'' GUI. The third number (62) refers to ''CentOS 6.2'', and the final number (1) is used as the minor release revision of this major track number. The latest stable release is FreePBX Distro Stable SNG7-PBX-64bit-2104-1 based on these main components: *FreePBX 15 *CentOS 7.8 *Asterisk 13, 16 or 17 Shell update scripts for each major release track are available on wiki.freepbx.org.Updating FreePBX
freepbx.org wiki page

References

External links

* {{linux distributions VoIP software FreePBX Asterisk (PBX) Telecommunications