Don’t judge me dog, it’s been one of those days.

Speaking for all of these SAMIT videos...

If you would literally rip the audio from these videos, and put these on a podcast, my drive to the office could be more educational...

Setting one of these up for an office.

Hi Mangolassi! I've been stalking this site for a while and thought it's time for my first post here.

I'm currently hosting a FreeBPX box on a VPS. Lately, the performance has been subpar to say the least. Lots of jitter, and drops. The VPS provider is looking into it, but I'm looking for plan B. Does anyone here have any experience with FreePBX on a VPS? If so, which provider would be best? I am located in Pennsylvania, so NY, NJ, or better still, Ashburn, VA would be the best location for us.

I've been reading up on Linode, Backspace, Vultr, and DO. Ideally, the ability to upload my own ISO (the FreePBX distro ISO) would be the easiest, but I am open to other options as well.

I'll be using the VPS exclusively for FreePBX systems, so obviously, the main requirement is voice quality. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

2 things: First, Unifi makes some pretty nice looking phones. Android based) Second, Mangolassi displays just fine on this phone.

That is all...

th

I recently setup my EdgeRouter X as a L2TP server with local user authentication. We've been using this for the past few days without any issues. Connecting from various platforms/OS's works perfectly. Let me know if anyone has an alternative method or if this guide should be tweaked at all.

Assumes outside WAN interface is eth0

configure

set vpn ipsec ipsec-interfaces interface eth0
set vpn ipsec nat-traversal enable
set vpn ipsec nat-networks allowed-network 0.0.0.0/0
set vpn l2tp remote-access ipsec-settings ike-lifetime 3600

If you have a static IP from your ISP, issue the following command, where x.x.x.x is your IP:

set vpn l2tp remote-access outside-address x.x.x.x

Gateway/next hop for public IP above:

set vpn l2tp remote-access outside-nexthop x.x.x.x

set vpn l2tp remote-access client-ip-pool start 10.0.1.10
set vpn l2tp remote-access client-ip-pool stop 10.0.1.20

set vpn l2tp remote-access ipsec-settings authentication mode pre-shared-secret

set vpn l2tp remote-access ipsec-settings authentication pre-shared-secret horsebatterystaple

set vpn l2tp remote-access authentication mode local

set vpn l2tp remote-access authentication local-users username adam password adampassword

set vpn l2tp remote-access mtu 1492

set vpn l2tp remote-access dns-servers server-1 8.8.8.8
set vpn l2tp remote-access dns-servers server-2 8.8.4.4

commit 

To verify the server is setup, the following command can be used.

show vpn l2tp remote-access

Save to keep changes on reboot

save

Set firewall rules for VPN traffic:
This can be done via the GUI as well, but I used CLI. Just make sure to pay attention to your rule numbers and order.

set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 20 action accept
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 20 description Allow_L2TP
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 20 destination port 500,1701,4500
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 20 log disable
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 20 protocol udp
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 30 action accept
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 30 description Allow_ESP
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 30 log disable
set firewall name WAN_LOCAL rule 30 protocol 50

That's it! Now setup the built in client on your OS of choice and you should be good to go.

Actual video of me programming my coffee pot to brew coffee...

Coffee Programming

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Dominica said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

I'm about to throw my effing laptop across the room if wordpress doesn't let me start customizing my damn website template. Argh!

Isn't this a Wordpress issue, and not a laptop one?

Yeah, but she cant physically throw wordpress. The laptop is the closest accomplice.

Thought I would circle back on this one and give a review of OrangeComputers.

I purchased an R710 from OrangeComputers a few months ago. They were very willing to work with me on price and upgrade components for a very reasonable price. I believe they even upgraded the controller from a Perc6i to an H710 for little to no cost. The server arrived within about 2-3 days, very well packaged, and all firmware up to date. The condition of the server was great, and it has been running 24/7 ever since I booted it with 4-5 VMs on it.

In summary, after 3 months of usage, I would recommend this company for refurb servers, as long as warranty is not a huge issue for you. Their warranty is 90 days standard, but you can pay a little extra and get a 1 year warranty. If you want a 3 year warranty, then these are not the guys to go with. For home use, or even small business, I'd buy from them again. Their pricing is excellent.

Do we have a date and location for this yet? For planning purposes.

@AdamF said in Mesh Central:

I have the agent running on 2 Pi's The 4 GB version of the Pi. The screen lag is incredibly SLOW. (running Raspian)
Installing an agent on my windows laptop (8GB ram) is incredibly responsive and quick. Are there some tweaks to run on the Pis to improve the screen lag for remote viewing?

It was 100% Pi related as suspected. Here's what I did to speed things up. (found on https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=1983061&sid=eaf6504ffd4e15374cbd86907d954c67#p1983061)

in /boot/config.txt
uncomment this line:
hdmi_force_hotplug=1

commented out these lines:
#dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
#max_framebuffers=2

Then the resolution was really low despite the VNC resolution set in raspi-config, so after setting the above and rebooting I then set the 'display options' resolution in raspi-config to be the same as the VNC resolution.

In my case I'm using 1920x1080, so that modified my config.txt to have these lines:

hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=82

I have the agent running on 2 Pi's The 4 GB version of the Pi. The screen lag is incredibly SLOW. (running Raspian)
Installing an agent on my windows laptop (8GB ram) is incredibly responsive and quick. Are there some tweaks to run on the Pis to improve the screen lag for remote viewing?

@scottalanmiller said in Mesh Central:

@AdamF said in Mesh Central:

Well, this tool is amazing and just works. Nice job @Ylian !

Yeah, it's definitely the best tool for this on the market. It's blown past everyone else. We are doing the AMT integration now and rolling out vPro anywhere that we can. It's just amazing.

I know you use it for remote agents that are always installed (or at least I assume so), but are you also able to use it for "one off" remote sessions? For example, sometimes I will open a screen connect session for a quick support session. Then when finished, close the session, the end. Can we do that as well with MC?

Well, this tool is amazing and just works. Nice job @Ylian !

@scottalanmiller said in Mesh Central:

@AdamF said in Mesh Central:

@scottalanmiller I am missing the 2FA option in the my account settings. I am missing something I suppose?

Because the name is dumb?

My Account >> Manage Authenticator App

Nope. I just didn't RTFM. By default, it is in WAN and LAN mode. You have to switch it to WAN mode and give it a valid DNS name. Then that option shows up.

@scottalanmiller I am missing the 2FA option in the my account settings. I am missing something I suppose?

@scottalanmiller Hopefully getting those Pi's connected this weekend. (from the other thread)

@scottalanmiller said in Mesh Central:

@AdamF Usernames, passwords, SSL/TLS and 2FA are the lockdowns you'd use anywhere. It's secure by default. If you can, do IP locking. But it is rare that you can do that.

Excellent, just wanted to verify with someone else as well. Thanks Scott.

I finally spun up a MC server VPS. How is everyone securing this? Besides the fact that I can setup 2FA for this, if I don't want to put this behind any proxy, what is the best approach to secure the web UI?

I found 2 at Best buy online. Now they are out of stock already. Crazy times.