When this reboot completes (you’ll see the “pbx login” prompt), shut down the machine by sending a Ctrl-Alt-Del from Hyper-V Server and stopping the machine when it is at the BIOS startup stage.Once that completes, the system reboots again.

The download goes quickly but it does take awhile to compile Zaptel, Asterisk, etc. Choose “A” for the latest stable release via the Internet.

After the boot completes, you’ll be prompted about which PiaF “payload” to use.

If you miss this, the install will start over. As soon as the reboot starts, quickly select Media > DVD Drive > Eject.

Toward the end of the installation, you’ll see that CentOS is “Installing bootloader,” then the install reboots.

I deliberately chose a very simple root password during the setup so I could take this virtual machine to client sites one day if needed. It also does not use the LVM file system, which apparently adds unnecessary overhead (according to jroper). This starts the install in text mode, which avoids an issue with 24-bit video.

At the first install prompt, type ksalt.

Attach the ISO to the virtual machine’s DVD-ROM drive (Media > DVD Drive) and start the machine.

Download the PBX in a Flash 1.4 ISO file.

Note that the fixed disk and legacy card cannot be configured through the New Virtual Machine Wizard you’ll have to modify the settings once the virtual machine exists.

Set up a new virtual machine with 512MB of memory, a 10GB virtual IDE hard disk (for servers, I’m told that fixed disks perform better than dynamic disks), and a connected legacy network card.

Follow these steps to set up CentOS under Hyper-V Server using the PiaF installation ISO: I’ll assume you have Hyper-V Server installed and running. Setting Up CentOS under Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Especially now that Hyper-V supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux, could Hyper-V be the answer to virtualizing PiaF on a Microsoft platform? Recently I’ve been testing Microsoft’s free bare-metal hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Within a couple weeks, I abandoned the virtual machine approach and published Moving PBX in a Flash from a Virtual to a Physical Machine. That article discussed running PBX in a Flash (PiaF) under Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005. Back in November 2008, I blogged about Setting Up PBX in a Flash, Part 1: Configuring a Virtual Machine.

How to install freepbx on hyper-v