From SIPfoundry sipXecs IP PBX, The Open Source SIP PBX for Linux - Calivia

Installing Debian

We chose a minimal text based install of Debian Sarge (3.1) without any additional packages (network install from a minimal CD). The example hostname chosen was sipx with the domain name domain.com. We chose not to configure the mail system (Exim) at this point.

Note re: kernel: By default Debian Sarge will use kernel 2.4.27. If you want a 2.6 kernel type linux26 at the initial boot prompt.

Once installed, login as root.

Important note: For production systems it is recommended to use a separate partition for /var. This is to prevent system crashes should the /var partition get filled up either because the logs run over or the voicemail store grows too big.

Verify /dev/null

Verify the permissions on /dev/null; they should be 0666 or the installation of PostgreSQL will fail (with /usr/lib/postgresql/bin/initdb: line 86: /dev/null: Permission denied).

crw-rw-rw-  1 root root 1, 3 Oct 10 16:27 /dev/null