1. Get to a Linux console on the old Asterisk box
2. Log in as root
3. Archive the Asterisk configuration files
   • tar -zcvf etcasterisk.tgz /etc/asterisk
4. Archive the Asterisk sound files
   • tar -zcvf sounds.tgz /var/lib/asterisk/sounds
5. Archive the Asterisk voicemail files
   • tar -zcvf voicemails.tgz /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail
6. Archive the provisioning files if they exist
   • tar -zcvf tftpboot.tgz /tftpboot
   • These files are in '/home/PlcmSpIp' on Thirdlane
7. Archive the DAHDI configuration files if you have a TDM card
   • tar -zcvf etcdahdi.tgz /etc/dahdi

This will create files that can be transferred to the new PBX.

scp {etcasterisk.tgz,sounds.tgz,voicemails.tgz,tftpboot.tgz,etcdahdi.tgz} root@new.pbx.server:/

This leaves the archives in the root of the new PBX.

Log into the new PBX as root and extract the archives.

cd /
tar -xzvf sounds.tgz
rm sounds.tgz
tar -xzvf voicemails.tgz
rm voicemails.tgz

If you want to extract the files to a temporary location:

mkdir /root/asterisk_backup
mv etcasterisk.tgz /root/asterisk_backup
cd /root/asterisk_backup
tar -xzvf etcasterisk.tgz

Finally, a word about permissions. You will want to check that the newly extracted files have appropriate permissions. They may need to be adjusted to something similar to this:

chown -R asterisk.asterisk /var/lib/asterisk/sounds
chown -R asterisk.asterisk /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail
find /var/lib/asterisk/sounds -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
find /var/lib/asterisk/sounds -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
find /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
find /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

There are two sound file directory layouts in existence. The new way has alternate languages in their own subdirectory of /var/lib/asterisk/sounds.

If you see errors such as:

[2011-11-21 10:25:33] WARNING[9730]: file.c:665 ast_openstream_full: File digits/1 does not exist in any format
[2011-11-21 10:25:33] WARNING[9730]: file.c:992 ast_streamfile: Unable to open digits/1 (format 0x4 (ulaw)): No such file or directory

first check for the existence of the sound files and the permissions. Then check this setting in /etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf:

languageprefix=yes