Hi all,

Waiting on a couple of Cisco 7961 IP phones to arrive so I can connect and config, just trying to do some pre-setup.

My current task is trying to set up a TFTP. I have entered the unembedded FreePBX GUI from the Elastix GUI, downloaded and installed TFTP Manager 1.1. On the top of the window in freepbx it has /tftpboot, so I'm guessing I'm in the right place, however the url is displayed as xx.x.x.x/admin/config.php?type=tool&display=tftpmanager (X meaning IP address), yet everyone always talks about just a standard xx.x.x.x/tftpboot ??

How do I get a working TFTP server, and know the IP address to put into the Alernate TFTP on the Cisco Phones? Also, how/where do I get all the necessary config files to put in the server for these phones (I'm guessing I just delete the standard config files already in there and replace them with everything Cisco related?

The final question: Will the TFTP manager in freePBX automatically connect back to the Elastix GUI and into my Asterisk box, or am I missing something?



Nic.

Hey there!

Hope I can help with this. I've never used anything inside FreePBX when it comes to the tftp server. It is installed by default in the /tftpboot folder as you mentioned. There's a REALLY good guide here showing you all you need: wiki.siftah.com/Cisco_7960G_IP_Phone_on_Asterisk

Basically, you need to make sure your phones are flashed as SIP first, do you know if they are or are they still SCCP? If they are then it's a bit more work but I can help with that I've just flashed a bunch of mine. Assuming they're SIP now, unplug them then hold # while plugging it in. IT will say erase network config? or something like that, 1 no 2 yes. Just say yes that clears the config. Once the phone boots, you go into network config, it will probably be locked so before that go to settings, scroll to unlock config, and the default password is cisco. Enter that then go to network settings. SCroll way down and choose Alternate TFTP Server = YES.

Scroll to the top and click on the TFTP Server and enter the address to your asterisk box, that will tell it to look there and in the /tftpboot folder for the files.

All the details on editing the files are on that link I sent. It's pretty manual, you do it all in nano mostly. Basically you have the SIPDefault.cnf file which is the global settings for the phones, and has the name of the SIP image to use. Then each phone needs a SIP----macaddress---.cnf file which has the settings specific to that phone, so user name, password extension etc.

When the phone boots it looks for those 2 files, and they point it to the config file it needs.

Go to that guide first though and follow it all and post back if you need help. IF your phones aren't flashed to SIP yet let me know as I can assist with that, it's not that hard you just need to make sure your config files are correct. Just a tip, I can only seem to get P03-08-9 I believe it is (going by memory) to work on my SIP phones. Any version higher than that doesn't flash, it keeps rebooting the phone over and over and then becomes a pain because you no longer can enter an alternate TFTPserver you have to have a DHCP server on asterisk running to fix it. So I'd suggest staying on that version until you're comfortable with trying to go higher.

hey oshkosh,

at the moment i am waiting on the phones to arrive, just thought i would try and set things up beforehand so it would be a smoother process in the end. the phones i am getting are 7961's though, not 7960's. from googleing i have read their setup process is slightly different and more complex than the 60's, and not many people have used 61's on Asterisk, although it can apparently be done. (Hopefully so because 1 they are a better phone and 2 i paid good money!) The phones should be coming pre-loaded with SIP, I am not sure which version of SIP or which version of the Cisco firmware they are coming with)

just to clarify, if i wipe config, will the phones reboot and reload all the basic config files it needs to the tftp server? or do i have to download them myself and put them in?

i have read the link provided, very informative, thank you! im assuming i just type that stuff into the actual server computer? before i do that however, i am still trying to find out if the freepbx tftp manager will work for me. as mentioned, when i access it on the GUI i get a long url instead of a simple <IP address>/tftpboot url. Would this matter? would the phone just be able to find the TFTP server just by the IP address of the Asterisk box (My deep apologies for all the silly silly questions, I only have a medium knowledge of computer stuff and this kind of thing I have never tried before)


Nic.

For that series of Cisco phones, you will need to add option 150 to the more normal option 66 (tftp server name) and set it to point to your tftpd machine in whatever you use for your DHCP server, if you use the standard linux DHCP server provided with Elastix then add it to /etc/dhcpd.conf, if you use some other device for DHCP that won't work and you will have to read their documentation. (Don't try and use two DHCP servers on the same network unless you know exactly what you are doing )

If you don't use DHCP then you will have to hardcode the tftpd machine and the other IP network parameters into each phone.


dicko

dicko,

great advice will the freepbx gui with my asterisk box's ip address function as my tftp server or do i need to add somethin else to the mix to get it up and running?

nic.

No, it is already a tftp server, that service is under the control of xinet and tftp and it's behavior is described in:-

/etc/xinetd.d/tftp

If you are talking about DHCP that would depend on your circumstances Elastix has one available but disabled, that is in the GUI under network, please download and read "Elastix Without Tears" it will answer may of your questions.

dicko

I have now recieved the phones and I have a problem. I went to load them up and there was no SIP image installed as I expected there should have been SIP, the very limited options menu just stated stuff about callmanager. I downloaded SIP Firmware (8.5.3), uploaded the files into the /tftpboot directory on the tftp manager gui on freepbx, selected alternate tftp "yes" on the phone and set the tftp address as the IP address of my asterisk box as shown in the top left corner of the freepbx gui. i then did a reset of the cisco using #, 123456789*0#. The phone is now in an endless cycle of "upgrading - cisco screen - rebooting" I googled and found a code you can type in while resetting the phone again to stop this cycle, however multiple people reported their phone screens going blank and staying that way, so I don't want to try it. i don't understand what's going wrong, I have placed all the files in the upgrade pack into the tftp server gui and NOTHING. I knew from research day 1 these phones would be a b**ch to set up, but now I'm getting very cheesed off that the simplest part of it all - putting files onto a server gui - is turning out complicated with no explaination. can someone PLEASE give me a step by step on what i'm doing wrong, what's being omitted, and how I fix this? I have downloaded and read EWT by Ben. It explained a lot but I can't figure this out? Thanks!

Nic.

Hi Nic,

I have configured all of 794X/796X/797X phones to work with freepbx. The dhcp option I use is 66 for all the newer phones 79X1+. I have also custom tweeked an endpoint manager from trixbox, into freepbx, that has all the firmwares needed for all the phones. Read my posting here on how to install it:

www.elastix.org/en/component/kunena/46-o...bx-from-trixbox.html

With my version of this endpoint manager, you dont need to touch any xml code, except for the firmware load in the XmlDefault.xml


Let me know if you need any help running the module.

Gil

Hi Gil,

Looks great! I downloaded and tried uploading to my freepbx module, down in the botom taskbar of the browser it says "sending request to xx.x.x.x" (My IP), then shortly after it reloads to the freepbx main menu, without any changes??

(Also note I am not using TrixBox if this makes any difference, although I assume not). If I could get it up and working I would be in heaven!

Nic.

The web interface is restricted to a limited filesize upload, so you need to upload over scp. If you are using windows, you can use WinSCP to transfer the file to /var/www/html/admin/modules/. Then you need to log in to the shell and untar the file in that directory.

You can then goto Module admin in the Freepbx GUI, and install the module.

Hopefully you read my other post about upgrading to php 5.2, or you will get an error about kohana and not having php 5.2.

I am not running trixbox, I only took the module and ran it in freepbx. I though it had potential, so I fixed all the bugs, and highly modified it to provision as many manufactures as possible. I would like to add yealink to it, but I need to get a yealink phone to make it happen.

Also note, I modified this, and did not create it, so it takes 1-2 mins for it to launch.

It loads all the model info to the web browser when first launched, so be patient.

Other than that, it work great.