TIPS Cisco 7970G SIP experiance

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I picked up a couple of 7970's from ebay the other day to try with my older PBXIAF system at home. I also had a new 11.3 system setup for the effort.

Here are my tips and overall impressions:

When you search for config info on the internet search for 7970 or 7975, these java-xml based phones are different than earlier models.

If you know Aastra configuration then you'll be fairly comfortable configuring the Cisco via t*f*t*p, just be ready for far less documentation.

If you buy used phones that have SCCP instead of SIP installed you will have to go through a stepwise progression of updates. To get to the latest Cisco SIP firmware (9-3-1) you may have to step up to (8-5-2) first and maybe even a few steps earlier. If you receive a can't authenticate error it means you have to try an earlier version.

Even if you have t*f*t*p on linux a recommend you treat the firmware upgrade process as a separate isolated step and use a windows box running tftp32.exe to do the upgrades. Doing it this way will keep your main t*f*t*p server directory clean and the tftp32.exe server does provide a bit more logging information than the linux version. Get the appropriate zip file from the Cisco site or elsewhere, decompress the zip file and place those files in the default tftp32 directory or somewhere the tftp32.exe program can get them. No other files other than what is included in the zip file is required just to do the firmware upgrade as long as the phone knows where to find them.

You need to point the phone to the t*f*t*p server ip address through your dhcp server. Set the configuration for option 66 and or 150 to the address of your t*f*t*p server. In some cases you can set this from the phone if you unlock the configuration. Check Google for that detail.

The best references I found for the 7970 were the following. The links are:

http://www.hurdman.net/mirror/voip-info/wiki/view/Asterisk+phone+cisco+7970+SIP.html
http://pbxinaflash.com/community/index.php?resources/cisco-7900-series-tutorial-v1-1.25/
http://pbxinaflash.com/community/index.php?resources/cisco-7900-series-presence-patch.11/
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/14585
http://www.tjir.za.net/7970-sip.html
http://www.minded.ca/2009-12-16/configure-cisco-ip-phones-with-asterisk/
https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-3527

All the discussions tend to drift to other models which are different then the 7970 I was most interested in but as you read you'll start to understand the differences.

The example SEP file that you put together may have the WRONG transport configured! So if your phone is sitting there trying to register the likelihood is that either their is a firewall issue or the phone is trying to use TCP instead of UDP. If you see nothing in the Asterisk CLI then the phone is not getting to the server. Your version of Asterisk may not even be configured to listen to port 5060 on TCP.

Ultimately you'll want to use TCP but if you want basic functionality and have an older version of Asterisk you can tell the phone to use UDP by changing this line in the SEP file:

<transportLayerProtocol>2</transportLayerProtocol>

2 is UDP 1 is TCP

You should then see something happening in the CLI. If you wish to use TCP you must also turn on tcpenable=yes in your Asterisk configuration. See Google for this. Use netstat to see if Asterisk is listening on port 5060.

You also need to configure your Asterisk extension in Freepbx for NAT-never Qualify=No Transport=TCP

Subsequent firmware upgrade can be handled through your main t*f*t*p server by just setting up a default XMLDefault file for a new phone without a SEP file or through the load directive in a SEP file keyed to the mac address of the phone.

Almost everything works but in order to further the operation of the phone you'll need to add an Asterisk patch to Asterisk 11.3 or you can wait to this gets folded in at a later date. Depends what you need right now. This step requires the TCP transport. I haven't bothered to do this part yet but maybe in the next few days.

My take away is that you need a fair amount of expertise and persistence to get these up and running. Depending on what you already have it may be familiar or a dramatic departure from what your already doing. The appeal is that the Cisco phones are very well made, perform well and are dirt cheap on the secondary market.

Be prepared for almost no documentation other than whats on the internet!

Brian
 

rossiv

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Before the great crash, I had a thread with working configurations for my 7970 that had BLF and all. Shame.
 
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Really pleased my resources are coming in useful even if it's not completely specific for you.

rossiv - have you tried searching for some of the key phrases in your old thread on Google, then seeing if you can load from Google cache? That's how I got my info back.
 

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