Posted elsewhere, but relevent here.

An issue noted when configuring Nortel IP sets within a Cisco data environment. Set firmware, anything supporting 802.1Q.
The symptoms of failure are DHCP parse error or DHCP server unreachable.
Both option 128 and 191 are configured as DHCP standard option strings and formatted as detailed in above notes (Windows Server 2003 so no “” marks).
Port security and “sticky MAC” were the cause of the problems. Setting a device count of 2, one for the phone and one for the PC, each in different VLANs and setting the port to remember MAC address of devices, causes the registration process to fail. The phone originally gets its address lease from the data range. The set should then react to the VLAN-A 191 option and throw away the data subnet address and be leased a voice VLAN address. However, the Cisco switch sees this activity as another device, a third device, attempting to register on the port and is barred. With port settings at 3 devices, and ceasing the sticky MAC process, the set registration works and the set ends up in the Voice VLAN.
If it is imperative forthe port security to be set at 2 devices and sticky MAC to be implimented, then the following should be observed.
Remove option 191 in DHCP and when setting up the phone, manually enter the 802.1Q Voive VLAN option by inserting the tag number. The set will then be directly steared to the correct DHCP scope and attain a Voice subnet IP address lease.

So for full DHCP and VLAN tagging, Cisco sticky MAC should be set to NO and port device count greater than 3.

You need to make sure that your DHCP server isn’t serving up an DHCP object that doesn’t have option 191 and/or option 128.

I have most of the IP phone models you mention and really haven’t see any issues although I’m running the latest and greatest firmware. I would suggest that you upgrade your firmware. You could also perform a packet trace to see why the phone is just sitting at “Starting DHCP…”. When I’ve run into that condition I’ve always found 1) either the phone is mis-configured 2) the DHCP address offered by the DHCP server didn’t have the proper options.

Please feel free to post your specific problems over on the forums; http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/nortel-ip-telephony/

Good Luck

I have a Windows 2003 Server with DHCP options activated. Then I have the followings Nortel IP Phone; 1120E, 1110, 1230, 2004 and 2033.

I have seen problems only on the 1120E and 1110 Telephones, becouse I’ve discovered that if I give it a partial address and assign the VLAN ID manually, that it picks up an IP address within the voice scope.

Too I have seen that sometimes the telephones with full DHCP options they stay in DHCP Starting, and they never pass to NODE and TN confirmation.

I have the Windows DHCP Server with:

1) Vlan Data Scope with 191 option.
2) Vlan Voice Scope with 128 option.

Thanks.

I’m not intimately knowledgeable with the DHCP service in Windows 2008 but I know that it can be done. You just need to add custom DHCP options to the scope. I’m guessing that you’ve done a quick Google but didn’t find anything good?

In Windows 2003 there was an option under the Action menu called “Set Predefined Options” from within the DHCP administrator tool. From there you could define custom DHCP options, after which those custom DHCP options would show up under the scope settings.

Good Luck!

You are correct in your assumption that the PC port on the back of the Nortel IP phones will simply pass the frame untagged (by default) up to the network switch. The frame will then be bridged by your network switch onto the “native” VLAN or PVID. When you use Option 191 or LLDP/ADAC the phone will tag the voice frames with a specific 802.1q VLAN ID. When the data frames arrive at your network switch they are bridged onto the native VLAN while the voice frames are bridged on the voice VLAN. You obviously need to have both VLANs defined on the port in order for this to work.

You can also statically configure the voice VLAN ID from the phone itself and in later versions of firmware for the Nortel IP Phones you can statically configure the data VLAN ID and tag the data frames with an 802.1q VLAN ID header if you so desire.

The original DHCP option 128 string, Nortel-i2004-A, only allowed you to define the Call Server IP address, and port. The newer Nortel-i2004-B allows you to automatically configure a lot of the programmable options. You can read this post for additional information on the Nortel-i2004-B string. Just a word of warning that you’ll need to be running a fairly recent version of firmware on the IP phones.

Good Luck!

Very useful information thanks for the above.

I’m new to Nortel VOIP but am quite comfortable with concepts and experience doing this with Avaya handsets.

My question is that we have passthrough switchports on some i2004 handsets for the PC’s to plug in to. Do you know if the i2004 will actually pass through the upstream switchport’s native VLAN to the embedded switchport given that we plan to set the Voice VLAN using Option191? or is there some way we can define this for the handset using the Option128 string we pass to it?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Regards,

Jason.

In short Option 128 allows you to pass the various configuration information to the phone. Option 144/191 provide the ability to use DHCP to set the Voice VLAN. A large number of folks, including myself, having migrated away from Option 144/191 and are now using ADAC with LLDP (802.1ab).

Here’s the second part of the original post concerning DHCP option 144/191;
http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2007/10/dhcp-options-voip-part-2/.

Cheers!

I am not able to use the Nortel-i2004-B string because my phones are not at the proper firmware. so i am using

Global Config in ISC DHCP Server
option NortelVoIPPhoneIdentifier code 128 = text;
option NortelVoIPVLANIdentifier code 191 = text;

Subnet Config in ISC DHCP Server
option NortelVoIPVLANIdentifier “VLAN-A:6.”;
option NortelVoIPPhoneIdentifier “Nortel-i2004-A,10.205.10.4:4100,1,5;10.205.10.4:4100,1,5.”;

I set the VLAN-A in the subnet due to the fact that in some of subnets (we are using a layer 3 switched network) the vlans are not all the same. It can be a global config as well as the option 128 config string. As far as I can tell it does not matter what order they given to the phone in. The phone just knows it gets a option 128 and 191 and then deals with it.