Hi Radman,

You can use a DHCP relay (IP helper) for the IP phones just as you do with any other DHCP capable device.

Good Luck!

Hi Renier,

We configure those folks that wish to be mobile with partial DHCP and hard set the Call Server IP address, node number and TN in their phones. Then they can roam to any campus where DHCP will assign them a local IP address and local 2245 gateway but the phone will connect to their “home” Call Server across the wide area network.

We’ve actually been very successful in our deployments. The early firmware for the 221x wireless phones didn’t have the partial DHCP option available so we pushed Nortel hard to get that feature set into the phone firmware.

It sounds like your physically moving folks between Call Servers? If you’re doing that you’ll need re-configure the wireless phone. I’m not sure if Nortel is looking to deploy the Nortel-i2004-B DHCP option string on the wireless phones which might give you the ability to remotely reconfigure the device.

Good Luck!

Hi Micheal

I work at a company where we have muliple Gateways on mutiple sites.

For some reason the users love to move between sites and with the full DHCP option on, its frustrating because you have to go out and change the users Node ID on the phone to the specific site they moved to.

Is there a script you can write for when a phone changes from site on a HA system that it can automatically assing the site’s Node to the phone also?

Just be aware of the following post I made recently, http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2008/08/adac-and-vlan-configurations/. If you make VLAN changes after you enable ADAC you can run into issues later on.

Good Luck!

Dan.-

Here’s the post in question, http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2007/10/nortel-ers-5520-pwr-switch/. This document is still applicable for the most part. If you are running software v5.1 or later on the ERS5520 then you don’t need to work about the MAC address ranges.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Good Luck!

Where is this article? i see only an article where you teach to configure via DHCP option 128: http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2007/10/dhcp-options-voip/

Would love to read your article on that, since i’m configuring 1120’s + 5520/4526 + bcm450

Dan.-

You are correct. Every since release 2.3 (latest release that just hit the streets is 3.0) you can configure “almost all” the options via DHCP. There are obviously a few options you can’t still configure via DHCP because the phone wouldn’t be able to get a DHCP response.

You can read my post entitled “Nortel IP Phones – UNIStim release v2.3” for a list of all the DHCP options.

Thanks for the comment!

I don’t believe the BES switch supports LLDP-MED, which is what you actually need for the switch to “inform” the phone which VLAN ID to use for the voice VLAN. At this time the only switch that supports this feature is the Ethernet Routing Switch 5520. The upcoming release of v5.1 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 4500 Series will also support LLDP-MED.

So to answer your question you really shouldn’t need to use both LLDP-MED and DHCP Option 191 at the same time. If you actually configure the IP phone for LLDP-MED it will ignore DHCP Option 191.

Cheers!

The information must be programmed manually the first time the phone is installed. The Nortel phones will store (NVRAM) the Node and TN information so that the end-users will not need to enter anything on subsequent reboots.

This isn’t as big a problem as it might appear and/or sound. I’ve staged up to 250 Nortel i2002/i2004 phones prior to their final physical installation. I used the staging process to upgrade the phones to 0604DBG (required for LLDP-MED), to configure the phone settings (enable LLDP, enable Voice VLAN, enable LLDP-MED) and to program the node and TN information. I was then able to label each box (phone) and leave it’s placement and installation to a non-technical team.

Cheers!

I’ve got lldp-med and dhcp pushing everything else, thanks to your helpful blog… :)

You would need to have a core switch (such as an ERS 8600 or 5500) setup for Layer 3 switching (routing). ADAC is broken in anything less than 5.0.6.26. In v5.1 software we supposedly no longer need to maintain the MAC address list within ADAC, since the switch now uses LLDP to determine if there is a Nortel IP phone attached to the port.

Cheers!

Hi Prophet001,

You can use DHCP option 128 without using DHCP option 191. They are independent of each other. So you could most definitely just use DHCP option 128 to assign the phone an IP address and the proper CS1000 information while keeping everything in the default VLAN.

Cheers!

Thx.
Kenneth