Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

UNIStim Firmware Release 4.0 for Nortel IP Phones

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Nortel 1165e IP Phone
Nortel 1165e IP Phone

Nortel has released UNIStim firmware 4.0  for their IP phones;

  • 0621C7A for IP Phone 2007,
  • 0623C7F, 0624C7F, 0625C7F and 0627C7F for IP Phone 1110, 1120E, 1140E and 1150E respectively and
  • 062AC7F for IP Phone 1210, 1220, and 1230

No UNIStim software release 4.0 is being offered for the Phase II IP Phone 2001, Phase II IP Phone 2002, and Phase II IP Phone 2004.  The Nortel IP Phone 200x series (except the 2007) was manufacture discontinued as of November 29, 2009.

The enhancements available with UNIStim software release 4.0 for IP Phones include:

  • UNIStim VPN Client (UVC) in the IP Phone 1100 series
  • Feature and Application Licensing
  • Secure Signaling using DTLS
  • Secure Call Recording (SCR)
  • Designed for Operability (DfO)
  • Enhancements to Certificate Support

The product bulletin for the 4.0 release listed the same fixes (two of which were for the 2004 model) as the previous UNIStim 3.4 release. I’m going to guess that someone forgot to update that section of the product bulletin with some relevant information.

The big news with this release is the built in VPN client for the IP Phone 1100 series, the UNIStim VPN Client (UVC). Unfortunately this initial release doesn’t support encrypting/tunneling the traffic to/from the PC port, only the traffic to/from the Signaling Server and Voice Gateway Media Cards is encrypted with the VPN connection. The initial release is certified to work wtih Nortel VPN Router (NVR) family running software release 8.00 or greater. (NVR software release 8.00 has been qualified on the NVR 1010, 1050, 1100, 600, 1600, 17xx, 27×0, 4600 and 5000).

Please refer to the release notes and the product bulletin for complete details.

Cheers!

When it rains it pours!

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firealarmI’m not talking out the song by 50 Cent… I’m talking about those days when you ask yourself, “when is the insanity going to end”!

I’m going to get on my soapbox here so I’m warning everyone right now. It’s no secret that I believe Nortel has some great products but I’m not a fan boy by any stretch of the imagination, ask my Nortel sales representative. I’m sitting here tonight asking myself what is up with the software on the Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600. In the past four days I’ve experienced three priority 1 (network down) issues, one priority 2 (network severely impacted) issue at three physical locations all involving Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s.

I had thought that 4.1.8.x software was the savior of the Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600. Those of us who have been around know the headaches that 4.1.6.x brought. Add to that Nortel removing 5.1 and 5.1.1 from their website and I’m left scratching my head wondering what’s going on. Next week Nortel is suppose to be coming in to discuss the new features in 7.x software, I’m still waiting for something in the 4.x and 5.x branch that’s reliable and rock solid.

A few weeks back I discovered the now infamous ARP issue on a ERS 8600 switch cluster running 4.1.8.0 software. Until that time it was believed (by myself anyway) that the ARP issue was resolved in 4.1.8.x software. The resolution was a reboot of the affected ERS 8600 core switch, thankfully since they were completely redundant to each other the reboot wasn’t visible to our customers.

This week has been the equivalent of hell week. On Tuesday we discovered a closet ERS 8600 switch (4.1.6.3) flooding the network with ARP packets at a rate of 500 per second. On Wednesday we had that same closet ERS 8600 switch introduce a loop in the network at 4:00AM in the morning, thankfully rate limiting was able to limit the packet flow and CP-Limit was able to isolate the closet by shutting down the uplinks to the affected closet. Later Wednesday morning we had a core ERS 8600 switch (v4.1.8.3) stop routing packets on a 10Gbps 8683XLR interface, unfortunately OSPF wasn’t told about the problem can continuing to route all WAN packets to a blackhole. Later Wednesday afternoon we had another core ERS 8600 switch (v4.1.8.0) where an 8684GTR card decided to up and restart on us.

I’ve always been cautious against building overly complicated networks for the simple reason that those designs themselves can introduce more downtime and issues than just taking a simpler approach. In this case stability and reliability are becoming major concerns of mine with respect to the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600.

What experience have you had with the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600?

Cheers!

Philadelphia Cell Phone Law – Bluetooth Handsfree

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PlantronicsVoyager510The law has finally caught up with technology here in Philadelphia. Starting today, December 1, 2009, it’s illegal to operate a car, bicycle, or skate board while using a cell phone unless it’s hands-free. The Philadelphia law makes using a handheld phone while driving a “primary offense,” meaning police can pull over and ticket a driver for that offense. The first offense will cost offenders $75.

If your like me and still haven’t picked up a Bluetooth headset for your cell phone it might just be time to do so. There are a number of municipalities and states with laws that govern cell phone use while driving, not to mention it just might save a life.

There are several reviews around the net that cover a large number of bluetooth headsets. You can find multiple reviews at CNET, and again at CNET. I would recommend you also look at Plantronics and Jawbone. I currently use a Plantronics Voyager 510 in the office connected to a Nortel 1140e.

Cheers!

Reference: Philadelphia Inquirer

Cisco and Nortel Interoperability Technical Configuration Guide

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Nortel has released another technical configuration guide geared towards interoperability between Cisco and Nortel equipment. The document covers a lot of information including EtherChannel to MLT interoperability, Spanning Tree interoperability, Nortel IP phones connecting to Cisco switches and Cisco IP phones connecting to Nortel switches.

It’s definitely well worth the time to review.

Cheers!

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 – Google Adsense – Phishing URL

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It seems there is something amiss on the Internet this morning. It all started when my installation of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 updated itself around 11:56AM this morning. I was looking at the new forums setup by Jeff Wiener over at TheTelecomBlog.com when I was greeted with a Phishing URL kaspersky-internet-security-2010-google-adsense-phishingalert from the Kaspersky program. I had already been out to the site earlier in the morning so I was immediately puzzled by the prompt. Upon closer evaluation it appears that Kaspersky is marking one of the JavaScript files used (http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js) to place Google Adsense ads onto the site as a phishing URL.

I browsed over to my own personal blog and got the same alert from Kaspersky, I also got the same alert visiting the discussion forums I recently setup. I went into the Kaspersky application and sure enough the ‘Phishing URL’ database was updated this morning 11/22/09 at 10:56AM (see screenshot).kaspersky-internet-security-2010-updates

It looks to me to be a simple false positive, although I did download the JavaScript file and gave it a quick browse through.

A quick search of the Internet didn’t turn up anything relative.

I guess I’ll head off to the Kaspersky support forums and post a topic.

Cheers!

Update: It seems this is definitely a false positive with the Kaspersky phishing URL database. There is a thread over on the Kaspersky support forums with similar reports.

Update: (Sunday November 22, 2009 at 4:30PM EST) I recieved a response from Kaspersky Support indicating that the problem was a false positive and the problem was resolved in the Phishing URL database update issued at 1:16PM EST. As a side note I had to inform Kaspersky by sending an email message to newvirus@kaspersky.com with the subject of ‘False Positive’. EJW3D44WYAKM

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