Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

UNIStim Firmware Release 5.0 for IP Deskphones

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Avaya has released UNIStim firmware 5.0 for their IP deskphones;

  • 0621C8A for the 2007 IP deskphone
  • 0623C8A, 0624C8A, 0625C8A, 0627C8A, 0626C8A for the 1110, 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP deskphones
  • 062AC8A for the 1200 series IP deskphones

This release of firmware adds support for the following features;

  • Support for wideband (G.722) codecs on 1120E, 1140E, 1150E, 1165E, 1220, and 1230 IP Deskphones.
  • Support for Avaya Notification Solution (ANS) and Avaya Push API which provides the ability to push text, graphics, and audio messages to 1100 Series, 1200 Series and the 2007 IP Deskphones.
  • Support for a Wireless Markup Language (WML) browser for 1140E, 1150E, and 1165E IP Deskphones.

Product Advisement for UNIStim 5.0 related to Zero Touch Provisioning:

For customers who have pre-configured the REG entries (which includes the MAC address, the TN, and Node) within the provisioning file to enable Zero Touch for the IP Deskphones, be advised that a problem can occur related to parsing of the REG entry that may result in the IP Deskphones not coming up as expected, and instead continuing to reboot when UNIStim 5.0 is loaded onto the units. The issue will impact IP Deskphones that have been pre-configured for Zero Touch and where the REG lines still exist in the REG entry. This is a known issue that will impact IP Deskphones that have a matching MAC address already pre-configured in the REG entry. This issue will be fully addressed in the upcoming UNIStim 5.1 maintenance release expected in March 2011, and customers may want to delay updating IP Deskphones and Call Servers until that time due to this issue.

In the interim, to avoid this issue the following workaround is recommended: Before loading UNIStim 5.0 onto the IP Deskphones, customers are advised to add a comma before the semi-colon of the REG entry. If UNIStim 5.0 is already loaded, and the issue exists (where the phones continue to reboot instead of coming up), the customer can then add a comma as specified above and the IP Deskphones will come up.

Example: reg= 0021e1ff59cb cs1k s1 3380 096 00 00 18,;

I also recently had a discussion with another telephony expert around the issues of running a PC at 100Mbps (connected to the IP phone) when the 1100 series IP phone is connected to the network via 1Gbps or vice-versa. Here’s the relevant blurb from the release notes that details the problem.

Throughput may be slow for large file transfers on conversions from GigE to 100Mbit (applies to the 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP Deskphones)

In networks in which a PC is connected to the IP Deskphone’s PC port and the PC’s NIC speed is 100Mbit but the network speed is at GigE, large file transfers to the PC can take quite a long time. This is an issue with large file transfers only. Due to the speed mismatch between the phone’s two ports the buffers in the phone can overflow resulting in retransmissions. Although the IP Deskphones support Ethernet flow control (802.3x), the support is only implemented on the phone’s PC port, not on the phone’s network port. Ethernet flow control is a mechanism were the IP Deskphone can request a brief “pause” from the transmitting Ethernet device if the IP Deskphone buffers are about to overflow.
Ethernet flow control cannot be implemented on the phone’s network port, since it impacts the phone’s voice quality. As a result, in environments were the network is GigE but the PC NIC is only 100Mbit, large file transfers from the network to the PC can take quite a long time. On the other hand, since Ethernet flow control is implemented on the phone’s PC port, in environments were the PC NIC is GigE but the network is only 100Mbits, large file transfers should be well managed by the phone’s Ethernet flow control mechanism.

You can find the release notes on Avaya’s website along with the actual firmware/software for the IP phones.

Cheers!

Where are all the Avaya technical configuration guides?

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I get a lot of questions (actually two or three in just the past 20 posts on the forums) asking where people can find more technical information about a specific product or configuration concerning Avaya (formerly Nortel) data products such as the Ethernet Routing Switch or their telephony products and specifically the legacy Nortel IP phones.

Thankfully Avaya has done something that I truly applaud them for, something that Nortel always had issues with either allowing or executing (not completely sure which it was). What am I talking about you ask? Avaya allows Google to index their support website with all those juicy technical configuration guides. You only need to ask Google to show you the light;

http://www.google.com/search?q=technical%20configuration%20guide%20site%3Asupport.avaya.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

You can either enter the following query or you can click on the link above;

technical configuration guide site:support.avaya.com

So while Greg over at Etherealmind is complaining about Cisco’s website I’ve found my way around Avaya’s website thanks in no small part to Google. I’m not sure why Greg doesn’t just use Google himself?

Cheers!

ISC DHCP Configuration for Avaya IP Phones

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This is an update to a fairly old post I made a few years back now providing an example dhcpd.conf configuration file for use in an Avaya (formerly Nortel) IP telephony environment. I was recently working on a few things and discovered that the Avaya IP phones ignore the next-server option within my dhcpd.conf file. A few tests and I quickly found that I needed to define the tftp-server-name option with the IP address of the TFTP server (see the global section of the dhcpd.conf file below).

If time allows I hope to post an update in the very near future covering the new Nortel-i2004-B option string. While working with the SIP 4.0 software release in the past few articles I did learn that the Avaya SIP IP phones can utilize a new DHCP vendor class, Nortel-SIP-Phone-A which can allow you a little flexibility when configuring them via DHCP and TFTP.

In the same file below I setup four DHCP scopes; one for 2111/2212/6020/6040 wireless handsets, one for i2002/i2004/1100/1200 series IP phones, one for 1100/1200 series IP phones running SIP and one for all other devices (laptops, desktops, etc). Just a quick note about the example below, you’ll notice that I have no pools in the 192.168.1.0/24 network. All the pools are in the 192.168.25.0/24 network.

#
# DHCP Server Configuration file.
#   see /usr/share/doc/dhcp*/dhcpd.conf.sample
#
# Sample dhcpd.conf file for Avaya (legacy Nortel) IP Phones
#
# Notes: example dhcpd.conf file to illustrate how to configure Avaya
# IP Phones with specific DHCP options for 2000/1100/1200 series IP
# Phones and the 2200/6100 series Wireless IP Phones.
#
# *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING ** WARNING ***
#
# This is just an sample file with specific IP information. You'll
# need to customize this file to your specific IP address scheme
# before you can use it in your environment.
#
# *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING ** WARNING ***
#

ddns-update-style none;
not authoritative;

option nortel-callserver code 128 = string;
option nortel-2245 code 151 = ip-address;
option tftp-server-name "192.168.1.20";

# Vendor Class for i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e Internet Telephones
class "Nortel-i2004-A" {
  match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 14) = "Nortel-i2004-A";
    option nortel-callserver "Nortel-i2004-A,192.168.200.2:4100,1,5;192.168.200.2:4100,1,5.";
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-i2004-A";
}

# Vendor Class for 2210/2211 Wireless Phones
class "Nortel-221x-A" {
  match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 13) = "Nortel-221x-A";
    option nortel-callserver "Nortel-i2004-A,192.168.200.2:4100,1,5:192.168.200.2:4100,1,5.";
    option nortel-2245 192.168.99.10;
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-221x-A";
}

# Vendor Class for Avaya 1100/1200 IP SIP Phones (SIP firmware loaded)
class "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A" {
  match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 18) = "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
    option vendor-class-identifier "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
}

# Network Definition
shared-network "mynetwork" {
   subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
   option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
   option routers 192.168.1.1;
   option domain-name "home";
   option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
   next-server 192.168.1.20;
   default-lease-time 28800;
   max-lease-time 86400;
   }
}

# Network Definition 192.168.25.0/24
shared-network "192-168-25-0" {
   subnet 192.168.25.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
   option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
   option routers 192.168.25.1;
   option domain-name "home";
   option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
   next-server 192.168.1.20;
   default-lease-time 28800;
   max-lease-time 86400;

   # IP Address Pool for generic devices
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.50 192.168.25.100;
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for i2002/i2004/1120e/1140e/1150e
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.150 192.168.25.175;
      allow members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
   }

   # IP Address Pool for 2210/2211
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.176 192.168.25.199;
      allow members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
      }

   # IP Address Pool for Avaya 1100/1200 IP SIP Phones
   pool {
      range 192.168.25.200 192.168.25.224;
      allow members of "Nortel-SIP-Phone-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-i2004-A";
      deny members of "Nortel-221x-A";
      }

 }
}

Cheers!

How to separate the wheat from the chaff?

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520023_78972496Your looking to add staff, a network engineer position, but how can you really tell that the candidate isn’t intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting themselves from a knowledge or skill set perspective? You could look for those three and four letter acronyms right? I’m talking about the following, CCNP, CCNA, CCIE, CISSP, ACA, ACE, NCTS, NCTE, JNCIA, JNCIE, etc. Well unfortunately I’ve seen far too many folks with some of the previously mentioned certifications that don’t really know how to apply what they’ve learned or don’t have enough experience working with large complex networks. I met a CNE (Certified Novel Engineer) about 10 years ago that was booting a Netware 3.12 server from a floppy disk because he didn’t know how to transfer the MSDOS system files to the hard drive, that’s a true story honest! I will be the first to admit that I don’t personally hold any certifications beyond the claim that I’m a QNE (Qualified Network Engineer). That may or may not change in the future for me personally because I do see some value in holding a few professional certifications from a career growth perspective.

With the current very competitive job market and uncertain economic future employers are wary of taking a chance on new employees and want to be sure that they’ve done their homework. I recently received a few inquiries asking how I grade various candidates for highly technical positions. A few years ago I came up with a few non-vendor specific questions that I use when interviewing potential network engineers.  The questions are vendor agnostic and are designed to probe the candidates fundamental understanding of how networking actually works (there’s an idea). Having a list of questions ahead of time allows me to be impartial and focus on the task at hand. I leave all the other issues at hand to the recruiter.

There are no absolute right or wrong answers to many of the questions nor is there any scoring metric… instead it helps me understand how strong a particular candidate is in one area or another. I originally had a question on there asking the candidate to describe a 10Base5 network but quickly realized that not too many of us have actually worked with 10Base5 so I dropped it from the list.

Switching

Q. Describe the different between the FDB/MAC and ARP tables and how they are used.

Q. Describe the differences between 802.1p and DiffServ/DSCP.

(Alternate: describe the differences between L2 and L3 QoS mechanisms)

Q. Describe the difference between a Unicast frame and a Multicast frame.

Q. Describe a broadcast storm and its effect on the network.

Routing

Q. Describe the terms OSPF and BGP and how they are used in IP routing.

Q. Describe a black hole route.

Q. Describe the term latency and it’s affect on networking.

Q. Describe the purpose of protocols such as HSRP/VRRP.

Security

Q. Describe how a stateful firewall works?

Q. Describe how a traditional IPSec VPN works.

Q. Describe a SYN flood attack and its affects.

Q. Describe the term NAT and how it’s used in networking.

Q. Describe a proxy server and how it works.

Optical

Q. Describe the term “dB loss” and its impact to network communications?

Q. What is the difference between singlemode and multimode fiber?

Wireless

Q. How many channels are available in 802.11b 2.4Ghz wireless networks in the USA?

Tools

Q. Describe how traceroute and ping work and how they are used in troubleshooting?

Q. What does SNMP stand for and how is it used in networking?

Other

Q. What is the maximum distance for CAT5 UTP cabling?

Q. Describe the term CIDR and what it’s used for.

Q. What is DHCP and describe its operation in the network.

Q. What’s the network mask for a Class B network in CIDR format?

What do you think? Can you answer the majority of questions above? Are you certified?

Cheers!

We systematically reject ‘apache@…’ Huh?

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I’m continually amazed by how much hands on effort it takes to run even a small blog or community these days. The SPAM bots are continually spewing their useless garbage everywhere, the hackers and script kiddies are continually trying to break down the front door and somewhere in there is the appreciative reader in search of an answer to his/her question or just genuinely interested in the topic at hand.

Every now and then a genuine (system administration) issue or problem surfaces that deserves some time and effort. Since I’m utilizing a virtual private server (VPS) running CentOS 5.5, I’m responsible for administering and managing the server myself. I was an IBM AIX (long live SMIT) and Solaris System Administrator in a previous life so it’s not a big challenge but it can be a time consuming task. The benefits of managing my own server are still significant enough for me and I’ve learned so much about Linux, MySQL, PHP, Perl, etc. that the experience has been well worth the investment in my view.

I recently noticed that I was getting a lot of bounced email messages on the server from a number of readers that had subscribed to posts on my blog. Here’s a quick snippet of the bounced error message;

Action: failed
Status: 5.1.7
Remote-MTA: dns; mx.acme.org
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.1.7 ... We
    systematically reject 'apache@...'

It seems that a few domains (example above is acme.org – changed to protect identity) were rejecting any email message with the Return-Path set to apache@hostname. In my case the Return-Path was set to apache@michaelfmcnamara.com although the From address was set to noreply@michaelfmcnamara.com. Unfortunately you can’t set (not to my knowledge anyway) the Return-Path from within WordPress administration portal. You need to manually edit wp-includes/class-phpmailer.php and set the variable $Sender to the same email address you setup within WordPress to use as your From address.

/**
* Sets the Sender email (Return-Path) of the message.  If not empty,
* will be sent via -f to sendmail or as 'MAIL FROM' in smtp mode.
* @var string
*/
var $Sender            = 'noreply@michaelfmcnamara.com';

With that change complete I can see from the server logs (/var/log/maillog) that the Return-Path is now being properly set.

Feb 12 08:29:56 michaelfmcnamara postfix/pickup[9770]: 2B8FD2C3BB: uid=48 from=<noreply@michaelfmcnamara.com>
Feb 12 08:29:56 michaelfmcnamara postfix/cleanup[11068]: 2B8FD2C3BB: message-id=<67fa95dc7fd22d7c6cfd481d506bfd87@blog.michaelfmcnamara.com>
Feb 12 08:29:56 michaelfmcnamara postfix/qmgr[2647]: 2B8FD2C3BB: from=<noreply@michaelfmcnamara.com>, size=1729, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 12 08:29:56 michaelfmcnamara postfix/local[11070]: 2B8FD2C3BB: to=<whowhatwhen@michaelfmcnamara.com>, relay=local, delay=0.07, delays=0.04/0.01/0/0.02, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (forwarded as 321C72C37A)
Feb 12 08:29:56 michaelfmcnamara postfix/qmgr[2647]: 2B8FD2C3BB: removed

With that change those domains that were rejecting email from my server are now accepting them again. Just another day where I’ve learned something new.

Cheers!

Update: Thursday February 24, 2011

It seems the upgrade to WordPress 3.1 has overwritten the change I made in the file… had to update the file again!

Update: Friday April 22, 2011

It seems the upgrade to WordPress 3.1.1 has overwritten the change I made in the file again!

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