Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

UNIStim Firmware Release 5.1 for IP Deskphones

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Avaya has released UNIStim firmware 5.1 for their IP deskphones;

  • 0621C8D for the 2007 IP deskphone
  • 0623C8D, 0624C8D, 0625C8D, 0627C8D, 0626C8D for the 1110, 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP deskphones
  • 062AC8D for the 1200 series IP deskphones

This release of firmware adds support for the following features;

  • Support for a Wireless Markup Language (WML) browser on the 2007 IP Deskphone.

UNIStim software release 5.1 delivers quality improvements for all IP Deskphones including software fixes for over one hundred work items, and resolution of seven customer reported cases. A previously reported Product Advisement related to the 1165E IP Deskphone locking up if invalid UserID and password for WML authentication are provided has been addressed in this UNIStim 5.1 software release.

UNIStim Software Release 5.1 is supported on the Avaya 2007, 1110, 1120E, 1140E, 1150E, 1165E, 1210, 1220, and 1230 IP Deskphones only. For details on specific hardware vintages which are supported, please refer to the ReadMe file.

UNIStim Software Release 5.1 is compatible with the following Call Servers:

  •     Avaya CS 1000 Release 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, 7.5
  •     Avaya SRG 50 Release 6.0
  •     Avaya SRG 200/400 Release 1.5
  •     Avaya CS 2100
  •     Avaya BCM 50/450 Release 6.0 (refer to ReadMe for additional information)
  •     Avaya BCM 200/400 Release 4.0 (refer to ReadMe for additioanl information)
  •     Avaya CS 2100 CICM Release 10.1 MR2, Release 11 MR2

Product Advisement for customers who previously upgraded to UNIStim 5.0 using the workaround related to Zero Touch Provisioning:

For customers who previously upgraded to UNIStim 5.0 and used the recommended workaround detailed in the UNIStim 5.0 Readme Product Bulletin, related to pre-configured REG entries, this workaround needs to be removed to successfully upgrade to UNIStim 5.1. That is, customers who have pre-configured REG entries, (which includes the MAC address, the TN, and Node) within the provisioning file to enable Zero Touch for the IP Deskphones, were previously advised of a problem that could occur related to parsing of the REG entry which prevented the IP Deskphones from coming up as expected. The recommended workaround for customers upgrading to UNIStim 5.0 was to add a comma before the semi-colon of the REG entry within the provisioning file. As noted in the UNIStim 5.0 Readme Product Bulletin, this issue is now fully addressed in this UNIStim 5.1 software maintenance release, and customers who applied the workaround will need to remove the comma to successfully upgrade to this UNIStim 5.1 software release.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details.

Cheers!

Avaya 1100 Series IP Phone Upgrade to SIP

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Over the past weekend I set out to setup Asterisk, an open source communication server, to test some of the issues reported in a thread over on the discussion forums. I had an Avaya 1120e and 1165e IP phone available to test with, however, both phones were running the UNIStim software for the Avaya Communications Server 1000. I needed to upgrade them to support SIP.

About a year ago I posted how I setup Asterisk to work with an i2002 IP phone utilizing the UNIStim channel driver. This time around I was looking to utilize the standard SIP channel driver with the 1120e and 1165e.

SIP Software

You’ll need to download the SIP software from the Avaya Support website. You should be able to retreive the SIP software from this link without needing to log into Avaya’s website. You should download the software for the appropriate model you’ll be working with. In my case I downloaded the following two files;

  • SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin
  • SIP1165e04.00.04.00.bin

TFTP Server

You’ll need a TFTP server to host the files that the IP phone will download. You can use any TFTP server you already have on the network. If you don’t have a TFTP server you can use TFTPD32 from Philippe Jounin on any Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 personal computer. I download the zip and exploded the files to D:\Temp.

TFTP Files

With the TFTPD32 software in D:\Temp I then copied the two firmware images (SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin and SIP1165e04.00.04.00.bin) to the same directory. At this point I needed to create some configuration (provisioning) files which the IP phones would download. The first file 1120e.cfg will be used for the 1120e IP phone;

[FW]
DOWNLOAD_MODE AUTO
VERSION SIP1120e04.00.04.00
FILENAME SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin
PROTOCOL TFTP
SERVER_IP 192.168.1.3
SECURITY_MODE 0

I also created a file 1165e.cfg that would be used for the 1165e IP phone;

[FW]
DOWNLOAD_MODE AUTO
VERSION SIP1165e04.00.04.00
FILENAME SIP1165e04.00.04.00.bin
PROTOCOL TFTP
SERVER_IP 192.168.1.6
SECURITY_MODE 0

You’ll need to substitute the IP address above (192.168.1.6) with the IP address of the personal computer that will be running TFTPD32. Now that you have all the files you’ll need for the upgrade, you can start the TFTPD32 executable. You should see a window similar to the figure to the right.

Upgrade

You need to make sure that the IP phones know which TFTP server to use. This can be accomplished via DHCP option 66 or it can be set in the device configuration on the actual IP phone itself. I was utilizing the DHCP server built into my Verizon FiOS router so I had to set the TFTP server manually via the IP phone configuration.

When you are ready just reboot the phone. As the IP phone boots up it will request an IP address from the DHCP server and it will check the TFTP serve. The IP phone should download the 1120e.cfg (or 1140e.cfg of 1165e.cfg depending on the model). Once the phone realizes there is a software update it will boot into BOOTPC mode in order to perform the actual upgrade.

You should see something similar to the following;

[FW] reading...
SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin
VERSION SIP1120e04.00.04.00

Shortly followed by;

[FW] writing...
SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin
VERSION SIP1120e04.00.04.00

Once the upgrade is complete the IP phone should reboot. I will warn you that you should I’ve seen some odd behavior between the settings on the IP phone and the settings that should be applied via the provisioning files. There have been a few cases where I needed to reconfigure the IP phone even though it appeared to be configured properly. In the few cases I’ve experienced reconfiguring the IP phone solved the problem.

Once the 1100 series IP phone is upgraded to SIP it will start looking for a new configuration file, 1120eSIP.cfg (or 1140eSIP.cfg or 1165eSIP.cfg depending on your model).

Here’s a quick example;

[FW]
DOWNLOAD_MODE AUTO
VERSION SIP1120e04.00.04.00
FILENAME SIP1120e04.00.04.00.bin
PROTOCOL TFTP
#SERVER_IP 192.168.1.3
#SECURITY_MODE 0

[DEVICE_CONFIG]
DOWNLOAD_MODE FORCED
VERSION 000002
FILENAME users.dat

[DIALING_PLAN]
DOWNLOAD_MODE FORCED
VERSION 000002
FILENAME dialplan.txt

Here’s a copy of the users.dat file which gets called from the 1120eSIP.cfg file above;

DNS_DOMAIN asterisk.home
SIP_DOMAIN1 asterisk.home
SERVER_IP1_1 192.168.1.6
SERVER_PORT1_1 5060
SERVER_RETRIES1 3
DEF_USER2 ASTERISK
VMAIL 5000
VMAIL_DELAY 300
DEF_LANG English
DEF_AUDIO_QUALITY High
ENABLE_LLDP YES
ADMIN_PASSWORD 26567*738
ADMIN_PASSWORD_EXPIRY 0
# Settings to disable extended license
MAX_LOGINS 1
USB_HEADSET LOCK
EXP_MODULE_ENABLE NO
ENABLE_SERVICE_PACKAGE NO
IM_MODE DISABLED
AVAYA_AUTOMATIC_QoS NO
VQMON_PUBLISH NO
SIP_TLS_PORT 0
ENABLE_BT NO
# Enable SSH
SSH YES
SSHID admin
SSHPWD admin

The settings above disable any advanced features and allow the IP phone to run a basic SIP configuration.

Cheers!

SIP Software Release 3.2 for IP Deskphones

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Avaya has released SIP software release 3.2 for their 1100 and 1200 series IP deskphones. This release adds support for the 1120e, 1140e, 1165e, 1220, and 1230 model IP deskphones.

Here are some of the enhancements made in the new software release;

  • Improved Licensing
  • SIP Support for 1220,1230 and 1165E IP Deskphones
  • Shared Call Appearances – CS1000
  • IPv6 Support
  • SRTP Media Security
  • TLS Signaling Security
  • Certificate-based Authentication
  • Enhanced Screensavers
  • Background images
  • Support for Avaya Aura™ Communication Manager / Session Manager

I was having a discussion with “Mike” in the comments section of any earlier post entitled, SIP Software Release 3.0 for IP Deskphones, in which he pointed out some of the issues with the new licensing model. Well it looks like Avaya was paying attention to that thread and made some changes to the licensing that should satisfy the majority of users. (I’m just going to quote directly from the readme.)

Improved Licensing

Licensing was introduced in the SIP 3.0 release. With SIP 3.2, the following changes are made to the licensing mechanism:

  • The Standard feature set is now available on all desksets without a token. This provides a basic set of SIP features conforming to RFC 3261 (SIPPING 19) at no additional cost.
  • Now, when the phone is registered to a recognized Avaya call server (Avaya AuraTM, AS 5300, CS1000 or CS2100), the Extended feature set is available as well without a token.
  • The Advanced feature set is reserved for Federal and DoD features on the AS 5300 call server only
  • The feature packages have been re-organized
    • Wideband is part of Standard feature set
    • IPv6 and Broadworks SCA are part of Extended feature set
    • Security is now part of the Extended feature set

If you connect your IP deskphone to a Avaya Call Server (Avaya AuraTM, AS 5300, CS1000 or CS2100), you’ll get all the standard features you would get with the UNIStim firmware. The licensing really only comes into play if you decide to connect your Avaya IP deskphone to a third party call server or SIP provider.

Please make sure to review the product bulletin and the readme for all the details.

Cheers!

Nortel IP Phone 1165E

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The Nortel IP Phone 1165E hasn’t been officially announced just yet (no product information on the Nortel website) but here’s a marketing video posted to YouTube.

Perhaps a few folks at Nortel can fill us in on the technical specifications of this new product. While it looks like a great phone I’m not sure what functionality a business user might benefit from over the 1140E or 1120E?

Cheers!

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