10 thoughts on - Avaya 9608G And DHCP And TFTP And HTTP Oh My

• I’m using ISC DHCP with the following:

  option tftp-server-name “10.30.100.109”;
  next-server 10.30.100.109;

  That provides enough information for my Polycom phones to find their server.

  Doug

  —

• Doug:

  Not sure these phones understand TFTP. Docs say they don’t. But I made changes like what you suggested. No luck; the phone still never bothers the asterisk server for anything. I still see only broadcasts (only ARPs.)

  —–Original Message—

• The Polycom phones are using the standard FTP; It was only a shot in the dark.

  Doug

• So you might want to start without configurations from DHCP. Enter the file/http server in the phone manually and point it to a http server containing the needed firmware files and a correct 46xxsettings.txt for you asterisk.

  Avaya uses other dhcp options for these phone (242):
  https://downloads.avaya.com/elmodocs2/one-X_Deskphone_Edition/R1.5/output/16_300698_4/admn054.html

  BTW these phones are a terrible waste when used with Asterisk. They only provided minimal functionality (calls and transfer).

• Right– I’ve seen the Avaya document you cite below. It says “To administer DHCP option 242, make a copy of an existing option 176” but I don’t have any example of option 176 or 242 to copy, and don’t know what to do to /etc/dhcpd.conf to make it offer option 242.

  Then there’s this long table of parameters to use with (presumably) option 242.

  I was hoping someone had a working minimal example of a dhcp option 242 config I could copy and modify.

  They only have minimal function? No speed dials, BLFs, etc?

  —–Original Message—

• Example for our old IP Office (192.168.250.1) setup:
  ===========================================option option-242 code 242 = string;

  subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 {
  #option option-242 “L2Q=1,L2QVLAN=4”;
  #option option-242 “HTTPSRVR.1.2.3/files”;
  option option-242 “MCIPADD2.168.250.1,MCPORT19,HTTPSRVR2.168.250.1”;
  }
  ===========================================
  My guess is you only need HTTPSRVR=hostname/path This should point to a dir where a 46xxsettings.txt exists. Must contain something like:

  ===========================================SET SIPPROXYSRVR 172.16.0.2
  SET SIPPORT 5060
  SET SIPDOMAIN 172.16.0.2
  SET SIPREGISTRAR 172.16.0.2
  SET SIP_CONTROLLER_LIST 172.16.0.2:5060;transport=tcp SET ENABLE_AVAYA_ENVIRONMENT 0
  SET CONFIG_SERVER_SECURE_MODE 0
  SET SIPSIGNAL 0
  SET REGISTERWAIT 900

  SET CLDISPCONTENT 0
  SET DISPLAY_NAME_NUMBER 3

  SET DIALPLAN 2xx|0[1-7]xxxxxxxx|08[458]xxxxxxx SET PHNNUMOFSA 2
  SET GMTOFFSET 1:00
  SET DSTOFFSET 1
  SET DSTSTART LSunMar2L
  SET DSTSTOP LSunOct2L

  SET BRANDING_VOLUME 1
  SET AGCHAND 0
  SET AGCHEAD 0
  SET AGCSPKR 0
  SET DATETIMEFORMAT 2
  SET TIMEFORMAT 1
  SET SNTPSRVR 109.235.32.103,109.235.32.119
  SET ENTRYNAME 0

  SET PHNOL
  ===========================================

  Not as fas as I know. I configured this in 2013 and at that time only call/transfer and conference worked.

• Ok, to review, I’m trying to get Avaya 9608G to come up in a pure Asterisk environment– no Avaya SBC or gateway or any other Avaya gear in sight.

  I have the phone working to the point where it boots up properly, then displays a Username and Password prompt, and says its extension is 123 and the time is 4:57p, which is wrong.

  But please don’t tell me the only way to program up each phone is via the craft interface?

  Every other phone I’ve ever used requires a configuration file, which has the MAC address of the phone as its name. The Avaya phones must have some other method. Unless I have to embed the mac address and particulars for all the phones into the 46xxsettings.txt file??

  How do I get the phone number and authentication into the phone if it isn’t looking for (for example) 50CD22B47C00.cfg or the like?? These are all the files it attempt to read, from /var/log/httpd/access.log:

  10.1.138.245 – – [06/Mar/2018:10:19:09 -0600] “GET /voipcfg/96x1Supgrade.txt HTTP/1.1” 200 941 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0)”
  10.1.138.245 – – [06/Mar/2018:10:19:09 -0600] “GET /voipcfg/46xxsettings.txt HTTP/1.1” 200 421835 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0)”

  By the way, I don’t know if I shared this already, but here’s my DHCP settings on my network that allowed it to find my asterisk server.

  First, outside of any defined scope, declare option 242. This is about line 13 for me, YMMV

  option option-242 code 242 = string;

  Next, I defined a tiny little scope for Avaya phones:

  pool {
  range dynamic-bootp 10.194.138.241 10.194.138.254;
  deny members of “aastra”;
  deny members of “polycom-phones”;
  deny members of “cyberdata-paging”;
  deny members of “digium-phones”;
  deny members of “cisco-spa-phones”;
  allow members of “avaya-phones”;
  deny members of “sophos”;
  #option option-242 “MCIPADD=10.180.202.110,HTTPSRVR=fonia.teste.com.br,L2Q=0,L2QVLAN=0”;
  option option-242 “MCIPADD=10.194.141.251,HTTPSRVR=10.194.141.251,HTTPDIR=voipcfg”;
  }

  Having already created a /voipcfg directory on the web server, the phone now boots from there and reads 46xxsettings.txt.

• I tried to warn you, didn’t I? 🙂

  The phones themselves are nice, when used with an Avaya PBX. What I have seen is that these phones are really dumb themselves and need a decent PBX that does the smartstuff via proprietary interfaces (H.232
  gatekeeper like IPOffice or whatever they use with the SIP based Communication Manager)

  There is some intelligence in parsing the 46xxsettings file, but AFAIK
  you need the CRAFT menu to do this (apart from MAC adresses).

  My advise: sell these phones, any SIP device you can buy with the proceeds is more intelligent when used with Asterisk.

• You did indeed warn me. I’ve made progress, gotten the dhcp option 242 to work, and finally gotten the phone to the point where it asks for a username and password. I defined these on the Asterisk server. I entered them on the phone. It says “Acquiring Service” and sits there. At least it sets the clock on the phone now.

  TCPDump shows traffic going back & forth every few seconds:
  10.1.138.245.13602 > ad-apbx.mcts.org.sip ad-apbx.mcts.org.sip > 10.1.138.245.60206
  10.1.138.245.30360 > ad-apbx.mcts.org.sip:

  But it sits at Acquiring Service eternally.

  The username and password I am entering are the Asterisk extension and asterisk extension secret. Should these be entered somewhere in the craft menu instead?

  —–Original Message—

• My 9608 has no password/secret in asterisk, could be due to some problem like you are encountering. Also these phones only work with SIP
  over TCP.

  sip.conf for my 9608:

  [a204]
  type=friend context 4
  defaultuser 4
  host=dynamic qualify=yes nat=yes disallow=all allow=alaw dtmfmode=rfc2833
  canreinvite=no transport=tcp,udp