Polycom IP670 FTP Provisioning On 4.0.7 Firmware Walkthrough

[mcargile]

WARNING: There is a chance that following the below instructions may result in your expensive Polycom phone turning into a brick. I make no promises that it will work for you. Do your research before attempting this. Above all do not try to hold me or the Vicidial Group accountable if you end up with a brick.

I am writing this brief walk through in hopes to ease other peoples misery. I spent eight hours working on this with a client. Much of which was modifying minor options that I will not be discussing here, but it was still extremely frustrating.

The following worked for me on a Polycom SoundPoint IP670 running a 3.2.7 firmware and bootloader, but I make no promises it will work for you running the exact same setup. Please check the table on this page to see if your phone is supposed to be compatible with the 4.0.7 firmware:

http://downloads.polycom.com/voice/voip/sip_sw_releases_matrix.html

If it is this should work for any phone running the 3.2.X firmware or the 4.0.X firmware. It might even work for any of the 3.X.X firmwares, but I make no promises. The IP670's latest compatible firmware revision is 4.0.7 which is why this walk through is for that and not the 4.1.1 revision.


The first thing you will need is a reliable FTP server. I recommend one setup on your LAN.

Download the BootROM upgrader:
http://support.polycom.com/PolycomService/support/us/support/eula/ucs/UCagreement_combined_4_4_0_upgrader.html

Download the 4.0.7 firmware:
http://support.polycom.com/PolycomService/support/us/support/eula/ucs/UCagreement_4_0_7_split.html

On both of these files you will need to click the link and accept the EULA for the download.

Extract both of these files to your FTP server.

Go into the phone menu. Go into Setting -> Advanced -> Admin Settings -> Network Configuration -> Server Menu (If prompted for a password try 456. If that doesnt work factory reset the phone.)

Change the config to point to your FTP server.

Reboot the phone.

The phone will upgrade the bootrom and then the application. It will reboot several times. Do not power off the phone during this or you will have a brick. If you can do this with the phone on a battery back up. In the end the phone will boot much faster as it will no longer use the bootrom and go straight to the application. Do not bother with configuring the phone until it boots properly and you have confirmed through the menu that it is running the 4.0.7 firmware.



Once the phone is running the 4.0.7 firmware you can proceed with configuring the phone.

I am going to use the following variables to represent data you need to change to suit your setup:

Code: Select all

MACADDRESS = the MAC address of your polycom phone. This can me found on the back of the phone.
EXTEN = the extension you want to set the phone up as in Vicidial (or asterisk)
PASSWORD = the Registration password for the phone in Vicidial (or asterisk)
SERVERIPORURL = The server ip or url of the Vicidial (or asterisk) you are trying to connect the phone to.
NTPSERVER = The NTP server your phone will get its time from
GMTOFFSETINSECONDS = The GMT offset for the phone in seconds. For instance Tampa Fl is -18000.

In the root directory of the FTP server copy the 000000000000.cfg file to MACADDRESS.cfg.

In the root directory of the FTP server copy Config/sip-basic.cfg to sip.cfg

In the root directory of the FTP server copy Config/site.cfg to site.cfg

In the root directory of the FTP server copy Config/reg-basic.cfg to reg-EXTEN.cfg

Edit MACADDRESS.cfg and change 'CONFIG_FILES=""' to 'CONFIG_FILES="reg-EXTEN.cfg, sip.cfg, site.cfg"'

Edit reg-EXTEN.cfg
change 'reg.1.address=""' to 'reg.1.address="EXTEN"'
change 'reg.1.auth.password=""' to 'reg.1.auth.password="PASSWORD"'
change 'reg.1.auth.userId=""' to 'reg.1.auth.userId="EXTEN"'
change 'reg.1.label=""' to 'reg.1.label="EXTEN"'
change 'reg.1.outboundProxy.address=""' to 'reg.1.outboundProxy.address="SERVERIPORURL"'

Edit sip.cfg
change 'voIpProt.server.1.address=""' to 'voIpProt.server.1.address="SERVERIPORURL"'

Edit site.cfg
change 'device.sntp device.sntp.gmtOffset=""' to 'device.sntp device.sntp.gmtOffset="GMTOFFSETINSECONDS"'
change 'device.sntp.serverName=""' to 'device.sntp.serverName="NTPSERVER"'
change 'tcpIpApp.sntp.address=""' to 'tcpIpApp.sntp.address="NTPSERVER"'
change 'tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset=""' to 'tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset="GMTOFFSETINSECONDS"'
change 'tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset.overrideDHCP="0"' to 'tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset.overrideDHCP="1"'
change 'voIpProt.SIP.specialEvent.checkSync.alwaysReboot="0"' to voIpProt.SIP.specialEvent.checkSync.alwaysReboot="0"'

Reboot the phone. It should come up and register.

For each additional phone you simply need to make a MACADDRESS.cfg file and a reg-EXTEN.cfg file. Make sure the MACADDRESS.cfg file has the correct reg-EXTEN.cfg file. Change in the reg-EXTEN.cfg file the username and password data.

If you have any questions, you should consult their Admin Guide first which can be downloaded here:
http://support.polycom.com/global/documents/support/setup_maintenance/products/voice/UC_Software_Admin_Guide_v4_0_0.pdf

It is pretty comprehensive. Also remember Google is your friend. Remember this is a place to get Vicidial support not Polycom support so you are probably better off looking elsewhere. Polycom has pretty decent forums here:
http://community.polycom.com/t5/VoIP/bd-p/VoIP

Good luck.

[geoff3dmg]

I entirely agree that doing all this config work manually is a pita. The Polycoms (I have IP550s) don't give very good feedback when things aren't right. I tend to circumvent this problem entirely now and I use FreePBX with the Open Source 'End Point Manager' module. It has support for provisioning the Polycoms out of the box without having to muck about with configuration templates. I then IAX2 trunk my FreePBX server to my ViciDIAL cluster.

[williamconley]

We've built a polycom 560 TFTP directly linked to the Vicidial Phones manager. Fully automated IF the local dns server will give out the proper parameter for the boot server.

Works very nicely: Even reboots the phone and loads new configuration if you modify it in Vicidial ... as long as you don't modify the extension, they didn't pay for that yet. Part of a "FreePBX inside Vicidial" buildout where the client only wanted specific freepbx features but seriously simplified.

So it has Queues, Paging, a "See all line status" panel, and not much else. But it is fully integrated with Vicidial. Even to the point that the phones in the PBX can call the phones in the call center ... but not the other way around (by design, to avoid call center agents randomly calling sales reps and the corporate officers).

It also has "check voicemail from the outside by dialing * when leaving a VM" which was interesting. Never had anyone request that before. And jump to operator while leaving a VM by hitting 0.

We expect them to add polycom 670's soon, the system just went live last week and they're still pointing out the occasional bug. Although it's been a couple days "bug free".