This article will show how to configure CallManager Express (CME) for the IP phone firmware upgrade process. Upgrading your Cisco IP phones is generally a good practice, especially when upgrading your CallManager or CallManager Express version, as it will ensure all new options and features supported by your CallManager/CME system are also available to your IP phones.

Upgrading your Cisco IP phone firmware is a very simple process, however special consideration must be taken into account when upgrading to the latest firmware.

If the Cisco Unified IP phone is currently running firmware earlier than 6.0(2) on and you want to upgrade to 8.x(x), you must first install an intervening 7.0(x) load to prevent upgrade failure.

Cisco recommends using the most recent 7.0(3) load as the intervening load to avoid lengthy upgrade times.

If the Cisco Unified IP phone is currently running firmware 6.0(2) to 7.0(2) and you want to upgrade to 8.x(x), you can do so directly. However, expect the upgrade to take twice as long as usual.

Step 1 – Download the Appropriate Firmware

To download Cisco IP Phone firmware from Cisco.com, a valid Cisco CCO account is required. In most cases, the firmware file name is something similar to the following:  cmterm-7945_7965-sccp.9-2-1.tar.  From the file name, we can understand that this is firmware version 9.2.1, for Cisco 7945 and 7965 SCCP IP phones.

Step 2 – Upload Firmware Files to CallManager Express Flash Storage

Next, the firmware must be uploaded and unpacked on our CME router. For this, we’ll need a TFTP server running on a workstation, plus access to the CME router.  From the CME prompt, we instruct the router to download the firmware and unpack it onto our CME flash:

Step 3 – Configure The CallManager Express TFTP Server to Serve the Firmware files & Setup DHCP Server (option 150)

Resetting a Cisco Aironet access point can be required if you’ve lost your password or need to wipe out the configuration of a previously configured access point.

Cisco provides two main methods to perform a factory reset on the 1100 and 1200 series access points and these are: 1) Via the Mode Button 2) Via Web Interface. 

The first method (Mode Button) does not require any user credentials or passwords as the reset procedure is performed during the boot up process and does not involve logging into the access point.

The second method (Web Interface) requires username and password with privileged access 15 (administrator privileges) in order to perform the reset procedure.

Both reset procedures described below will reset all configuration settings to factory defaults. This means it will erase all passwords, SSIDs, WEP/WPA keys, IP address and anything else configured on the access point.

When the Cisco Aironet access point factory-reset procedure is complete, the default credentials will need to be used to access it. Both username and passwords are Cisco with a capital “C” (case-sensitive). In addition, the factory default IP address for the access point will be 10.0.0.1.

Factory Reset via MODE Button

This is the most common reset method engineers look for, and we’ve got it covered in four easy-to-follow steps!

CLI Output During Factory Reset via MODE Button

Below is the CLI output during the Mode button reset method.  It is clear that once the access point sees the MODE button pressed for 20 seconds (the time it takes until the status LED turns amber), it initiates the recovery process:

flashfs[0]: 147 files, 7 directories

flashfs[0]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories

flashfs[0]: Total bytes: 32385024

flashfs[0]: Bytes used: 5549056

flashfs[0]: Bytes available: 26835968

flashfs[0]: flashfs fsck took 20 seconds.

Reading cookie from system serial eeprom...Done

Base Ethernet MAC address: 1c:de:0f:94:b7:b8

Ethernet speed is 100 Mb - FULL duplex

button pressed for 20 seconds

process_config_recovery: set IP address and config to default 10.0.0.1

process_config_recovery: image recovery

image_recovery: Download default IOS tar image tftp://255.255.255.255/c1140-k9w7-tar.default

examining image...

Factory Reset via Web Interface (Recommended Option for Remote Reset)

Resetting your Cisco access point via its web interface is an easy process.  Following are the steps required:

With the new release of GFI's LanGuard 2012 SR1, we've got a number of much wanted features now available to further assist network administrators and engineers make their life much easier!

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Relay agents

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This article shows how to connect Cisco's Unified CallManager with a CallManager Express system (including UC 520, UC540 and UC560) via H323 gateway, allowing the two systems to route calls between each other. This scenario is typically used between remote offices running CallManager Express that need to connect to their Headquarters running on CallManager.

Our example network assumes there is a direct connection between the two CallManager systems via leased line as shown in the diagram below:

Engineers who wish to establish a VPN connection instead (via Internet) can refer to the following popular VPN articles:

• Configuring Point-to-Point GRE VPN Tunnels on Cisco Routers
• Configuring Site to Site IPSec VPN Tunnel Between Cisco Routers

The above network diagram was designed using GNS3 in a simulated environment consisting of two CallManager clusters, one at the Headquarters (CUCM) with an IP Communicator client (CIPC_HQ) assigned with extension 2002 and at the remote branch we have a CallManager Express system with an IP Communicator client (CIPC_BR) with extension 5010.

To simplify things, our CME router is directly connected with the Headquarters router (CUCM_HQ), providing a path for us to reach the main CallManager (192.168.10.11).

While CallManager (Headquarters) requires a voice gateway to make and receive calls on the PSTN/ISDN network (Telco Providers), it is not a requirement for intra-site communication.

We assume no configuration exists on the CME router and basic configuration on CallManager.

Configuring CallManager Express or UC500 Series System

Following is the CallManager Express router configuration covering its LAN and WAN configuration:

The h323-gateway voip interface and h323-gateway voip bind srcaddr commands define the source interface and IP address for all h323 protocol communications and is necessary to ensure VoIP communication with CUCM.

Next, we enable the CallManager Express service and configure our single IP phone (IP Communicator) that will be used for our test:

Finally, all that is left is to configure a dial-peer that would direct all calls to CallManager at our Headquarters. This is done by using dial-peers as shown below:

This dial-peer instructs CallManager Express to forward any calls made to any four digit number starting with 2, e.g. 2000, 2452, 2900 etc, to IP address 192.168.10.11, our headquarters CallManager.

Dial-peers are an essential ingredient to managing outgoing and incoming calls and will be covered in greater depth in another article.

This completes our CallManager Express configuration. We are now ready to move on to our CallManager configuration

Configuring CallManager (CUCM)

Configuring CallManager involves a number of easy-to-follow steps as outlined below. As shown in the network map, we've assigned extension number 2002 to the IP Communicator connected to the system. This phone will be accepting incoming calls from the remote CallManager Express system.

First step is to check that the Cisco CallManager and Cisco TFTP Server are activated. This can be done by visiting Cisco Unified Serviceability > Tools > Service Activation as shown below:

Here we will need to enable the mentioned CM Services by selecting them and clicking on Save.

If IP Communicator is not already connected and registered to CallManager, we can automate this process by going to Cisco Unified CM Administrator > System > Cisco Unified CM Configuration:

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Readers interested in learning how to configure Cisco Routers to support the Cisco VPN Client can read our popular article:Cisco VPN Client Configuration - Setup for IOS Router

Introduction

This article explains how to reset your Cisco 7945, 7965 and 7975 to factory defaults, and how to upgrade the firmware to the latest available version. We also provide necessary information on how to setup a DHCP server on a CME router or Cisco Catalyst switch, to support Cisco IP Phones and provide them with DHCP Option 150 so they know where to find and register with the CallManager or CallManager Express server.

According to Cisco, when initiating a factory reset procedure certain information from the IP phone is erased while other information is reset to the factory default value, as shown in the list below:

Information Erased:

• CTL File (Certificate Trust List)
• LSC File (Locally Significant Certificate)
• IP Phone Call History (Calls Received, Placed, Missed etc)
• Phone application

Information Reset to Default:

• User configuration settings (ring tone, screen brightness, sound levels etc)
• Network configuration settings

It is highly advisable to follow the firmware upgrade procedure in a non-working environment to ensure other phones are not affected (in case of an accidental reboot), and to avoid the freshly factory reset ip phones obtaining the working environment’s settings.

Cisco IP phone SCCP firmware files version 9.2.1 for 7945, 7965 & 7975 IP phones (latest version at the time of writing this article) are available at our Cisco IP Phone & ATA Firmware Download section. For our example, we used version 9.1.1.

Things to Consider Before Factory Resetting your Cisco IP Phone

When performing the factory reset procedure we are about to describe it is important to keep in mind that the IP phone will lose all configuration files and phone application. This means that it is necessary to have CallManager or CallManager Express setup so that the IP phone will be able to receive the new information (phone application and configuration) after the reset procedure is complete, because it is likely the IP phone will not be usable until this information is loaded.

This preparation also happens to be the procedure for upgrading a Cisco IP phone firmware.

Configuring CallManager Express (CME) for IP Phone Firmware Upgrade

Upgrading your Cisco IP phone firmware is a very simple process. Special consideration must be taken into account when upgrading to the latest firmware.

If the Cisco Unified IP phone is currently running firmware earlier than 6.0(2) on and you want to upgrade to 8.x(x), you must first install an intervening 7.0(x) load to prevent upgrade failure.

Cisco recommends using the most recent 7.0(3) load as the intervening load to avoid lengthy upgrade times.

If the Cisco Unified IP phone is currently running firmware 6.0(2) to 7.0(2) and you want to upgrade to 8.x(x), you can do so directly. However, expect the upgrade to take twice as long.

Step 1 – Download the Appropriate Firmware

To download Cisco IP Phone firmware a valid Cisco CCO account is required. In most cases, the firmware file name is something similar to the following:  cmterm-7945_7965-sccp.9-1-1.tar.  From the file name, we can understand that this is firmware version 9.1.1, for Cisco 7945 and 7965 SCCP IP phones.

Step 2 – Upload Firmware to CallManager Express

Next, the firmware must be uploaded and unpacked on our CME router. For this, we’ll need a TFTP server running on a workstation, plus access to the CME router.  From the CME prompt we instruct the router to download the firmware and unpack it onto our CME flash:

When complete, the system’s flash will contain all 8 files extracted above.

Step 3 – Configure The CallManager Express TFTP server to serve these files & Setup DHCP Server (option 150)