Upgrade / Downgrade firmware of specific IP Phone

[Antonio Taylor]

Following document explains how to upgrade or downgrade the firmware of an IP phone without disrupting customers production system.

We need to follow a couple of  easy steps to accomplish this, its valid for CUCM 5.X and above.

Hope you find it useful.

1- Download the ZIP file of the firmware on cisco.com

2- Extract the ZIP into a folder for easy upload to the CUCM.

3- Go to the OS Administration page of the CUCM and upload the files manually one by one, make sure the directory is blank that means

that will upload it to the root of the tftp.

4- After you upload all the files of the folder, copy the file name that ends with .loads.

5- Now you can paste the name on the phone load name field of the target phone, under CM Administration --- Device --- Phone,  section.

6- After this you will have to reset the Cisco TFTP service under the Serviceability section of CUCM, which will not cause any phone to unregister or anything like that, tftp service its in charge to serve FW files, configuration files, background images for example.

7- After this you will have to reset the phone, in this way the phone will request the new configuration file with the load name

it has to request everytime it registers.

Hope this helps.

[hitekuma]

To upgrade the 88XX phones, please follow the below procedure:

By default, when you install a new firmware version for a device, the UCM database will make the New load the Active load for the phone, on Device Defaults page.  After that update, the endpoint will receive notification that a new load is available for download.   For dual banked phones (like the 88xx phones), the new load will be loaded into the inactive bank.  Once the new firmware has been downloaded, the phone will restart and set the new firmware as the active firmware.  The download to the inactive partition prior to starting is to prevent the phone from being out of service while the firmware is downloaded. 

If you want to stage the new firmware in the inactive partition, but not have the new firmware become active, you just need to swap the active/inactive setting.  So after installing the new firmware, go to the Device Defaults page and in the Dual Bank phone section (besides every phone model, there's an icon) hit the 'Swap Loads' icon and the Active/Inactive will switch.  Save the change.  Now the phones will then keep the new firmware in the inactive partition until you 'swap' them around.  You can now test the Inactive load on One phone for testing. When you are ready to switch the inactive firmware to active, just hit the 'Swap Loads' button and save it.  After saving you will need to use the 'apply config' to the phones that you want to activate, which will trigger the phone to pick it's config file with the new firmware load.

HTH

Hitesh Kumar