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Cisco IOS newbie - new model phone needing config in existing environment

JasonSala
Level 1
Level 1

The company I work for is a medium sized business that hires one person as an internal support/helpdesk/sys admin rotating them in and out once per year.  It's my luck that it's my turn and ALL of our businesses information technology needs fall on my shoulders.  I'm pretty solid when it comes to just about most systems a company needs to function.....all except Cisco IOS.  I'm a super newbie when it comes to managing our cisco devices.

The situation I'm in..... Our CEO demanded we purchase a 7921g and get it set up for him so he can waltz around the office on his phone without having a dorky plantronics headset or something similar.  Fine and good so I researched a bit before we made the purchase.  Found that Call Manager 4.1 does support the 7921g and that they function better on Cisco aironet wireless access points which we just so happen to have.  I assumed I'd load up some software either on the call manager or on the phone itself, tell it where to look for the call manager and I'd be set.  I'm still pretty confident that this is super easy and I'm making this WAY harder than it needs to be but I'm still stuck.  I've googled around and searched through forums but the problem I'm running into is that many guides assume familiarity with Cisco IOS and end up being half greek to me. 

We're using Call Manager 4.1  (Unity express 2.1 that's not working right now I think)

The new device is a 7921g but I imagine the process would be the same for any new model phone

The software I have for the phone is a CP7921g-1.2.1.TAR  

I've been able to get get the TAR into the call manager's flash sucessfully

I can ssh to the call managger no problem but am not familiar with the commands.  I can also get into the web interface that has a command line in it. 

Now I'm stuck.  The phone is still complaining that it can't pull down a cfg file. Is this something that call manager is going to build for me or is this something I need to create?  If so what parameters do I need to specify and in what context?   I'd really appreciate any help anybody can give a newbie like me. 

2 Replies 2

michael-luo
Level 1
Level 1

When you said "Call Manager 4.1", were you referring to a Cisco router (a.k.a. "CallManager Express" or CME), or a Cisco server (running Windows and CallManager 4.1 application)?

Michael

Referring to a Cisco router (2851) running CME 4.1. 

I actually had a meltdown Friday evening, the router lost it's nvram and was booting into ROMMON.  I spent all weekend and some of early Monday morning restoring the thing but in doing so I learned a LOT more about Cisco IOS and Call Manager. 

I can answer my own questions now for anyone else who might be having this issue. 

All phones will connect to the Cisco router to try and pull down a .cnf file.  This cnf contains specific information like the message on the screen among other things.  Call manager will create this file for you if you know how to get in and do it - from the config terminal > telephony-service create   is where you look at creating the cnf files.   You have the opportunity to create device specific cnf files or a generic cnf for all phones.  When the phones boot they will look first for a device specific cnf and if they can't find that they will look for the default one which was fine for my application, only about 100 phones. 

My 7921 is still trying to pull down firmware whenever it's booted but I don't really care about that as the phone is working perfectly with whatever firmware it came with.  As far as getting that to work i think you have to TFTP the firmware to the router as a .TAR....then xtract it....I think it is supposed to go into a specific directory but I'm done digging into it for now. 

Hope this helps others having similar issues!   Please doublecheck my info and make sure it's correct as I'm still pretty green when it comes to IOS.

Also with wireless phones make sure they're on the same subnet/vlan as the rest of your phones   I had to create a seperate SSID just for this phone since our wireless network is on a different subnet.  TFTP isnt routable...so has to be on the same subnet. 

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