External TFTP Call Flow-Clarity- What will happen if Phone get register to CUCM and TFTP is still External..

[anilkumar.cisco]

Hello Friends,

I have a scenario.. in central site we have CUCM 11.5 and in remote site 6921 IP Phones..
Due to latency issue we have to upgrade the IP Phone locally i.e. via External TFTP..
Due to some issue in External TFTP server, the phone are not getting upgraded to 9.4.1 version but not sure how it got register to CUCM , must be via XMLDefault.cnf file which is available in the External TFTP.. The current firmware in IP phones are 9.0.2
So now my question to you is,
Whether any change if I will in CUCM WIth regards to these phones, do to the Phone will saved or reflect to IP Phone or not??
if it is yes.. then what is the difference between External TFTP and CUCM TFTP..
I am little bit confused here.. and want to understand the complete call flow..
Currently I have configured only External TFTP IP address in the phone..
Thanks & Regards
anil Singh

[Jaime Valencia]

Call flows and TFTP have nothing to do with each other.

if you configured the load server in the device level, the phone will ONLY try to download the FW from that server. All of the other config files will come from the TFTP the phone is configured to use, which most usually is a CUCM server.

[anilkumar.cisco]

Still you are not getting my question..

In my scenario: CUCM 11.5 , IP phone 6921 , Current firmware of IP phone is 9.0.2 and firmware which is there in CUCM is 9.4.1 and we are trying to upgrade the firmware locally but not happening.. due to some issue not sure what it is.l but phone get register to CUCM via old firmware..

Question no: 1

What will happen when TFTP is external i.e. any local PC or Cisco router.. and that IP address only configured in IP phone as TFTP IP..

Question no: 2.

If i will do any changes on the configuration of IP PHone.. that changes will reflect in IP Phone or not??

If yes.. then need to understand the call flow of it.. as What i understood that.. TFTP send revised configuration file to IP phone but when in my case TFTP is external then what is going to happen??

[Jaime Valencia]

1 Phone will try to get ALL of the configuration files and FW from the external TFTP

2 NO, you would need to manually sync the files generated in CUCM to that external TFTP. Only CUCM servers in the cluster sync those files.

FYI, the RN/README of the FW explain if there's a need to do a middle step before being able to upgrade to that specific release 

[anilkumar.cisco]

I am not agree with your answer 2.. because when we are doing changes on the IP Phone like changing DN etc..  it is getting reflected to the IP Phone..

FYI.. we have XMLdefault.cnf.xml file in External TFTP Server..

Hope these file would be get sync automatically with CUCM as External TFTP & CUCM IP are reachable to each other..

Pls clarify..

[Jaime Valencia]

Do you have it configured like this??:

The primary TFTP server should have the Alternate Cisco File Server (1 to 10) values set for external Cisco Unified Communications Manager clusters. The primary TFTP server serves configuration files from these servers for phones and devices in the external clusters. To avoid creating a loop, ensure that the TFTP servers on the external clusters do not point to each other.

[anilkumar.cisco]

No, I don't have such configuration..

My external TFTP is my laptop  or Cisco router (SRST Router) and everything is working perfectly there..

Seems , Extension mobility only would not work here...

Pls help us to clarify the issue.

[Jaime Valencia]

Those settings, the ability to set alternate cisco file servers are not longer available on newer releases (the snip is from an 8.5 guide), if CUCM has no idea who is a TFTP for your phone, and where to send/sync the files, how would you expect this to work??? This doesn't work automagically