Trouble Converting to MPP License (8851)

[mwpardue]

I work for a hosted VOIP provider and have a potential customer with 8851's on CUCM. They're interested in converting these phones to MPP licenses to use on my service and to that end they've sent me a couple test phones that have never been connected to CUCM, never even out of the box. I have the E2M licenses and am following the instructions at upgrade.cisco.com but the phones will only boot to a screen asking for an activation code. When I watch my DHCP server I see the DISCOVER packet come from the phone and an OFFER go back to it but the phone never sends an ACK and I can't ping the phone nor does it appear to ever actually assign the IP.

Will these phones not pull an IP address to begin the conversion process if they've never been registered to CUCM?

Does a CUCM have to be present in the network for the phones to pull an IP address, or is there some way I can assign an IP to these two test phones to get the conversion process rolling?

Thanks for whatever help you can provide!!

[Geovani]

Hi, 

My first thought here would be to perform a factory reset on the phone. 

After factory reset, there is no reason why the phone wouldn't get an IP address. 

The activation code showing on the screen is normal. That means that the phone didn't receive any DHCP options, such as option 150. 

You can navigate to the phone UI and check if it has an ip address and proceed with the conversion, with instructions from upgrade.cisco.com. 

Also, what is the current firmware on the phone? 

Thanks 

[mwpardue]

Apparently I'm just a dummy. I sort of assumed that, because it was asking for an activation code, I would have no ability to navigate the phone's menus. But I can. It is pulling the IP address, so there's probably something else wrong in my DHCP setup. Not sure why it continuously sends a DISCOVER out, presumably because it's looking for CUCM?

The phone is on sip88xx.12-0-1-11. I'm assuming this is the firmware version. I do not do much with Cisco phones and therefor have very little familiarity with them.

[Geovani]

I'm not sure why its sending multiple DISCOVERY requests. 

Yes this is the firmware version 12-0-1-11, so you do meet the minimum firmware version requirement for the conversion. 

Please try the conversion instructed here https://upgrade.cisco.com/e2m_converter and see how it goes. 

Geovani 

[mwpardue]

That's actually the directions I'm following now. Looking at a port mirror of the phone I don't actually see any traffic at all coming from the phone so I feel like something is missing or misconfigured, but the DHCP options appear to be correct.

Bootstrap Protocol (ACK)
Message type: Boot Reply (2)
Hardware type: Ethernet (0x01)
Hardware address length: 6
Hops: 0
Transaction ID: 0x8b76ebe1
Seconds elapsed: 28
Bootp flags: 0x8000, Broadcast flag (Broadcast)
1... .... .... .... = Broadcast flag: Broadcast
.000 0000 0000 0000 = Reserved flags: 0x0000
Client IP address: 0.0.0.0
Your (client) IP address: 10.6.11.166
Next server IP address: 0.0.0.0
Relay agent IP address: 0.0.0.0
Client MAC address: Cisco_xx:xx:xx (6c:6c:d3:xx:xx:xx)
Client hardware address padding: 00000000000000000000
Server host name not given
Boot file name not given
Magic cookie: DHCP
Option: (53) DHCP Message Type (ACK)
Length: 1
DHCP: ACK (5)
Option: (54) DHCP Server Identifier
Length: 4
DHCP Server Identifier: 10.6.11.5
Option: (51) IP Address Lease Time
Length: 4
IP Address Lease Time: (518336s) 5 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes, 56 seconds
Option: (1) Subnet Mask
Length: 4
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Option: (3) Router
Length: 4
Router: 10.6.11.1
Option: (6) Domain Name Server
Length: 8
Domain Name Server: 8.8.8.8
Domain Name Server: 8.8.4.4
Option: (15) Domain Name
Length: 19
Domain Name: myoffice.com
Option: (66) TFTP Server Name
Length: 23
TFTP Server Name: cloudupgrader.webex.com
Option: (160) DHCP Captive-Portal
Length: 54
Captive Portal: https://cloudupgrader.webex.com/Cisco/EDOS/$PN/$MA.cfg
Option: (255) End
Option End: 255

[mwpardue · Accepted solution]

I think I found the issue. Before I started trying to convert this phone I changed the switchport from a trunk port to an access port, however I did let it get an IP address before I made this change. Apparently this phone does not like access ports, although I have no idea why that would matter. When I changed the port back to a trunk port it started the license conversion process like I would expect.