COBRAS upgrade from Unity 4.0.5 to 7.0.2 with unified messaging

I performed another Callmanager and Unity upgrade the other night. Upgraded Callmanager from 4.2.1 to 7.1.3bSU2 and Unity from 4.0.5 to 7.0.2 – all on new hardware. The callmanager upgrade went almost flawlessly. We had an issue with DHCP for the phones (we were previously running DHCP on the old windows based callmanagers) but got that resolved and the phones upgraded and worked without a hitch.

I had never used the COBRAS tool for an upgrade before. I built the new Unity server with a new hostname and new IP address and when we began the cut-over, I attempted to do the COBRAS import on the new server but it failed on the subscriber import because the subscribers already existed on the old unity server. Apparently I hadn’t read the COBRAS instructions closely enough as I was not anticipating this. I assumed that it would automagically migrate them for me. After reading the COBRAS notes it lead me to use the GLOBAL SUBSCRIBER MANAGER (GSM) to move the subscribers from one server to another. I shared the COMMSERVER\STREAM FILES properly and I could see both servers in GSM but it would not let me move the users. I could select a user but it would not allow me to select the new server to move the subscriber to it. I ended up performing a BULK DELETE on the old server and then performing the COBRAS import on the new server and everything worked almost flawlessly after that. The COBRAS tool can be downloaded here.

-Go0se

Cisco 64 bit VPN Client redux

It appears that the Cisco 64 bit VPN Client is no longer in beta and according to the date stamp apparently it’s been out for over a month. You can download the latest version from Cisco here. (CCO login required)

I’ve been using the beta for quite some time and its been very stable.

-Go0se

Howto: Configure iSip for iPhone to integrate with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Callmanager)

iSip (formerly sipphone) from VNET is a SIP client for the Apple iPhone. It can be downloaded from the app store.

iSip - app store

REQUIREMENTS:
You must have Callmanager version 5 or greater. I’m using Callmanager 6.1(2) for this howto.
Your iPhone must be able to connect to your Callmanager server – I’ve successfully used the iSip client via wifi as well as over a 3G connection via VPN connection from the iPhone

First, let’s configure a new Phone Security Profile for the SIP phone.
01) Go to SYSTEM | SECURITY PROFILE | PHONE SECURITY PROFILE
02) Simply hit FIND and scroll down to the bottom of the list (you may need to click to a second page) and locate “Third-party SIP Device Basic – Standard SIP Non-Secure Profile” and click on it
03) Once you see it’s properties, simply hit COPY to create a new copy of it. Give the new phone security profile a name, I’m using “Third-party SIP Device Basic – Digest
04) Check the check box next to ENABLE DIGEST AUTHENTICATION and hit SAVE

Now let’s build a user to authenticate the SIP device
01) GO to USER MANAGEMENT | END USER and click ADD NEW
02) Enter in your USER ID, PASSWORD, PIN, and LAST NAME
03) You must also enter in a password in the DIGEST CREDENTIALS and CONFIRM DIGEST CREDENTIALS field – this is the password that the SIP client will use to authenticate

***UPDATE NOTE: If you are Active Directory Integrated, you still set the DIGEST CREDENTIALS in UCM and use these credentials on the isip client.***

04) Click SAVE

Next let’s build the SIP phone in Callmanager
01) Go to DEVICE | PHONE and click ADD NEW
02) Select THIRD-PARTY SIP DEVICE (BASIC) and click NEXT
03) Enter in a 12 digit MAC address (this does not have to be a valid MAC address but it must be unique from anything else in your Callmanager)
04) Enter the pertinent information for the SIP DEVICE settings – it should mostly be configured the same as a standard phone on your system except for the following settings
a) in the OWNER USER ID field select the user you created above
b) in the DEVICE SECURITY PROFILE field select the security profile you created above
c) in the DIGEST USER field select the user you created above
05) click SAVE
06) Configure the line settings for the SIP device – the line settings should match the line settings of your standard user’s Cisco IP phones – there are no special attributes that we need to worry about on the line configuration.



Now let’s go back to the user configuration and associate this device
01) Go to USER MANAGEMENT | END USER and search for the SIP user you created above, once you find it, click on it
02) scroll down to DEVICE ASSOCIATIONS and click on the DEVICE ASSOCIATION button
03) locate and select the SIP device you created above
04) Check the check box next to this device and click SAVE SELECTED/CHANGES
05) Click GO next to the BACK TO USER related link near the upper right-hand corner
06) Click SAVE one more time on the END USER CONFIGURATION screen

You have completed the steps to configure the SIP device in Callmanager

Now lets configure the iSip client on the iPhone

01) Select the ACCOUNTS button at the bottom of the client
02) Select ADD A NEW SIP ACCOUNT
03) Select OTHER SIP PROVIDER
04) In the DISPLAY NAME field enter in whatever display name you wish to use
05) In the DOMAIN field enter the IP Address of your Callmanager
06) In the USERNAME field enter the extension you assigned to the SIP phone in Callmanager
07) In the PASSWORD field enter in the password you entered into the DIGEST CREDENTIALS of the user entered above – this is case sensitive

08) Select ADVANCE
09) In the AUTH USERNAME field enter in the user ID you created in Callmanager above – this is case sensitive

10) Select SIP ACCOUNTS in the upper left-hand corner
11) Select SAVE
12) Select ACCOUNT MANAGER
13) Select DONE

You should now see your account listed under SIP ACCOUNTS

Assuming you have connectivity to your callmanager you should be able to select ON on your newly created SIP account and it will authenticate.

You can now select the DIALER and make a call!

You can simply dial the extension or number and select the SIP button to dial out using your Callmanager system. You must dial the call exactly as you would from a Cisco IP phone. Notice that your contacts are also available. If your Callmanager system requires a prefix digit to make calls out to the PSTN there is an option in iSip to add the prefix digit when dialing contacts – simply select the SETTINGS button and scroll down until you see PREFIX FOR CONTACTS. Tap the PREFIX field and enter in your outside access code. In my case I simply enter a 9.

Thats it!

-Go0se

Online Storage

I’ve been looking for an online storage/backup site for some time and finally decided on Online Storage Solution. You get unlimited space (yes, unlimited – that is not a typo) for $19 per year. I have a free dropbox account and it’s great for moving files around from computer to computer or to/from my iPhone, or for sharing files with friends/family. but I only get 2GB of space for free with dropbox. That just isn’t enough for backing up my important data/photos/video, and to buy 50GB per year is $99 or 100GB is $199 from dropbox. With Online Storage Solution you can access it by

Web Based File Access

Network Drive (via CIFS)

FTP and FTP over SSL

WebDav and WebDav over SSL

There are several other cool features, including the option of a two data center option for an additional $19 per year.

-Go0se

Cisco 64 bit VPN Client

If you read my last post, I stated that “the Cisco VPN Client is not supported under any 64 bit OS”. Well, I stand corrected. Cisco just released a version 5.0.7 BETA 64 bit VPN client. You will find it under the Cisco VPN Client download page. It appears to work prettymuch exactly like the old client did.

Cisco 64 bit VPN Client

Cisco 64 bit VPN Client

-Go0se

Shrew Soft VPN Client

I recently upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit. As many of you know the Cisco VPN Client is not supported under any 64 bit OS. A co-worker of mine pointed me to the Shrew Soft VPN Client. If you are like me and have a whole bunch of existing Cisco VPN Client .PCF files you are in luck, you can import them directly into the Shrew Soft VPN Client. It also seems much quicker connecting than the old Cisco client. Did I mention that it is free?

Check it out.

-Go0se

Callmanager 3.2 to 7 and Unity 4.0.3 to 7 upgrades

We performed a Callmanager upgrade from 3.2 to 7 and Unity upgrade 4.0.3 to 7 (all on new hardware) this past week.

For the callmanager upgrade we didn’t do an actual “upgrade” with the DMA tool. Why you ask? Because A) it wasn’t a complicated system and B) it would be such a huge hassle to upgrade from 3.2 to 3.3 to 4.1 then finally to 7 and C) 3.2 doesn’t have a BAT export, we simply built the 7 server from scratch and then did an SQL query on the old system and “massaged” that data into the BAT spreadsheet and simply imported the data into the new 7 server. It went off without a hitch. There was one gateway that I had to build in the new server and I essentially built the PTs, CSSs, RPs, RLs, RGs, etc., from scratch. I also had to copy MoH, call park ranges, and call pickup groups. It was a very smooth cutover. DHCP was on one of the old servers so I built a new DHCP scope on a layer 3 switch (with the option 150 pointing to the new servers) and shut the CM service off on the old publisher and subscriber. The phones reset and upgraded their firmware while I rebuilt MGCP on the gateway and everything worked.

For Unity (unified) we built the new system as a new 7 server and then upgraded the old server to 7 before performing a DiRT backup of the old system and then the restore onto the new system. We did have to request a temporary 7 license from Cisco but they obliged without any hassle. We wanted to use the COBRAS tool but it would not work on Unity 4.0.3. It went well except we had to battle limited hard drive space on the upgrade of the old server. There was 11mb of free space on drive C when I was done. I didn’t complete the entire upgrade process on the old box either. Once the actual Unity 7 install was done I ran the DiRT backup and performed the restore on the new server and it worked well. I didn’t finish the message store configuration wizard, etc., on the old box, but I didn’t need to.

-Go0se

Cisco Unity 4.2 to 7 upgrade

I upgraded a Cisco Unity unified messaging server from version 4.2 straight up to version 7 the other night. The whole process took a little less than 5 hours from the time we started until the time we finished testing everything. I expected it to take less time but the existing Windows 2003 Server operating system was not running SP2. Applying SP2 via the CUSPA tool took over an hour. I couldn’t find specific 4.2 to 7 upgrade documentation so I followed the 4.2 to 5 guide on cisco.com. If you upgrade from 4.x to anything 5.x or newer you must rerun the schema extensions. We ran the schema extensions earlier in the day to be sure that it had time to replicate. All in all everything went off without a hitch, no problems, it simply took time.

-Go0se

Howto: Add a custom background image on a 7900 series phone in Cisco Unified Communications Manager

Quick overview:
01) Edit the List.xml file to properly point to the new full size image and thumbnail image
02) Upload the new background images (both the full size image and a thumbnail image) as well as the List.xml file to the proper TFTP subfolder of each callmanager in the cluster
03) Restart the TFTP service on each server in the cluster.

The background images must be in a .PNG format. (for more information on the file requirements see the external links to Cisco documentation for each type of phone at the bottom of this page) Each model of IP phone has its own requirements for image size as well as the location it is expected to be found in the TFTP directory structure of the callmanager server(s). Below is a table listing the expected image sizes (in pixels) and the expected TFTP directory path for different models of phones.


Phone Model Full Image Size Thumbnail Image Size TFTP Directory Path
7906 / 7911 95×34 23×8 /Desktops/95x34x1
7941 / 7961 320×196 80×49 /Desktops/320x196x4
7942 / 7962 320×196 80×49 /Desktops/320x196x4
7945 / 7965 320×212 80×53 /Desktops/320x212x16
7970 / 7971 320×212 80×53 /Desktops/320x212x12
7975 320×212 80×53 /Desktops/320x216x16

Create or edit the List.xml file
01) Create or open your existing List.xml file (file name is case sensitive) download example List.xml file here
02) Edit the List.xml file so that the name of the thumbnail image is first (after the “Image=” statement) and the full size image is listed second (after the “URL=” statement) in the ImageItem statement
03) Save your changes

NOTE: You can have multiple background images in the List.xml file. Simply list a separate ImageItem statement for each background image you wish to use. (Be sure you list all ImageItem statements between the opening and closing CiscoIPPhoneImageList and /CiscoIPPhoneImageList xml tags.)

Upload your background image, thumbnail image, and List.xml file
01) Log into the OS administration GUI
02) Select SOFTWARE UPGRADES then select TFTP FILE MANAGEMENT
03) Click on UPLOAD FILE
04) Click BROWSE and then browse to and select your background image .PNG file and click OPEN
05) Enter the required directory path for your specific phone model from the table above (if the path does not exist, Callmanager will create it for you) and then click UPLOAD FILE

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06) Repeat steps 04 and 05 for your thumbnail image .PNG file as well as your List.xml file – be sure you upload them to the same directory path
(If you have more than one Callmanager server in your cluster, repeat steps 1 thru 6 for each additional server.)



Restart the TFTP service:
01) Log into the Unified Communications Manager Serviceability GUI (in the dropdown box in the upper right hand corner)
02) Select TOOLS and then click on CONTROL CENTER – FEATURE SERVICES
03) Scroll down and mark the radio button next to the CISCO TFTP service
04) Scroll back up to the top of the page and click on the RESTART button
05) After a few seconds it will tell you that the service restarted successfully

(If you have more than one Callmanager server in your cluster, repeat steps 1 thru 5 for each additional server. You can restart the service on each box from this same menu simply by selecting the other servers via the SELECT SERVER dropdown box at the top of the CONTROL CENTER – FEATURE SERVICES screen)

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THATS IT!!! You should now be able to select your new background image!

Get Adobe Flash player

LINKS to Cisco.com documentation for creating custom background images:

For the 7906/7911 guide click here

For the 7941/7961 guide click here

For the 7942/7962 guide click here

For the 7945/7965 guide click here

For the 7970/7971 guide click here

For the 7975 guide click here

Cisco search plugins for your web browser

Cisco has published a handful of useful search plugins for your web browser. You simply install the plugins into your search engine in either Internet Explorer or Firefox.

cisco-search-plugin

The available plugins include:

BugID Lookup Tool
Command Lookup Tool for IOS Commands
Error Message Decoder Tool
RMA/Service Order Status Tool
TAC Service Request Query

Click here to get them.

-Go0se