I’ve been using the beta for quite some time and its been [...]]]> 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

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

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 [...]]]> 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