4222 IP Phones and Cisco 3560 switches 2

[Hairy51]

Hi All,

Very helpful forum this, i am new to Ericsson PBX's myself and this seems to be the only place with any answers on the whole net! (Apologies for long port coming up...)

My question for all you experts is:

I have a Cisco 3560 Switch, an Ericsson MD110 with ELU32 cards and Ericsson 4222 IP Phones. We use VMPS for dynamic VLAN allocation of users PC's.

Our switchport config is:

interface FastEthernet0/7
switchport access vlan dynamic
switchport mode access
switchport voice vlan 104
srr-queue bandwidth share 1 70 25 5
srr-queue bandwidth shape 3 0 0 0
priority-queue out
mls qos trust dscp
spanning-tree portfast

The Phone is manually configured with IP details and when placed ina a standard access port (Switchport access vlan 104) it works fine. What i can't get to work is the switchport voice Vlan setting to allow me to have a PC piggybacked off the back of the phone.

We have a Cisco 3750 with the same config that works fine.

Would someone be able to describe the steps to take to get this working? My (Limited) understanding is that the phobne should make a trunked connection withe the switch on the voice vlan, allowing the dynamic access vlan to be allocated to the PC. Do i need to hardcode the VLAN ID's on the phone?

Any info much appreciated!

Cheers

Jonathan

 

[ADB100]

The problem you are seeing is down to how the Ericsson IP Phones boot and discover the Voice VLAN. I will describe the boot process so you can hopefully understand it and maybe work a way around VMPS (why you are still using VMPS is beyond me however....).

1. IP Phone gets power via 802.3af mechanism and starts up
2. IP Phone broadcasts a DHCP Discover without any 802.1q VLAN Tag (this is where your problems begin....)
3. DHCP Offer is sent from DHCP Server and should contain Vendor Specific Option 43 (either in the Standard Vendor Class or specifically in the Ericsson IP-Phone Vendor Class - I won't explain DHCP Vendor Classes here, do a search...)
4. IP Phone broadcasts a DHCP Request
5. DHCP Server sends a DHCP Ack (with Option 43)
6. IP Phone accepts DHCP Ack and sends an ARP for the IP Address to make sure its IP address is unique
7. IP Phone parses the Option 43 Information to discover the Software Server , Proxy Server & Port, Telephony Domain Name & up to three Voice VLAN Tags
8. IP Phone will attempt to locate a Software Server via DNS
9. IP Phone attempts to download the Configuration from the Software Server (1st option is DNS, 2nd is from Option 43)
10. If the software versions listed in the Configuration File are different from what the Phone is running it attempts to upgrade/downgrade itself so the versions match (phone will reboot when upgrades are done and start the process again from point 1 above before moving to step 11)
11. IP Phone will release the IP address leased on the access VLAN by sending a DHCP Release
12. IP Phone will broadcast a DHCP Discover using the 1st VLAN Tag discovered via DHCP Option 43 (if no responses are received the Phone will move to the 2nd VLAN Tag sent via Option 43, then the 3rd)
13. DHCP Server will send DHCP offer (again with Option 43)
15. IP Phone will broadcast DHCP Request
15. DHCP Server will send a DHCP Ack (with Option 43)
16. IP Phone will send ARP
17. IP Phone will attempt to download configuration file again
18. IP Phone should attempt registration (either Multicast Gatekeeper discover or Unicast depending on the setting in the configuration file)

That's essentially it, it can vary if some of the DHCP Options are not present but you should be able to understand the process.


Your issues are down to the IP Phone initially booting without a VLAN Tag, the 'switchport dynamic' bit will screw this up. You could add all the IP Phone MAC addresses to VMPS and put them in some 'administrative' VLAN so they have access to the Software Server & DNS so they can boot properly, however it can get messy. You could also manually set the VLAN Tag on each IP Phone, this is fine for a few handsets however a rollout would be a long task. There is some talk of Ericsson including LLDP in the IP Phone code, however it won't happen this year.

HTH

Andy

 

[Hairy51]

Hi Andy,

Thhanks for the response. VMPS is beyond me too, but thats the way it has to stay!

Right, the phone is hardcoded with IP details, so no DHCP server anywhere... We only have a handful of IP phones so rollout again, no problem.
Unfortunately, i can't access the site where the current ericsson phones are working with a Cisco 3750 switch to compare.

I am assuming that if i set a Voice VLAN tag of 104 on the IP handset, it will force the phone to use the "Switchport Voice Vlan" and allow the access VLAN to be passed dynamically to the PC?

So, when the phone starts up, it reads "Enter Admin mode to change Ip settings" - at this point i press C*5 and enter the setup. I then set the voice vlan to 104, but its at this point i get stuck! How do i save this config? I haven't worked out the key strokes, as if i simply reboot the phone, it reverts back to having no VLAN ID configured.
Does this make sense? (You'll have to bear with me, first time with these things!)

Many thanks

Jonathan

 

[ADB100]

In the documentation for the IP Phones it states this

Enter the administrator mode, go down in the Network list until the line VLAN for Phone
occurs. Change the value to one of the options below :
1. No VLAN . VLAN shall not be used, but if a VLAN identity is read from the configuration
file, VLAN will be used.
2. Auto. This is the default value when the telephone is delivered from the factory. If the
telephone receives a VLAN identity list from DHCP (in option 43) or if there is a VLAN
identity defined in the configuration file it will be used. The VLAN identity received from
DHCP has priority over the configuration file. For more information, see Section 7.18.1
Automatic VLAN detection with DHCP and Section 7.18.2 Assigning the VLAN identity via
the configuration file .
3. Manually . The manually entered VLAN identity will be used, see Section 7.18.3 Manual
setting of the VLAN identity. If the manually entered VLAN identity shall be used, the
[L2QOS] header in the configuration file has to be omitted.
Even when VLAN is not used this parameter can have the default value Auto .
Concerning the priority of the frames: For outgoing frames the following priorities will be set at
level 2 for each frame by default, when VLAN is used:
1. For frames originating in the telephone the default value will be 6, meaning voice
traffic with less than 10 ms latency.
2. For frames originating in the PC the default value is 0, meaning best effort.

7.18.3 Manual setting of the VLAN identity
Set the VLAN identity from the menu in the boot sequence. To use the manual entered VLAN
identity all the time, disable the VLAN settings in the configuration file.

If you have manually changed the VLAN from the boot menu, have you edited the configuration file for the TDN or Subnet to disable the VLAN settings?

Andy

 

[ADB100]

The phones store some of the configuration file in NVRAM so once you have changed the Configuration file on the server you may need to default the phones (C * 9 from admin mode)

Andy

 

[Hairy51]

Hi Andy,

Not sure what you mean by "TDN or Subnet" ?

Here is what i have done so far:

1) Configured Cisco switch and tested routing etc.
2) Accessed admin menu on IP phone and Set IP address to correct value
3) Plugged phone in - to an access port works ok, but not on the switchport voice vlan.

Now, as far as i know, other than the other IP phones, the only other devices on the Voice network are identified as "PBX Voip Cards" one of which is the Gatekeeper IP configured on the phone. We don't have a DHCP server and although configrued on the phone, the SW server does not appear to exist.

The site has absolutely no documentation on its IP pheone setup and luckily, it seems that there has been no problems with the existing users, otherwise, i reckon they would have been stuck!

Would you be able to point me in the direction of the manual you have quoted above?

What my current train of thought is - i need to fix the VLAN setting on each phone to use Voice VLAN 104, so it does this everytime it boots up (hardcoded). But if i understand you correctly, when i configure the setting in the phone itself and reboot, some other process is overwriting it?

Many thanks


Jonathan

 

[ADB100]

Jonathan, it sounds like you are getting in a bit deep here and not knowing much about the Ericsson IP Phone behaviour might get you stuck and making a bigger problem than you already have...

The documentation for the IP Terminals is in ALEX which is the Ericsson (no Aastra) documentation which you probably don't have access to?

I suggest you either take this offline and test it in a lab where you can't break anything or get the Ericsson maintainers in to assist you (you will probably have to pay though...).

Andy

 

[Hairy51]

Hi Andy,

We have our supplier involved, but they really don't seem to be up to much unfortunately!
As far as over my head - hmmmm, the site i am currently working on is not live, so don't have to worry too much about upsetting any users and as far as VoIP goes, my only experience lies in Mitel solutions.
The Ericsson solution here appears to be suffering from lack of documentation, lack of technical experience onsite and also, it seems like a bit of a Soho rather than enterprise level system - literally only about 1% of the phones here is IP, the rest are all standard Analog or digital handsets, from what i gather, the IP phones have been put in to saveon cabling costs.

I understand the basic principle of what i am trying to achieve and literally all i want to do now is try and identify the method to hardcode the phones with a VLAN ID! I don't have access to the documentation, but our supplier does, so i will get on to them,

Many thanks for all your help! I think i'll stick to swicthes and routers from now on!

 

[ADB100]

I have a feeling I work for your supplier....

It can be difficult getting the right engineers on the right jobs and if this is indeed only a small IP Telephony deployment with lots of traditional analogue & digital handsets it may well be the engineers were predominantly traditional voice engineers.

The Ericsson system is very good, if a little way behind the rest of the competition. We have some very big deployments.

In most cases if you don't get the network provisioning correct then it can be a pain deploying IP Phones. It sounds like the phones you have were initially booted with a temporary Software Server to get the required settings in NVRAM along with probably newer firmware. The software server has now been removed or disabled. The phones can work perfectly in this scenario if there are no changes to the network environment, however what you are now doing is making changes that really require you to update the configuration files.
Ideally a software server(s) should be reachable all the time in case you need to make changes or upgrade firmware. With MD110 the software server is an external WEB Server that is manually maintained. With MX-One Telephony Server the Software server functionality is now built-in.

HTH

Andy

 

[Hairy51]

Hi Andy,

Thats brilliant, sounds like you have hit the nail on the head! I have just been chatting with a guy here who seems to think that we would have had an engineer on site to pre-configure all of our phones for us.
We are now trying to implement a new site, with new subnet ranges etc, so we really need the ability to set up our own extensions.

I have taken a look on a few of the phones that are currently online and they seem to each have a different IP address for the SW server, which points to the temporary solution as you mentioned.

So, the bottom line is, we need to get a "Software Server" (In my limited experience, this would have been the responsibility of the VoIP controller, something like a mitel 3300) and have that available on the network at all times.

If you do work for our supplier, i meant absolutely no disrespect with my previous comments, we all now how hard this game can be! I think this site has basically suffered froma lack of technical knowledge and interest which i am now trying to rectify! I would also like to be in a position where we are only really relying on the supplier for extra technical support etc, having them to come on site to provision an IP handset seems like a bit of a waste of resources...

Cheers,

Jonathan

 

[LeeMason]

For Ericsson IP phones the software server is just simply an http server (like Microsoft IIS, or Apache) which has the configuration files for the phones stored in certain specific folders (phone dependent) under the

http://wwwroot

folder.


Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd

http://www.opl.co.uk

http://www.backupsanywhere.com

 

[Hairy51]

Excellent, we have been in touch with our supplier and they are going to let us have all the necessary bits to get the web server up and running...

Will give this a go tomorrow and see where we get!

Many thanks for your help everyone, i may be back tomorrow...