Total newbie question

[goombawaho]

I have a new customer that is running the following equipment for VOIP at their small office:
Charter internet w/ Surfboard modem SB6121
Router: Cisco ASA 5505
Phone service: 8x8
Phone: Single Polycom 550

I need to figure out whether I will be able to support this aspect of their setup, The phone service is my only area of question. Can someone point me to a general "how this setup works" on the internet. Like firewall ports and SIP. This may be over my head but I need to know ahead of time.

The other issue, not my fault and not a question, is that the previous IT people don't seem to want to give the user name/password for the cisco router. So right now, the whole thing is like a black box that I can peer into. How arrogant can some people be not to call back with the password info?

 

[mattKnight]

the other issue, not my fault and not a question, is that the previous IT people don't seem to want to give the user name/password for the cisco router. So right now, the whole thing is like a black box that I can peer into. How arrogant can some people be not to call back with the password info?

Couple of possible reasons for this -
1) Have they been paid fully? They may be reluctant to release the password information, if they have outstanding invoices
2) The passwords may well be common to their other customers (bad practice I'd admit)...


As for SIP, its data packets from yor point of view... Learn how to check and validate where any faults lie - so NAT and port blocking are your enemies. If you are sure that your set up is good - go to the carrier. USe th eexperience to learn!


Take Care

Matt
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone.
My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

 

[goombawaho]

It was barter work between IT company and the other people. So not a money issue at all, just an arrogant "we'll call when we're good and ready" type of attitude. The type that makes laymen hate IT folks.

 

[VinceWhirlwind]

Had a similar experience recently, Matt: we convinced the client to buy a new router (old one was crud anyway, big part of the reason they gave their old IT company the flick), investigated their network and spoke to their ISPs and figured out what we needed to configure on the new router to give them what they wanted.
Old IT company was instantly out of the loop and looking very silly.

 

[whykap]

Just perform a password recovery and be done with it.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa72/configuration/guide/trouble.html#wp1058131

Hopefully password recovery is not disabled.

 

[Sympology]

As said NAT / Port translation is the PIA
As a rule:
SIP - Ports 5060 (but allow 5060 - 5080) UDP / TCP
RTP - Usually 6000+ depending on how many channels (2 per channel) - UDP. However sometimes this can get chucked to 10,000+ with firewalls / NAT / STUN

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[goombawaho]

Just perform a password recovery and be done with it.

Not that simple. All the configs are totally unknown (the hows and whys) and I'm not familiar with that router. I think that would be a little rash. Besides it's working fine right now. The issue would be WHEN there IS a problem in the future.