How to auto-provision IP phones with DHCP 'option 66'

After you have created the extension in 3CX PhoneSystem, entered the MAC address of the phone, and specified the model, you will need to configure the phone to retrieve the configuration from the 3CX PhoneSystem provisioning URL. When deploying a large number of IP phones on your network, its best to use DHCP 'option 66' to automatically instruct the phone with the provisioning URL. You can also manually insert the provisioning URL in each phone, according to the phone specific configuration guides. For the purposes of this FAQ, we will assume that the DHCP Server to be configured is running Microsoft’s DHCP server, and that the IP Address of the 3CX PhoneSystem machine is 10.172.0.2.

  1. Open your DHCP Console.
  2. Expand the Reservations node of your DHCP Scope.
  3. Right Click the “Reservations” node and select “New Reservation”.
  4. Enter a friendly name for the phone you are creating a reservation for.
  5. Enter the IP Address that you wish to be assigned to the phone.
  6. Enter the MAC address of the phone, using lower case letters and no spaces or other characters.
  7. Click “Add”.
  8. Your new reservation will now appear in the reservation list. Right click on the reservation and click “Configure Options”.
  9. Scroll down the list and enable Option 66.
  10. For SNOM, Aastra, Linksys and Polycom phones, in the text box type in “http://<ip of 3CX>/management/provisioning” – so for this example, you would enter “http://10.172.0.2/management/provisioning". If using Cassini or Apache (v6), the URL is: http://10.172.0.2:5481/provisioning.
  11. Grandstream does not support automatically provisioning the HTTP provisioning URL via DHCP option 66. In this case you can either manually enter the  provisioning URL in the phone according to this guide. Alternatively setup a TFTP server (see Note 2) and enter the IP address of the TFTP server in the reservation dialog (Which must be installed on the 3CX Phone System machine). Your TFTP server should have its root folder set to: C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\data\http\interface\provisioning
  12. Once you apply the changes, the completed DHCP entry will look like the following:
     
  13. Switch on the phone. Once the telephone set is booted up, the phone set’s IP address will be displayed on the screen. Keep a note of this IP Address.
  14. If the phone set was used before, reset the local and device settings. Please refer to the manufacturer manual for specific steps for each model. If the phone is new you can ignore this step, but if in doubt, reset the phone.
  15. Reboot the phone – the phone will take on its reserved IP Address and download the provisioning files.

Notes:

  1. DHCP option 66 is designed for TFTP use;however certain manufacturers allow HTTP use of this. These manufacturers include Snom, Aastra, and Polycom.
  2. Freeware TFTP servers can be found at:

    Pumpkin : http://kin.klever.net/pumpkin/binaries
    SolarWinds : http://www.solarwinds.com/products/freetools/free_tftp_server.aspx

SIP Phone Configuration Guides