How can I use the 3CX Tunnel with a SIP hardphone?

Introduction

If you have a remote office or Satellite office with a few people, it is now possible to link up these offices to the main office withoutt he need for a seperate PBX on each site.

The only thing you will require is a central 3CX Phone System server running at the main office, and a 3CX Phone Client and any other recommended hard phones on the remote office.

3CX Phone System needs the following ports mapped on the router or firewall to operate properly:

Port 5090 TCP for inbound traffic from the external location to the 3CX Phone System.

For the purpose of this setup we shall assume the following:

Public IP address of the 3CX Server site: 222.222.222.222
Internal IP address of the 3CX Server : 192.168.0.1
IP address of your remote PC that will act as proxy: 10.0.0.1
IP address of the hard phone that will use the proxy:10.0.0.2

Configuring the 3CX Phone System on the main office

  1. From the 3CX Phone system web interface access the General > General Settings > Other node. Here you should enter a password for the tunnel. This password will be used to establish the tunnel connection with the remote server.


  2. The main site is now ready to accept tunnel communications.

Configuring the 3CX Phone Client as a proxy

  1. Install the 3CX Phone Client to the PC.
  2. To configure the 3CX Softphone to connect via the tunnel you need to start off by creating a new profile from the File > Connections > Add connection option.
  3. In the IP or FQDN field, enter the internal IP address of your 3CX Server.
  4. In the Extension and Pin fields enter your extension number and PIN code as assigned by the 3CX Server Administrator.


  5. Click on the’Tunnel’ tab.
  6. Enable the check box called ‘Use Tunnel to connect to 3CX Phone System’.
  7. In the ‘Remote end of tunnel’ enter the Public IP address of the Remote 3CX Phone System.
  8. In the ‘Use Tunnel of host’ enter the local ip address of the PC you are running the 3CX Phone Client on. (Note: as you enter this the field underneat is greyed out and locked.)
  9. In the ‘Tunnel Password’ enter the password you set in step 1 of the previous section of this FAQ.
  10. Click Close.


  11. Click on File > Login and choose the newly created profile and click OK.
  12. You should now be connected to the tunnel.

Configuring a hardphone to connect via the 3CX Soft Phone Proxy

We shall use a Grandstream GXP 2000 for the following setup.

  1. Login to the web interface of the phone using a web browser. E.g. if the phone IP is 10.0.0.2, using a web browser access the following URL: http://10.0.0.2
  2. Click on the ‘Account 1’ tab.
  3. In the ‘SIP Server’ field, enter the IP address of the 3CX Phone Server.
  4. In the ‘Outbound Proxy’ field enter the IP address of the 3CX Soft Phone that is acting as a proxy.
  5. Configure the ‘SIP User ID’, ‘Authenticate ID’, ‘Authenticate Password’ and ‘Name’ fields with the required information relative to the extension number.
  6. It is also recommended to set the ‘Register Expiration’ to less than 60 minutes if your connection between the sites is not stable.


  7. Click on the ‘Apply’ button and then ‘Reboot’ to commit your changes and allow the hard to register using the new settings.

Conclusion

Your hard phone is now registered and ready to make and receive via the tunnel.

 

General 3CX Phone System FAQs