"Cannot connect to boot server" - debugging help?

[rstille]

All, OK, I have 3cX installed and am trying to provision the first phone. I initialed tried a DHCP server, but was having connection troubles, so to temporarily debug it I have hard coded IP addresses in.

Phone: Polycom 550 (reset to factory defaults)

Phone Addy: 192.168.1.101
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
3cX Server Address: 192.168.1.79

I can ping the phone from the 3cX server, so I feel there is basic IP connectivity.

On the phone, I have the server type configured as 'ftp', server user '101', server passwd '101', which match the phone extension settings in 3cX for extension 101.

When the phone boots, I get ...

Cannot connect to boot server
Error Loading 0004f204be87.cfg (this is the MAC address of the phone)

I found and looked in the provisioning directory for 3cX, and the file 0004f204be87.cfg does exist there.

I then tried to ftp to the 3cX machine from another computer,

> ftp: connect : connection refused

was returned.

I an using the Cassini web server (it was the default), on Windows XP Pro.

What can I do next to debug the problem? It appears to be a ftp connectivity issue?? But I don't know where / if / how Cassini enables this ...

Randy

 

[rstille]

Update ... I have been able to access the phone's web server interface,so that is OK.

Just trying to find out if there are logging files I can view, or turn on, to determine if the Cassini web server is being solicited for the config file.

Or, better yet, a way to emulate from another PC the request the phone would make to download the config file from the web server to view the content.

I have tried to access http://<ip addy of 3cX server>:5481/provisioning/ directly, but get a forbidden access error.

Randy

 

[nb]

Go to extension
Provision by entering mac and selecting phone
Click APPLU OK

Check 1 - go to %allusersprofile%\3CX\Data\Http\Interface\provisioning and find mac.cfg there.

After this go to DHCP server and configure option 66 as follows
http://IPARRR_OF_PBX:5481/provisioning (because you mentioned you have cassini right?)

Make a test and enter in browser http://IP:5481/provisioning/PROVISIONING_FILENAME.cfg and see if you see the file. (Try with IE and FF to be on the safe side bec some browsers will not display anything. (But if you get done at the bottom then the phone will get access)

Now (and only if the above checks are passed) you can try to reboot the phone.

make sure that the polycom firmware is updated as per the configuration guide on the FAQ. Provisioning is sensitive and GREATLY depends on the firmware.

TIP - if you want you can put the polycom sip.ld file in the provisioning folder too and the polycom will see it. !!
Polycom is Very powerful with provisioning. Use it... Not web.

Thanks

 

[rstille]

UPDATE ...

I continued to have a number of issues getting Cassine's TFTP server to work properly. I am not sure why. In the end, I downloaded a free TFTP server onto my laptop and was able to copy the provisioning files from 3cX over to it. Redirecting the DHCP server to this new TFTP server did the trick - the phones provisioned.

I rebooted the 3cX server, and changed DHCP to use the casssini URL - http://<ip address>:5481/provisioning/ ... no go. And, the 3cX management console froze, which tells me the Cassini server choked for some reason.

I tried the same pattern again, this time with a different phone unit. Again, it worked with the 3rd party TFTP server, and did not work with the Cassini server. The cassini server locked up the 3cX management console again as well.

So, I have installed the 3rd party TFTP server on the 3cX machine, and directed its root directory to the provisioning directory. This is working fine now.

It sounds so simple now. After 6 hours of debugging work. *sigh*. I wish I was as good at this as the rest of you are!

Randy

 

[KerryG]

There is no tftp server in Cassini, you need to use http. For Polycom phones your DHCP server needs to push out option 66 with the following:

http://ipaddressofpbx:5481/provisioning

 

[nb]

But why are you trying to use TFTP. Yes with TFTP polycom's update but then you have to use a TFTP server not a Webserver. Cassini is a webserver, therefore you have to use http because this is the protocol this server serves.

Check the faq sections - it will save you so much time. It is full of provisioning examples.

http://www.3cx.com/support/

Find your make / model and check whether the link has (provisioning) in the title.

 

[comresource]

We just got a few Polycom phones in for testing and I also was struggling with the default provisioning protocol. Here is what they are

Protocol: FTP
Username: PlcmSplp
Password: PlcmSplp

DHCP Option 66: ftp://PlcmSplplcmSplp@%IPADDROF3CX%

You will need to enable the FTP service with default directory of the provisioning directory and add this account with the right permissions if you want to provision a fresh out of the box phone. At least this is what ended up working for me.

dtp

 

[nb]

You do not need to use ftp either

option 66 should look like this for example

http://10.172.0.15:80/management/provisioning (for iis)
or
http://10.172.0.15:5481/provisioning (for cassini)

Configuration of the polycom and provisioning will be seemless

 

[comresource]

You do not need to use ftp either

option 66 should look like this for example

http://10.172.0.15:80/management/provisioning (for iis)
or
http://10.172.0.15:5481/provisioning (for cassini)

Configuration of the polycom and provisioning will be seemless

This does not work for me. I either have to use FTP (per page page 3-15 of the Polycom SIP Admin Guide) or I have to manually tweak the settings on the phone for HTTP or TFTP.

I am also seeing other strange things.

IF I use FTP the changes made by users on the phone such as background is not kept accross reboots.

IF I use TFTP the changes are kept because these changes are pushed back up to the server to the MAC-phone.cfg file as overrides. The issue with this is..when I do a factory reset on the phone. It DELETES all entries in the MAC-phone.cfg file as this file it appears is meant for user specific changes only (per polycom docs page 3-17).

Keep in mind I am still pretty new to the Polycom phones and may be doing things wrong. My end goal is the following

Unbox a new phone and have it provision correctly once its plugged in with no user intervention.
Have user specific changed remembered across phone reboots.
Have the phone specific provisioning file remain intact if I factory reset the phone.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


EDIT: I reset everyting and recreated the provisioning file and used the HTTP in option 66 and it did indeed work Nick so thanks for that. I still see changes being lost across reboots. If I can get this resolved I will be happy.

 

[Kevin Attard Compagno]

Hi there

What do you mean by changes lost across reboots?

The provisioning template will create a static configuration file, which only gets updated when you make changes to the relevant extension settings on the 3CX Management Console.

If you make changes to the phone's config directly from the phone, these will be lost because at the next boot, the phone will re-load the static config file from the PBX web-server's provisioning folder.

If you want changes to carry over, the correct way to achieve this (for integration with 3CX's provisioning mechanism) is to adjust the template file. This will have the added benefit of pushing the changed parameters to ALL the other polycom phones.

 

[comresource]

Hi there

What do you mean by changes lost across reboots?

The provisioning template will create a static configuration file, which only gets updated when you make changes to the relevant extension settings on the 3CX Management Console.

If you make changes to the phone's config directly from the phone, these will be lost because at the next boot, the phone will re-load the static config file from the PBX web-server's provisioning folder.

If you want changes to carry over, the correct way to achieve this (for integration with 3CX's provisioning mechanism) is to adjust the template file. This will have the added benefit of pushing the changed parameters to ALL the other polycom phones.

I am mostly concerned about user specific changes like background graphic, contract settings and such. I think I have a work around that I will post once I test a bit more.

 

[comresource]

Ok, I have everything working with one small wrinkle.

First I tweaked the 3CX polycom template to generate %%mac_address%%-device.cfg instead of %%mac_address%%-phone.cfg for phone specific config. I then added the following to generate an empty %%mac_address%%-phone.cfg for changes users make on their phone.

<data>
           <device>
           <type>device</type>
           <field name="Name">%%mac_address%%-phone.cfg</field>
           <deviceconfig filename="%%mac_address%%-phone.cfg">
<![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<PHONE_CONFIG>
	<OVERRIDES/>
	
</PHONE_CONFIG>
]]>
           </deviceconfig>
           </device>
          </data>

This allows phone changes to be "pushed" back to the server and remembered for reboots. This also allows for a factory reset to be done on the phone as it simply erases all but the base entries for %%mac_address%%-phone.cfg

What I am having issues with is adding the %%mac_address%%-device.cfg to the %%mac_address%.cfg file which tells it what files and in what order to parse for config data. I have changed the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<!-- mac.cfg -->
<!-- Generated by 3CX PhoneSystem -->
<APPLICATION APP_FILE_PATH="sip.ld" CONFIG_FILES="sip.cfg" MISC_FILES="" LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY=""/>

to

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<!-- mac.cfg -->
<!-- Generated by 3CX PhoneSystem -->
<APPLICATION APP_FILE_PATH="sip.ld" CONFIG_FILES="%%mac_address%%-device.cfg, sip.cfg" MISC_FILES="" LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY=""/>

but when I attempt to provision a phone it complains about %%mac_address%% not being a valid variable, so I have been adding this manually to the %%mac_address%%.cfg file. If I could get that last change working everything would be great.

Keep in mind that I can barely spell XML let alone code it so I may have done something wrong. But I had one of our developers look at it and he thought it looked correct.