Migrate working door entry system to startUP 10 Free

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Good morning all,

I have a client which I configured with the trial hosted PBX system for the last year and it has worked perfectly. Now the free hosting is about to expire, I went to purchase the hosting (which had increased in price) but then was told the system also had to be upgraded to the full system. This was not how it was marketed a year ago and I spoke with 3CX and they suggested switching to startUP 10 Free as all calls are internal, just a ring group to open the door (Paxton).

I have exported and imported the users from the current system to the startUP system however the Phone Provisioning section on current system, which displays the Authentication ID I need for the Paxton configuration, is missing on startUP.

Under IP Phone, which I presume is the equivalent, I can 'Configure a phone' but this appears to need a router phone purchased and configured with valid MAC address before 'Normal phones' can be added. From Normal phones I believe I can then configure manually and see the Authentication ID for the Paxton door entry.

Is there any advanced menu to unlock the 'Phone Provisioning' page on the startUP system, this would be perfect but expect unlikely. Is there are way of creating a dummy Router phone so that I can then create Normal phones? The system does not need a SIP trunk or any external calls or routing. Everything is done using internal extensions.

It seems like I need to purchase and configure a basic router phone (Fanvil V62 or Yealink T53) and then I can add the Normal phone options to the Door Entry user.

Any thoughts from anyone that has done similar?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Mike,

StartUP is hosted online so you will necessarily need a routing device - we do not support SIP endpoints on StartUP otherwise.

This can be a router phone, or an SBC (Debian, Windows, or Raspberry Pi 4 based).
Add an SBC now if you want to test this, via the Admin panel, under Voice & Chat



Once you have a routing device up and running (it should appear green first), you can then proceed to add a Normal phone to an extension (tick option below).

..and use the registration details that will appear to register your devices.

NOTE: These details will not be correct if your SBC is not already up and running, so confirm that first.


Alternatively you can buy a dedicated license and host your own local machine with 3CX.

 

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Thanks John,

As the Library is unmanned and the purpose of the Door Entry is to provide secure remote entry there are also no PCs onsite, therefore I think a single router phone is the best option, would you agree? This would then be installed on the same LAN as the Door Entry system although I am not sure that is needed particularly.

Fanvil V62 or Yealink T53 seem to be the best value option, would you chose one over the other for this basic purpose?

Once that is in place I would then be able to add Normal Phone to the Door Entry user and configure manually with the Authentication ID, correct? The other users are all using 3CX softphone on mobile devices.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Mike,

Yep, that sounds good and either model is fine. The SBC must be on the same LAN as the doorphone - this part is crucial.

Just keep in mind we do not support nor test the Paxton, so I cannot say for sure it will work.
If you want, spin up an SBC on a Windows PC, on the same LAN as the doorphone and test it first as a proof of concept before you proceed.

 

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Great idea John,

I will do that and get it tested before going ahead with the Router Phone.

 

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Great idea John,

I will do that and get it tested before going ahead with the Router Phone.

Hi John,

got onsite with my laptop set up as an SBC and was online fine. Whilst here I added a Normal Phone to the Front Door user and used the Authentication ID and password to reconfigure the Paxton device to use the new platform (changing the Server, Authorisation ID, Password, Extension) but then the IP address here has been blocked by 3CX.

This now means the current system is no longer working either. Have you any idea why that may happen, how can I apply to get this static IP address removed from the blocking?

Any idea why this has happened? Is there a generic phone I should choose for these situations?

Cheers,
Mike

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Mike,

That's always a risk with untested phones but if I had to take a guess, you probably didn't use the proxy IP and the doorphone tried to register to 3CX directly, bypassing the SBC (and earned a 24 hour ban for the attempt).

Does the device support a outbound proxy (which will be the SBC IP)?

 

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Okay so that is where I went wrong, the Door Entry should not be trying to access the ????.3cx.cloud server directly but should be using outbound proxy, pointing to the SBC/Router phone instead. I will configure with 'Use outbound proxy' set to the internal IP address of the SBC/Router phone on port 5060. I still enter the cloud server details for Server Address though?

On the original system I have been able to Whitelist the network's IP address, I guess this isn't possible on the startUP system.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

I still enter the cloud server details for Server Address though?

Yes, that's necessary as that becomes part of the SIP messages sent to 3CX via the SBC.

 

[LibraryOfMistakes]

Big shout out to John, whose patience and expertise allowed me to get the Door Entry system working with the startUP system. Just waiting for the client to purchase a router phone to make the switch permanent.