PATTON Incompatibility

[Shadragon]

Of all the PATTON devices officially supported by 3CX, only one of them is available for sale anymore through patton.com and I am told by our rep that model will soon be replaced.

Is this the end of the road for PATTON support or is 3CX looking to move to Trinity firmware? Thanks.

 

[leejor]

Well, I don't recall seeing any official 3CX news on this (although i may have missed something). Came across this...
https://www.electronicfrontier.co.uk/patton-trinity-devices-3cx/

 

[Shadragon]

My biggest concern is not having 3CX support return my calls if I am not running "supported" Patton devices.

 

[cobaltit]

Do you buy direct from Patton? I haven't checked in a couple months but last time I did I was able to get them no problem through distribution. I have a couple used ones that I cycle through as I pretty much only use these when taking over existing customers until we can migrate them to SIP. Most PRI hand-offs are emulated and we just get them to switch to a pure SIP handoff.

 

[eddv123]

I previously worked for a Patton and 3CX distributor so can give a little insight as to what I know from my experiences there. However you might agree that it is not a definitive answer.

Patton Smartware OS models are the ones supported by 3CX. Patton as you know have made these EOL the replacements being Trinity OS models (I believe the only remaining model will be the cut-down version of the 4112 FXS which was released a year or so ago).

The situation going forward is that Patton must support their own templates for 3CX - so I have Trinity written templates for 3CX if you would like them (or you can source them from Patton).

Whether Trinity models will ever forgo official 3CX interop I cannot say, but consider that devices which use the PSTN are in slow decline now since companies like BT have announced that they will be ceasing all ISDN line availability and SIP trunking will be used going forward.

Personally I would of preferred that Patton keep the Smartware devices in production as I do prefer these models over Trinity, but if you look at the supported gateway list you will already see that despite the templates being available in 3CX the BRI variants no longer exist on the official list : https://www.3cx.com/voip-gateways/

This is a shame as Patton and 3CX have been supported for many years and where probably not the cheapest are by far the best quality gateway available for the system.

 

[eddv123]

My biggest concern is not having 3CX support return my calls if I am not running "supported" Patton devices.

3CX would not support Trinity correct, but Patton would. Luckily they have fantastic support. What you do get from the devices is a very good CLI based real-time logging mechanism which makes troubleshooting very easy.

Well, I don't recall seeing any official 3CX news on this (although i may have missed something). Came across this...
https://www.electronicfrontier.co.uk/patton-trinity-devices-3cx/

That guide is simply how to use Pattons own Trinity written templates with 3CX - not officially supported ones. They can be loaded into the provisioning folder(s) same as you would for a custom written template for IP phones.

 

[Shadragon]

Thanks all. My six weeks of prep time to install the system in the overseas office has been cut to two weeks so I simply don't have time to replace the Pattons again. I've been in touch with Patton tech support, they provided me with the templates and I am trying them now. Cheers.

 

[eddv123]

They should work fine, I've had a trinity FXS and PRI devices setup with 3CX via the templates provided for a while now without issues.

 

[cobaltit]

You should be in good hands. Patton support is one of the better support teams out there. I've used a number of not approved gateways without needing support so I think using Patton gateways with their supported templates puts you in a pretty good place.

 

[Shadragon]

Quick update. When I apply the templates and reboot, the 4131 stop being pingable with no web access. Working with P support now.

 

[eddv123]

I have experienced this issue myself before, glad its working however it should not lock you out.

When I experienced this issue I had to log-in via the console port (with special serial to RJ45 connector that comes with the device) and change of IP this way.

The device must support console port (I cannot recall if the 4131 does) Telnet and SSH will require IP.

 

[Shadragon]

The big obstacle is we ordered these for our overseas office and I can't touch them. We are reliant on the tech there. The four hour time difference is killing me.

 

[Andyshawn]

Patton support is very good, so I'm sure they will help you get it working.

 

[eddv123]

Yes as I would imagine you are going to have to rely on someone on site to reset this box or get a console into it. Once the console is connected keep it up with a remote desktop session which you can access. This is of course if the device has a console port (the 413x range guide seems to state that it does) https://www.patton.com/manuals/SN4130-UM.pdf

If you can login to the device do a "show running" config to see what the IP address is. If it needs changing do the following commands:

# enable
# configure
# context ip router
# interface eth0 (I am assuming your are using eth0 as your standard port)
# ipaddress 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 (or whatever ip address and subnet it is you wish to input)

Or you can simply put "ipaddress dhcp" to accept a dhcp address although a static is recommended. Save with a "copy running-config startup config".

 

[Shadragon]

Update: Turns out the consultants who wired up the box plugged in network connections to the ETH 0/0 and ETH 0/1 ports, even though I told then explicitly to only connect 0/0 to our server switch. The 0/1 port was patched into a workstation switch and was picking up an IP via DHCP. It was using the workstation gateway and confusing the whole situation. Me, being 4,000 miles away, didn't see this.

Once the 0/1 cables were unplugged we got ping and web interface back to the units. Both are now recognized on 3CX.

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Glad to see the issue has been resolved and thank you for updating the thread