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Posted By: emark Polycom IP phones and tftp - 03/25/08 05:18 AM
I feel like a dumbass for asking this question, but what the hell, I've been a dumbass for 61 years and it doesn't embarass me anymore!!

I am using Polycom IP-320 phones (ver 2.2.0.0047)at a client site, I really like the phones but I have one problem. The handset and ringing volume resets to mid level after each call, and it is just too low for the client to hear in this environment (a busy restaurant). I know I can set the system to persistent volume in the sip.cfg file, BUT, (here comes the dumb question!) how do I pull the sip.cfg from the phone and push it back after I fix the volume?

I have a couple of tftp programs I have tried, including Solarwinds, but when I try to "get" the file, I get a timeout reply. If I try to "put" the file from one I have saved, I get a denial from the phone.

BTW, yes I set the set server type as tftp in the phone.

Any ideas...and thanks in advance!!

Ed
Posted By: Kumba Re: Polycom IP phones and tftp - 03/25/08 06:32 AM
Do you have a provisioning server set-up? Polycom's really dont program well without one. It also makes changes easy. However, I'll go through a quick and easy provisioning server set-up.

1) Create folder to hold all files
2) Unzip BootROM and SIP archives into folder
3) Create a my-site.cfg file that has the changes in it from sip.cfg
4) Create a my-phone.cfg file that has the phone-specific change in it taken from phone1.cfg
5) Create MAC-Address.cfg files using the 000000000000.cfg file as a template and put in your my-site.cfg and my-phone.cfg files
6) Tell polycom to use FTP Server (or TFTP, but FTP is the preferred method)
7) Enjoy

Polycom has a SIP Administrator's guide you can download for free from their site which explains in more detail (200-pages more) what the options are and how to provision. The my-site.cfg and my-phone.cfg files should just contain the values that are not the default values stored in sip.cfg and phone1.cfg. In the MAC-Address.cfg file you will load your files plus the default ones. Basically the config files line in the MAC-Address.cfg file will look like this:
CONFIG_FILES="phone104.cfg, techtalk.cfg, phone1.cfg, sip.cfg"

Here you can see i'm loading my phone-specific config file for extension 104 (phone104.cfg), then i'm loading my site-specific config file for "tech talk" (techtalk.cfg), then the two default files from polycom. Now the reason you want to do this, is if you want to upgrade you just need to copy the phone104.cfg and techtalk.cfg files to a folder with the new software, read the upgrade document to see if any new settings need to be added or old one's changed, and you are done. By the way, this is a VERY VERY simplified explanation. A thorough set-up can take hours to do depending on what you need the polycom's to do. However, once you get one phone configured the way you want, you can just copy and paste the files for the rest usually. All you typically have to monitor is the my-phone.cfg file to use the proper login name and password.
Posted By: emark Re: Polycom IP phones and tftp - 03/25/08 07:49 AM
Kumba,

Thanks MUCH sir!! I am using an XP machine with Solarwinds tftp server as the provisioning server.

Now, do I need to use an XML editor to write those new files?
Posted By: Kumba Re: Polycom IP phones and tftp - 03/25/08 11:11 AM
Hmmmmm... kind of a tough question to answer.

You do not need an XML editor. You can just copy out the parts of the sip.cfg and phone1.cfg file you want and paste them into the my-site.cfg and my-phone.cfg files. The only thing you need to watch with XML is that the information is in the same case and uses the same ending structures as the generic files.

You dont need to have a separate my-site.cfg or my-phone.cfg file, you can use the main ones. Modify sip.cfg for your site, and then just copy phone1.cfg to my-phone.cfg and make changes. Then in the MAC-Address.cfg you only tell it to load my-phone.cfg and sip.cfg as part of the CONFIG_FILES line.

An XML editor might make life easier if you aren't familiar with XML, but most XML editor's i've ran into are for web pages, and trying to open the XML file with excel will cause it to crash (too much info in there).

I would HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest you go to voip-info.org and search for "Polycom Provisioning". It is a required read, available here: VoIP-Info.org Polycom Section

I would also highly recommend you read the Administrator's Guide to Sip 2.2 from polycom. It's available here: Polycom IP320/330 Support Page
Posted By: Bilal Re: Polycom IP phones and tftp - 05/17/08 05:24 PM
And the file ipmid.cfg, for what it will be used? And it is for the whole organization or it each phone will use a separated one?

Regards
Bilal
Posted By: Kumba Re: Polycom IP phones and tftp - 05/17/08 09:49 PM
ipmid.cfg hasn't been standard practice with polycom phones for over 5 years since the Sip 1.5 days.

You will have four .cfg files for each phone. You will have a phone1.cfg with the default phone settings, a my-phone-extension.cfg file with the settings you want to change from the default phone1.cfg file, a sip.cfg with the default server/pbx settings, and a my-site.cfg file which only contains the settings from sip.cfg you want to change from default.
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