[asterisk-users] sip.conf best practices?

[Erik Anderson]

All - I've been wrestling with how to best structure the sip device
accounts on a new asterisk server I'm deploying.  All of the sip
devices (currently only Linksys SPA941s) will reside on the same
subnet as the server, and I have already set up a decent automatic
provisioning system for the phones.  When the rollout is complete,
there will be about 100 SIP devices authenticating and routing calls
through this server.  The question is what to use for the username
portion of the SIP account.

Part of me says that I should standardize on using each phone's MAC
address as the sip account UID, like so:

; Joe Smith, x123
[000E08DA0409]
secret = blahblah
... and so on and so forth

Doing it that way is nice for standardization's sake, but it makes the
dialplan quite a bit more complex.

The obvious alternative is to use the extension as the sip UID:

; Joe Smith, x123
[123]
secret = blahblah
...

This makes the dialplan *much* more simple, but when looking through
sip.conf, it's not as immediately obvious what device should be
authenticating with that account.

Since this is my first large-ish asterisk deployment, I'm seeking the
advice of those who have gone before me.  What tactic (one of the
above options or otherwise) is best to keep your sip.conf sane?

Thanks!
-Erik

-- 
Erik Anderson
http://andersonfam.org