[asterisk-users] Newbie Polycom: DHCP/boot server supporting 2 models of phones

[Steve Johnson]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 12:05 AM, Paul Hales <pdhales at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>  Can't you just use the same bootrom for all your polycom phones?
>
>  PaulH
>
>
>
>
>  On Fri, 2008-03-28 at 15:38 +1100, Lee, John (Sydney) wrote:
>  > I have a question about DHCP and boot server supporting more than 1
>  > model of Polycom phones.
>  >
>  > According to Polycom "standards", Polycom phone boots up to get a DHCP
>  > address and at the same time getting a boot server string (with username
>  > and password) to logon to boot server to download SIP, bootROM and etc.
>  >
>  > That is okay if there is only one type of phone (that requires a
>  > specific SIP and bootROM release).
>  >
>  > What about if the environment has to support two or more models of
>  > Polycom phones?
>  >
>  > On the boot server side, I can define another home directory like
>  > /home/polycom1 and /home/polycom2 to store different SIP and bootROM
>  > releases.  However, the issue is how different polycom phone model can
>  > get a different user account and password to log on to different home
>  > directories.
>  >
>  > I understand the issue here is DHCP and not the boot server but I am a
>  > bit of a newbie here.
>  >
>  > Can anyone help please?
>  >

As someone earlier pointed out, different models of polycom phones can be
pointed to the same set of configuration files.  With the standard ISC dhcpd
server, the phones can be told where to look by using a directive like:

option tftp-server-name "ftp://polycom:thepassword@192.168.10.1/";

This would require a user account on the ftp server like:

polycom:x:501:501:Polycom Phone
Provisioning:/etc/asterisk/polycom/ftp/:/bin/bash

and the configuration files would be placed in the /etc/asterisk/polycom/ftp/
directory.
So if you wanted to have separate configurations for certain phones (for
upgrade testing, etc., it is easily possible.

SJ