Tuesday, August 18, 2009

ShoreTel Firmware Upgrade and Lessons Learned

So we did an upgrade on our ShoreTel server, switches and phones a few weeks ago and had one small issue.  Some (most) of the phones were reporting a “Firmware Version Mismatch” when viewed through ShoreWare Director’s IP Phone Maintenance screen. (To get to this screen go to QuickLook, then pick your site, then pick your switch….about 1/2 way down the screen you see the link to “IP Phones Maintenance”.)  The problem ended up being that the DHCP options on the VOIP vlan (192.168.19.x/24) didn’t include the option for the ftp server on the ShoreWare server. image(Option 156…read the docs)  They were included on the user vlan (192.168.10.x/24) so the first time the phone boots and gets the DHCP options they did the upgrade and placed themselves in the correct vlan.  However, on subsequent reboots (and upgrades) they picked up a DHCP address and options from the VOIP vlan and since the ftp server was missing they couldn’t auto upgrade themselves.  It was an easy fix once I understood the issue.  Clear as mud right?!?!

One other cool thing I learned is that you can telnet into a ShoreTel phone and look at it’s options.  To do this you need to use a tool called “phonectl” which is part of the ShoreTel server.  Here is how you do it:

From the Shoretel Server directory run the following commands:

1. phonectl -pw <phone password> -telneton <ip address of phone>
2. telnet <ip address of phone>
3. Now, to see the config run “printSysInfo” from the telnet prompt. 

Cool.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In this instruction:

1. phonectl -pw -telneton

it would be helpful to note that the default password is 1234, so it may save time to try that first:

1. phonectl -pw -telneton

I hope this helps others, as ultimately it helped me. ;-)

b.t.--20160912_Monday.

Anonymous said...

(Sorry, this is a repost. The first didn't like and thus deleted the material between the less-than/greater-than signs. Didn't know it would do that, so let's try again, shall we.)

In this instruction:

1. phonectl -pw [phone password] -telneton [ip address of phone]

it would be helpful to note that the default password is 1234, so it may save time to try that first:

1. phonectl -pw [phone password--it may be helpful to try the default password of 1234, as it may save trial-and-error time.] -telneton [ip address of phone]

I hope this helps others, as ultimately it helped me. ;-)

b.t.--20160912_Monday.