CUCM 8.5.1 Install and upgrade Facts

As you may be aware that CUCM 8.5.1 was launched sometime in late December 2010. It was eagerly awaited by everyone in cisco world for the simple fact that some of the previous versions of CUCM could not be upgraded to 8.x ( example CUCM 7.1.5)
Throughout the weekend i was totally after it and finally managed to upgrade.

I wanted to share some of the facts that i found while working on it.

1. CUCM 8.5.1 is suported on VMware but a DVD installation of this software is not supported on VM so the only option is to get a iso file and store it in local datastore or somewhere on network and then install. It took me lot of time to realise this ( this is documented in CUCM VMware comnpatibility guide)

2. Fact # 2 : CUCM 8.5.1 download from Cisco.com ( it comes in 3 signature files which you will have merge into a single file ) is not a bootable file ( be awere its documented in release notes of 8.5.1 that its bootable file but it is not ) so you will probably have to install 8.0.3 ( which is a bootable ...very interesting ) and then upgrade to CUCM 8.5.1

3. Fact # 3 is CUCM 8.0.3 and several other versions of CUCM ( i think few version in 7.x
) in cisco download are bootable files and can be used for fresh install or upgrades. I read somewhere that cisco is now moving in this direction and coming uploads on cisco download will most likely be bootable only. Not sure whey they mis documented this for 8.5.1


4. Fact # 4 when upgrading from 8.0.3 to 8.5.1 the amount of time to upgrade per server is nearly 3 hrs, while doing the upgrade i almost lost the patience at one place ( because there was no console messages on screen for almost 1 hr) but patience finally paid off..heheheh

5. fact CUPS software on Cisco download is not a bootable version, get it from Cisco PUT.

Its too late and time to go to bed, i will keep posting the info as it comes.

Any questions pls leave a message and i will try to reply

I wanted to add another valuable piece of information specially for VM deployments.

When generating license file do not use MAC mentioned under OS admin page Network MAC. Use CLI command " show status " to get the MAC and use that MAC to generate license file.

It took Licensing in Cisco and TAC to figure this out and was very frustrating..hope this will help!

IPhone SIP Client on Callmanger 5.1.3

another successful project that i completed this week was to make a iphone SIP client called SIAX register on callmanger 5.1.3 using VPN.

so i upgraded my unlock iphone to version 2.2.1(5H11) using pwnage tool ( just takes 15 minutes) thanks to Mr Sinha & IM for pointing me to this tool then i configured Cisco VPN on iphone over home wifi and installed this SIP client called SIX and sucessfully registered on my test callmanger 5.1.3.

The phone registers without much issues but i noticed that it gets unregistered after every 3-5 minutes and also the when dialing using SIP cant actually hear any audio...

any ideas ?? pls share

Nortel 1140 SIP phone working on CCM 5.1.3

After weeks of research +troubleshooting and very valuable help from my great friend Deepak Bhatnagar (Amsterderm wale :) ) i was able to make a nortel 1140 SIP phone work out of Cisco Callmanger 5.1.3.

here are some key things to know if you plan to do this setup

Nortel Phone run a properity SIP protocol called UNISTIM and so by default when you hook them with any SIP server including callmanger they wont register.

you need to first upgrade them to standard SIP firmware and then register on callmanager

another key thing to know specially when registering any third party SIp phones on CCM is userid should be kept same as DN eg user=1000,DN=1000. Rest all other settings on callmanger SIP phone security profile and SIP profile remains standard except few tweakings.


I hope this blog will help those who are trying to achieve this integration and if you have any questions just reply me and i can share more minute details...

Im glad that this is working as this is still not supported by Nortel & Cisco

Cheers !!