Adventures with Cisco 7945 Phone

I recently got a Cisco 7945 Phone to play with.
1) I got it out the box , i connected it to my LAN and plugged in the power.
2) The phone started to send requests to my DHCP server . However it never stopped doing that.
Dec 17 21:54:11 localhost dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 172.17.1.13 from 00:1f:ca:ea:11:73 (SEP001FCAEA1173) via eth1
Dec 17 21:54:11 localhost dhcpd: DHCPACK on 172.17.1.13 to 00:1f:ca:ea:11:73 (SEP001FCAEA1173) via eth1
Dec 17 21:54:14 localhost dhcpd: DHCPRELEASE of 172.17.1.13 from 00:1f:ca:ea:11:73 (SEP001FCAEA1173) via eth1 (found)

3) A quick search on the net on how to set this phone up ( in the box I found no documentation so i guess google il my friend tonight ) revealed that i need to set up a tftp server to serve a software for the phone.  But to get the software i will need a Cisco account.

Great ( NOT ) … In order to download from Cisco you will need: “Have a valid Technical Support Services Agreement”

Now i have to wait a bit until my friend who has the account will download it for me. Time to get something to eat. This is going to be a loooooooong night.

Got the file. One big zip unpacked in tftp directory. Created a file named: XMLDefault.cnf.xml

4) got the files. DHCP server updated …

class "cisco7945"
{
match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier,0,32) = "Cisco Systems, Inc. IP Phone CP-";    #<----Matches first 32 characters
option tftp-server-name "172.17.0.1";
}

5) Press # while plugin the power and then “123456789*0#” to enter the upgrade sequence.

6) At this point the phone will request from tftp a file named : term45.default.loads

7) The phone is quite bricked. Requesting something via UPNP and there you go … another brick in the wall.

8) After 1 day of intense internet  searching  i found out that SIP45.8-5-2S was the the one firmware to go with. Worked like a charm.The firmware loaded as expected so the phone is now SIP.

9) Time to make it talk to yate. This is much more difficult than i expected. I have a small yate instalation here and usually i’m connecting to it with Xten clients .I added a number and a password for cisco phone ( from freesentral ) but at this point i’m stuck at registering. It doesn’t wat to register to yate.

I guess it will be at least another day of searching.