Instructions on setting up compatible Cisco IP Phones

The Cisco 79XX (7940, 7960, etc) are primarily designed to be used with Ciscos proprietary SCCP protocol. Many can be converted to use SIP, but the process is painful, and the end result is severely limited and may not work at all.

We do not recommend purchasing these phones to use with the OARC PBX. If in doubt ask in the #sip-network channel on the Discord Server.

The Cisco SPA range are comparatively ancient, but support SIP out the box and are cheap and ubiquitous. Note that they lack support for modern codecs such as Opus, but otherwise work well.

It's assumed you're configuring the phone from factory defaults. Remember to press Submit on each page after changing the configuration. The phone may then reboot

To find the IP address of your phone navigate to the following menu using the buttons on the phone and you'll see your current IP on screen:

Menu (Looks like a piece of paper) > Network

Type the IP into your browser and you should be presented with the configuration web interface. The default credentials are admin and no password.

To access the bulk of the settings, you will need to click “Admin Login” and “Advanced” in the top right corner

It's important to update the password from the default as soon as possible. In the web interface go to Voice > System and enter secure passwords in the Admin Passwd, User Password and User Web Password sections.

The settings to correctly configure the date and time on the phone are spread all over the web interface.

First of all to configure the NTP servers go to Voice > System and find the Optional Network Configuration section and fill in as follows, then hit submit. The phone may reboot:

Then to set daylight savings time go to Voice > Regional and find the Miscellaneous section. Set your timezone, and for the UK set the Daylight Savings Rule to the following:

start=3/-1/7/2;end=10/-1/7/2;save=1

Finally to set the date and time format go to Voice > User and find the Supplementary Services section. Set the Date Format and Time Format to suit your preference.

Note: It doesn't appear possible to make SRTP mandatory on these phones, meaning that if the PBX isn't configured correctly the phone will progress as normal and the audio will be in the clear. When audio is encrypted you should see a $ on the screen. It's also a global setting, so all lines will attempt to encrypt the audio.

To configure your extension go to Voice > Ext 1 (Or the next available line).

• In the General section, set the Line Enable parameter to yes.
• In the SIP Settings section, set SIP Transport to TLS. Leave the port as 5060.
• In the Proxy and Registration section, set the Proxy to sip.oarc.uk
• Setup the Subscriber Information section as shown in the screenshot below, updating your name, extension and password as required:

SRTP Method

To set the SRTP Method go to Voice > SIP and find the SIP Parameters section. Set the SRTP Method to s-descriptor

Enable Secure Call Serv

To enable the Secure Call Serv go to Voice > Phone and find the Supplementary Services section. Set the Secure Call Serv parameter to yes.

Enable Secure Call Setting

To enable the Secure Call Setting go to Voice > User and find the Supplementary Services section. Set the Secure Call Setting parameter to yes.

To configure your extension go to Voice > Ext 1 (Or the next available line).

• In the General section, set the Line Enable parameter to yes.
• In the SIP Settings section, set SIP Transport to UDP. Leave the port as 5060.
• In the Proxy and Registration section, set the Proxy to sip.oarc.uk
• Setup the Subscriber Information section as shown in the screenshot below, updating your name, extension and password as required:

For the highest quality audio I suggest using the following codec priorities. To set them go to the Audio Configuration section of the line you just configured.

( To Do: Ask someone with Side Car to update this section )

The Cisco phones support an LDAP directory, allowing you to search the PBX phonebook for another user.

To set it up, go to Voice > Phone and find the “LDAP Corporate Directory Search” section. Configure it as follows, if a section isn't listed below it can be left blank:

• LDAP Dir Enable: Yes
• LDAP Server: ldap-directory.oarc.uk:10389
• LDAP Client DN: blah
• LDAP Username: blah
• LDAP Search Base: dc=pbx,dc=com
• LDAP Display Attrs: a=displayName,n=Name;a=telephoneNumber,n=Ext,t=p;
• LDAP Corp Dir Name: OARC Directory
• LDAP Auth Method: None
• LDAP Password: blah
• LDAP First Name Filter: sn:(displayName=$VALUE*)

It should look something like this:

To use the directory, hit the dir key and navigate to the OARC Directory. Press select and enter your search query. Usually the first letter of the name is enough.