Cisco Meeting Server (CMS) Part 1 - Making your first call to CMS

Part 1 - Making your first call to CMS
Part 2 - XMPP and CMA
Part 3 - Integrating Core and Edge

Cisco has rebranded the Acano solution to Cisco Meeting Server (CMS), and this post is target to help you to set basic things up and make your first call to a CMS Space and CMS IVR.

1. First of all, deploy your CMS ova with vCenter.

 

2.  It will spend around 10-15 minutes for the first time boot up.



3.  Login via CLI.  Default credential is admin/admin.  You are required to change your CMS admin password for the first time login.



4. You can check your interface configuration with the command "ipv4 a".  By default DHCP is enabled.



Set your static IP address with the command "ipv4 a add 10.1.90.123/24 10.1.90.254", in my case 10.1.90.123 is the IP address of my CMS, 10.1.90.254 is the default gateway.



Check your interface configuration again with the command "ipv4 a".



5.  You can config your DNS server settings with the command "dns add forwardzone . 10.1.90.10", which will forward all the DNS query (. means all domain) to my DNS server 10.1.90.10.



Check your DNS configuration with the command "dns".



6. Create self-signed cert for HTTPS web admin with the command "pki selfsigned webadmin".  In this case webadmin will be the filename of your self-signed cert.



7. Config web admin interface access.

webadmin certs webadmin.key webadmin.crt
webadmin listen a 443
webadmin restart
webadmin enable



Try to access your web admin page:



Login with your admin credential:



You will see there is a warning saying that CMS is running in evaluation mode as no license is installed.



8. If you are going to enable WebBridge (accessible by the WebRTC client), we have to change the web admin listening port from 443/tcp to something else, say for example 445/tcp.

webadmin disable
webadmin listen a 445
webadmin enable



9. Copy the license file to CMS via sFTP or SCP.  In my case I used my mac built in sftp client and upload the file to CMS.

sftp admin@10.1.90.123
put cms.lic

10. Enable and config CallBridge, which is the core components for all the audio and video call terminations.

pki selfsigned callbridge
callbridge certs callbridge.key callbridge.crt
callbridge listen a
callbridge restart



11. Login the admin page again, you should seen something similar to mine below.



12. Enable IVR, in my case my IVR number is 8224, so when you make a call to 8224, you will see the default Cisco background and listen to the default IVR prompt.  The IVR number can be configured in Configuration > General > IVR Numeric ID.



13. You can also create your Space to call in, so that you don't need to key in any Call ID by calling the IVR, by directly calling to the Space.



14.  You will need to create your SIP trunk on UCM, pointing to CMS.  In my case it is a lab environment and I am using a non-secure setting so I don't need to deal with the certs.





The destination address is your CMS address.  You will need to choose the Telepresence Conferencing SIP Profile.  No Normalization Script is required.


Extracted from the guide:


15. Config your route pattern.  In my case my pattern is 822[45].



Try to place your test call.  You should now able to call your IVR number (8224 in my case) and Space number (8225 in my case) from your UCM-registered devices.



Part 1 - Making your first call to CMS
Part 2 - XMPP and CMA
Part 3 - Integrating Core and Edge

Follow up - LDAP search features on UCM 11.5

In the previous post, I've tested the new LDAP search (LDAP-UDS proxy) features on UCM 11.5:

http://pandaeatsbamboo.blogspot.com/2016/06/new-ldap-search-function-in-ucm-115.html

In my test, this new features only work for those video endpoints such as DX, but not IP phones such as 8861, 7975 and 9971 that were hooked up to my lab UCM.  It was confirmed that the devices that support the UDS API search will support this feature, in the case of IP phones such as 8861, it is using CCMCIP and not UDS and that's why it doesn't work.  So to summarize:

Devices that support the UDS API such as DX:
- when I do an user search, it will use the UCM as an UDS proxy to query the LDAP servers, and will return the results from the LDAP servers.  No UCM local users will be searched.

Devices that do not support the UDS API, and using CCMCIP, such as 8861 IP phones
- when I do a corporate directory search, it will return the UCM local database, it could be a mix of LDAP synchronized users and UCM local users depends on the actual environment.  UCM will return the result instead of proxy the requests to the LDAP server at the backend.

Field notice - old phones are not going to support on UCM 11.5

As per my previous post regarding old phone is no longer support on UCM 11.5:

http://pandaeatsbamboo.blogspot.hk/2016/06/old-phones-will-not-be-supported-in-ucm.html

There is an official field notice issued a few days ago, so make sure you plan ahead before upgrading your system if you are still using these old phones:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/rel_notes/11_5_1/fieldNotice/cucm_b_fn-deprecated-phone-models-1151.html

• Cisco IP Phone 12 SP+ and related models
• Cisco IP Phone 30 VIP and related models
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7902
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7905
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910SW
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7912
• Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920
• Cisco Unified IP Conference Station 7935

Old phones will not be supported in UCM 11.5

This is something that caught my attention.  Unlike the previous release, in UCM 11.5 it is going to remove some of the old phones support.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/rel_notes/11_5_1/cucm_b_release-notes-cucm-imp-1151/cucm_b_release-notes-cucm-imp-1151_chapter_010.html

Deprecated Endpoints
As of Cisco Unified Communications Manager Firmware Release 11.5, the following phones are not supported:

• Cisco IP Phone 12 SP+ and related models
• Cisco IP Phone 30 VIP and related models
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7902
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7905
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7910SW
• Cisco Unified IP Phone 7912
• Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920
• Cisco Unified IP Conference Station 7935

If you use any of these phone models on an older release of Cisco Unified Communications Manager and you upgrade to Release 11.5, the phone will not work after the upgrade completes.

New LDAP search function in UCM 11.5

There is a new LDAP search function available in UCM 11.5.  In the previous version, you can only search against UDS, the UCM user database.  Although with LDAP integration that means you can still search the LDAP users after they are imported to UCM, it will return the local UCM users as well.  In this release it is allowed for the endpoint to search against the LDAP through UCM.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/admin/11_5_1/sysConfig/CUCM_BK_SE5DAF88_00_cucm-system-configuration-guide-1151/CUCM_BK_SE5DAF88_00_cucm-system-configuration-guide-1151_chapter_0100101.html






In my lab the DXs are working fine.  However the 8861 corporate directory is still searching against UDS.  Still finding out the reason, will update this post once I know why is that.

Enhanced Line Mode on the 8800 series phone

Just upgrade my lab UCM to 11.5.1.10000-6 and trying out some new features.  One of them is the new Enhanced Line Mode on the 8800 series phone.  Previously you can only use the 5 keys on the left as programmable line keys, and the 5 keys on the right are session keys and not programmable.  With Enhanced Line mode, you can convert the 5 session keys into programmable line keys as well.

Firmware version in my lab:


This is the device specific configuration under my 8861 phone.  The list configuration item is the new Line Mode feature.



There is a warning for you that certain features will be missing if you configured your phones in ELM.



After that you will see all 10 keys are now programmable!



Just to randomly configure some features there...



And this is how the phone looks like:

Changing UCM to mixed mode without the need of a token

I have just done it in my lab, running 10.5.2.10000-5.  You can simply change it by issuing the command:

utils cli set-cluster mixed mode

Restart the TFTP and CallManager services, you are good to go!

Detail post here:
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/unified-communications-manager-callmanager/118893-technote-cucm-00.html

CUCM and CUC Publisher Rebuilt

The CUCM and CUC Publisher in my lab was crashed due to a disk failure.  Luckily my subscribers are in different LUN, and at least I don't need to rebuild the whole cluster.  This is what I have done and I want to share my experience and hiccup during the rebuilt in this post.

UCM Publisher Rebuilt

For UCM I am following this guide and it is a well written one.  This is what I have done based on the guide.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/unified-communications-manager-callmanager/116946-technote-product-00.html

1. Gather Cluster Data on Subscriber

2 commands – show network cluster and show version active to get the existing cluster info

2. Stop DB Replication on all subscribers

This is important, you will not want the new publisher sync the NEW database with your existing one in subscriber.  You want the other way round, so stop the dbreplication service.

3. Install the new CUCM Publisher with the same hostname, IP address, domain name, security passphrase, exact UCM version and installed COP files

Install it with a bootable media.

4. Update Processnode Values on the Publisher

I am running 10.5(2), therefore I need to issue the command "utils diaster_recovery prepare restore pub_from_sub" command on the new publisher CLI before adding nodes to System > Server

Retrieve the node list from the existing subscriber – run sql select name,description,nodeid from processnode

Go the the Publisher UCM Admin Page, add the node after you receive the node list.

5. Reboot Publisher

Using the command "utils system restart"

6. Verify Cluster Authentication

Do it on publisher after it restarts, make sure the cluster in the "authenticated" state.

7. Perform a new backup

Add a Backup Device, I am using a linux machine to store the backup.

Start a manual backup

8. Publisher Restore from the Subscriber DB

I have encountered an issue during restore with the error message -  "Unable to send network request to master agent.  This may be due to Master or Local Agent being down".

I have tried a few things

- Regenerate ipsec cert and restart DRF master and local agent – it doesn't work

Solution

• Remove cup1 and cup2 in Server list on publisher UCM admin page.  Then it works.  DRF requires all host up and running in the server list.  One of my CUP node is not responding (due to my disk LUN failure)

Check the Publisher node check box (UCM1) and choose the subscriber DB from which restoration takes place, in my case UCM2, then click Restore.

9. Restore Status

When the restoration reaches the CCMDB component, the status text shows "Restoring Publisher from Subscriber Backup"

10. Run a Sanity Check on the Publisher DB

These 2 SQL statements will give you a gut feeling if the DB restore works or not.

11. Reboot the Cluster after restore

12. Verify Replication Setup

13. Post Restore

Activate services and install device packs

CUC Publisher Rebuilt

Steps for CUC Publisher Rebuilt are similar.

1. Gather Cluster Data

2. Stop Replication on All Subscribers

3. Install the CUC Publisher

4. Update Processnode Values on the Publisher

5. Reboot the Publisher Node

6. Verify Cluster Authentication

7. To Connect the Subscriber Server to the New Connection Cluster, and Replicate Data and Messages to the Publisher Server

This step is different.  We are not using DRS to do the DB restore.  Run the command "utils cuc cluster renegotiate" on subscriber

The publisher server will automatically restarts.

"show cuc cluster status" on subscriber to verify new cluster has been configured correctly.

Good luck!