Hi,
Anyone know if there a method to generate the MAC.cfg files, as used by the XML scripts, automatically without actually having to login on the phone? Maybe some way of reading in a file containing MAC addresses and then creating the config files from that?
The reason I ask is that we are deploying a large number of phones and would like to pre-configure them for users and not have to login to each phone. Just plugin and go.
Thanks
When you think about it, when a user login on a phone the XML script is just matching the user extension with the phone MAC address and then applies the phone template.
So it could be very easy to develop an administrator tool using a csv file to replace user input (extension, MAC address, phone model, Time zone, language...) and create the right MAC.cfg. Maybe we will do it in 2.3.0.
We still believe that for large deployment letting the user do the login is the simpliest way to do it as you don't have to identify before hand which phone goes to which user...
That was the plan - use a barcode scanner to read in the MACs and then create the config files from there.
I never thought of using the endpoint manager, but the problem with that, I think, is that the XML scripts are actually executed and don't only create the MAC.cfg - I think they also create something in /var/cache/aastra. Without that, the scripts may not work correctly, nor will they be able to logout and be automatically provisioned at a later date.
One way we do this is by using the freepbx bulk extension module to create all the extensions via CSV, then let the users log in themselves. The endpoint manager or a similar tool would be very easy to simply run through each mac associated to each extension and generate the configs, the endpoint manager and bulk extensions module do not currently integrate this way
Aastra 1,
I agree with you - probably the best method to deploy is to have the user or (preferably) us log them in, but this isn't always possible or practical.
Don't get me wrong, the XML scripts are great and have drastically reduced the time we need to spend configuring the phones manually, but I think a bulk admin tool would be useful to add and remove phones -
I don't think it would be too difficult - one could create a script to just call the relevant login script with the correct parameters read in from a file.
Member Since:
2006-05-31