asterisk users - Nov 2006 - Grandstream TFTP system wide settings

Hi,

Aastra IP Phones have two configuration files on TFTP, aastra.cfg and
<mac>.cfg. Both are in text format, which makes editing easy. And
aastra.cfghas system wide settings and <mac>.cfg has settings for each
indivifual
phones. This makes it really easy to change the global parameters system
wide by changing only one aastra.cfg file.

On the other hand, as I could understand, for Grandstream TFTP setup, each
phones needs a separate file, which has to be edited and then converted to
its own format usint ./encode.sh. There is no such file which would carry
global settings for all the phones on a system. Changing 10s of
configuration files for one small little thing, like daylight saving = 0,
and then converting all of them to its own format is not a good way of
dealing with many phones.

Is there a quicker way to change settings for all Grandstream phones, is
there any one file which can act as a global configuration file without
changing each phones phone specific settings? And can't it be simply done by
text editing, without the need to convert each file to cfg<mac> format?

-- 
Zeeshan A Zakaria
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Now I have answer to my own question, i.e. No, they don't. Grandstream
Phones unfortunately are not very advanced in remote provisioning system,
and they don't have one single file serving the whole installation, instead
every phone needs its own configuration file. Then this file has to be
converted to its binary format as well using the utility from their website.

I recently installed Aastra and I was very happy with their much advanced
remote provisioning system. It could also read simple text format files and
mass deployment was much easier to control

But what really impressed me later was Linksys SPA devices. I haven't tried
Polycom and Snom yet, but I don't think any other phone can come any way
near to the remote provisioning and control system of Linksys. It is highly
advanced and very well done system. Becasue it was originally Sipura, which
was intended for large scale residential deployments, so they had focused a
lot on remote provisioning and device control featurs. Other than its binary
format, it can read text, gunzip, xml and some encrypted formats. It has
very good system of macros where the administrator doesn't have to type in
MAC addresses. It also has very good HTTPS secure provisioning mechanism.
And also a way for remote warm and cold reboot using SIP headers. In short
words, it is just great and in future I'll prefer Linksys when it'll
come to
mass deployment. It has already made my life easier dealing with a client
with remote extensions. And yes, SPA942 is an excellent phone too.


On 11/7/06, Zeeshan Zakaria <zishanov@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

Aastra IP Phones have two configuration files on TFTP, aastra.cfg and
<mac>.cfg. Both are in text format, which makes editing easy. And
aastra.cfghas system wide settings and <mac>.cfg has settings for each
indivifual
phones. This makes it really easy to change the global parameters system
wide by changing only one aastra.cfg file.

On the other hand, as I could understand, for Grandstream TFTP setup, each
phones needs a separate file, which has to be edited and then converted to
its own format usint ./encode.sh. There is no such file which would carry
global settings for all the phones on a system. Changing 10s of
configuration files for one small little thing, like daylight saving = 0,
and then converting all of them to its own format is not a good way of
dealing with many phones.

Is there a quicker way to change settings for all Grandstream phones, is
there any one file which can act as a global configuration file without
changing each phones phone specific settings? And can't it be simply done by
text editing, without the need to convert each file to cfg<mac> format?

-- 
Zeeshan A Zakaria
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