Configuring SIP Integration Between CUCM and Unity Connection

Below are the steps to configure SIP integration between CUCM and Unity Connection. This is now the Cisco recommended best practice and replaces the legacy CTI Route Point configuration.

Create New SIP Trunk Security Profile

In CUCM, navigate to System > Security > SIP Trunk Security Profile

Click Add New

Enter a Profile Name and Description, check Accept Out-of-Dialog REFER, Accept Unsolicited Notification, Accept Replaces Header. Click Save.

Create a SIP Profile

In CUCM, navigate to Device > Device Settings > SIP Profile

To right of Standard SIP Profile click Copy.

Enter a Name and Description for the SIP Profile. I also like to enable SIP OPTIONS Ping, this will let you know if the SIP Trunk has been established, and for how long it has been up, on the Find and List Trunks page. Click Save when completed.

Create SIP Trunk

In CUCM, navigate to Device > Trunk.

Click Add New, select SIP Trunk and SIP from the drop down menus and click Next.

Enter a Device Name and Description. Select the proper Device Pool for the Trunk. Check Run On All Active Unified CM Nodes.

Under Inbound Calls select the CSS for inbound CUXN if you have one and check Redirecting Diversion Header Delivery – Inbound.

Under Outbound Calls, check Redirecting Diversion Header Delivery – Outbound
Be sure to set a Rerouting Calling Search Space to ensure the calls can be transferred from Unity back to CUCM.
Under SIP Information enter the Destination Address of the Unity Connection Publisher. This can be an IP address or DNS name. Change the SIP Trunk Security Profile to the new profile we made earlier. Change the SIP Profile to the profile we made earlier. Click Save.

Create Route Group

In CUCM, navigate to Call Routing > Route/Hunt > Route Group. Click Add New.

Enter a name for the Route Group, change Distribution Algorithm to Top Down. Find the newly created SIP trunk under Find Devices and click Add to Route Group. Click Save.

Create Route List

In CUCM, navigate to Call Routing > Route/Hunt > Route List. Click Add New.

Enter a name for the Route List and click Save.

Click Add Route Group. Select the previously configured Route Group from the drop down menu and click Save.

Confirm that Enable This Route List and Run On All Active Unified CM Nodes are checked and that the correct Route List is displayed under Route List Details. Click Save.

Create Route Pattern

In CUCM, navigate to Call Routing > Route/Hunt > Route Pattern. Click Add New.

Enter the voicemail pilot number you’d like to use under Route Pattern. Select the name of the Route List we configured earlier under Gateway/Route List. Click Save.

Create Voice Mail Pilot

In CUCM, navigate to Advanced Features > Voice Mail > Voice Mail Pilot. Click Add New.

Enter the Voice Mail Pilot number, this should match the Route Pattern we created earlier. Enter the Calling Search Space and Description, check Make this default… and click Save.

Create Voice Mail Profile

In CUCM, navigate to Advanced Features > Voice Mail > Voice Mail Profile. Click Add New.

Enter a Voice Mail Profile Name and Description. Select the Voice Mail Pilot configured earlier. Check Make this the default… if you want this profile to be the system default. Click Save.

Configure Unity Connection

In CUC, navigate to Telephony Integration and then click Phone System.

Click the default phone system and make any changes you’d like such as the Phone System Name.

At the top right of the Phone System Basics page look for Related Links. Select Add Port Group and click Go.

Under Create From, change the Port Group Type to SIP from the drop down box. Give the Port Group a Display name. Under Primary Server settings enter the IP address of the CUCM server. Click Save.

Under Related Links on the Port Group Basics page, select Add Ports and click Go.

Enter the number of Ports and click Save.

Navigate to the Port Group Basics by going to Telephony Integrations > Port Group > and click the newly created port group.

Click Edit and select Servers.

If you need to add secondary CUCM servers enter them under SIP servers. Follow the same steps to add additional TFTP servers.

Click Edit > Port Group Basics. Click Reset to reset the Port Group.

Test and Verify

This should be enough to configure basic SIP integration between CUCM and CUC. In CUCM you can navigate to Devices > Trunk and verify that the SIP trunk has been established. You can then test by dialing the voice mail pilot number and seeing if you hit Unity Connection.

Creating a Bootable ISO from Cisco Non-Bootable Updates

There’s plenty of great posts out there on how to make bootable CUCM/Collaboration media with paid GUI software such as UltraISO or free command line utilities like cdrtools. Inspired by those bloggers, I wanted to share a method to create bootable media that features the best of both worlds: open source utilities with easy to use interfaces, all for the low low price of free.

Software you’ll need:

7-Zip / cdrtfe

First, find an existing bootable CUCM ISO (a Red Hat or CentOS live cd will do the trick as well) and open it in 7zip.

Find the isolinux directory, highlight it, and click Extract. Choose where to save the files.

Next, take your non-bootable update dvd from Cisco and extract the contents with 7zip by right clicking the ISO -> 7-Zip -> Extract to….

Copy the isolinux directory you extracted earlier to the newly extracted Cisco ISO folder, overwriting any duplicate files.

Now open cdrtfe. Under the Data Disc tab click Options.

Under ISO image, select Use image, and browse to a location to store the finished ISO. Check Create image only, do not burn. Click Ok.

Next, click the File System button. Check the following options: Create boot disc, No disc emulation, and Create boot info table. Under the Boot image field, browse to the copied isolinux directory of your extracted ISO folder and select isolinux.bin. Click Ok.

In file explorer, browse to your extracted ISO folder and copy over all the files and folders into the cdrfte window.

Click Start to create your ISO. Once completed you should have a fully bootable ISO!

Troubleshooting TFTP Issues with Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT)

I’ve recently began studying for my CCNA Collaboration exam and to help with my studies I’ve built a small collaboration lab. Nothing too fancy, a 2811 with PVDMs and FXO/FXS cards, 2 3750 PoE switches, and 2 Cisco 7960 VOIP phones. My lab server has a dedicated NIC which connects to the lab network and hosts a domain controller, workstation, and CUCM 11.5 virtual machines.

All this was working well until I configured the switches to have a separate dedicated voice VLAN. The phones started having issues contacting CUCM and downloading new configuration files or firmware. If I moved the phones back to the same VLAN as CUCM the phones would work properly. Sounded like a TFTP issue to me, and here are the steps I followed to resolve the issue.

TLDR; ip tftp source-interface

First, I setup a trace to capture TFTP logs from my CUCM server.

From the CUCM Console: select Cisco Unified Serviceability from the Navigation drop down, and click Go.

On the Cisco Unified Serviceability page select Trace -> Configuration

Select your CUCM Server running the TFTP service for Server then select CM Services under Service Group.
For Service select Cisco Tftp then click Go.
Be sure Trace On is selected then change the Trace Level to Detailed.
Click Save.

With the detailed TFTP trace enabled, I tried resetting the phones to duplicate the issue. Once I verified the issue was still occurring it was time to grab the trace files.

To download the trace files you’ll need to use the Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool which comes bundled with CUCM. To download the tool, follow these steps.

From the CUCM Administration page navigate to Application -> Plugins.

Near the bottom of the plugins page find the download link for Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring tools.
Download the tool for your appropriate os and install.

When you run the program it will ask you for the IP of the CUCM server and the GUI username/password.

Select Trace & Log Central. Then double click Collect Files.

Scroll down to find Cisco Tftp and select either All Servers or an individual server.

Select your download options and click Finish.

You should now have a wealth of information to dive into to try and troubleshoot your issue. As I was perusing the TFTP trace logs a few lines popped out at me.

It would appear that the phone is contacting the TFTP server, but its IP address was not part of my voice VLAN. In fact, the source IP was the IP of the outside interface of my 2811!

After some quick google’ing I came across this article on the ip tftp source-interface command. Because my router was sourcing TFTP traffic from its outside interface, CUCM was not able to route the traffic back to 7960 phone.

Simply adding the ip tftp source-interface command followed by the VLAN my CUCM server resided in resolved the issue and my phones began registering again.

COLLAB-SW-01(config)#ip tftp source-interface vlan 103
COLLAB-SW-01(config)#end
COLLAB-SW-01#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]
COLLAB-SW-01#