Can Endpoint Manager config remote phone?

Is it possible to use the Endpoint Manager to configure a remote phone?

The Aastra phones I’ve configured so far were all on the local network, so I just tftp’d the configuration.

I imagine opening a port for tftp would open me to security problems (someone guessing my phone’s MAC would be able to download the configuration data with password, right?).

If there are any tips for configuring remote phones, I’d love to hear them.

Two options:

1 - VPN, manages all the security and DHCP issues. I routinely send a VPN router and a PoE switch to small businesses. They plug the VPN router into their LAN, an IPsec tunnel is created and the phones are connected to the trusted interface of the VPN device.

2 - Polycom (and I am sure others) use FTP provisioning. Create a symbolic link from the trftp to the polycom user directory for FTP and you will be all set. Polycom phones come out of the box set for FTP, so if you put in your server IP the phones will provision the rest automagically.

If you are using the endpoint manager for two classes of phones (internal and external) you need to create two template groups.

Okay, I configured vsftpd and discovered the default folder was the same as the tftpd (so no symbolic links required, that is kind of nice).

I created an account with password for logging into the server to grab the configuration files.

Then I went to the Endpoint Manager and got stuck. How to I create a template where the phone will be given the FQDN instead of the internal IP address (I’m on dynamic IP and use dyndns.org)? Is this possible?

I found this thread (link below), and I kind of looks like this might not be doable without an unsupported hack (which may be beyond my capabilities).

http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/general-help/endpoint-manager-and-nat

Any ideas on how to proceed would be appreciated.

That hack is for extra buttons. If all the phones are remote just put the fqdn in the server IP field.

If a mixed bag you will have to edit the templates.

If you have a ton of these to do I would suggest possibly hiring someone to do a bit of custom coding.