Can i mass configure phones w freepbx?

can i use FreePBX to load configuration files on phones w out activating them? im looking to an alternative to logging into each web console and loading a config file. i read dhcp can be configd to point to freepbx where a config file can be loaded. i wish the result to be phones that are unactivated, but with custom configurations.

Want you want to do is called provisioning.

I suggest you to take a look at Endpoint Manager commercial module.

Depending on the phone, you might also want to look into TFTP loading the phones. I know that the Cisco phones I use are all configured through TFTP, some Polycom phones also support FTP or TFTP configuration.

Provisioning might also be what you are looking for, but without more information (like model numbers or manufacturers) you’re going to get unsatisfying vague answers like this one.

Any solution requires that his phone’s MAC address are also already know, whether activated or not, EPM’s usually would only work for “activated” phones, or “how would they know”.

But yes if you know the MAC addrress of the nascent extensions then you can use TFTP,FTP,HTTP,HTTPS (maybe more) to pre-provision the phones, dependiong on how they are setup to use TFTP/150 or TFTP/66 or whatever ever else you choose, it would all be totally phone dependent however but you could use an extant config file as a template.

JM2CWAE.

these are polycom 330 & 550’s. i want to set phone unit config features such as server address, nic behavior etc with a config file. i understand that i can use freepbx to host a config file that the phones can be guided to via dhcp. my alternative is to log into each phones web console and load the config from there.

ok, just read up on using tftp to config the 330s. i have directions how to do this, but the phone still needs to be manually logged into. is there a way the phone can automatically derive the transport server address?

FreePBX cannot do that directly you will need to provision them individually to use DHCP which can point them at a TFTP server Most FreePBX distros supply those servers also, but tftp is a little insecure and the phones can use FTP or HTTP(S) also, I don’t think that by default they use TFTP (DHCP option 66) so you will have to go to each phone to point them in the right direction.

Start here perhaps

http://support.polycom.com/global/documents/support/technical/products/voice/Quick_Setup_TB45460.pdf

many thanks to all of your suggestions.