BOOM.
I think I nailed it.
Following this post: https://www.voip-info.org/asterisk-phone-cisco-79x1-xml-configuration-files-for-sip#PhoneFirmware - I set <proxy> to USECALLMANAGER (literally - previously it was set to the IP address of FreePBX).
Phone registered!!
@cynjut - Hello world. What a wonderful world 
All - thank you very much, (I may have some follow up questions though - appreciate your continued help in case I do)
Well I can save you some trouble. If you didnt install the CallManager patch most features wont work because, well, Cisco. Again, as I explained before these phones where designed for a specific platform the UCM. Even with the SIP firmware it sends things with headers and values that are not SIP RFC.
You can also install sccp-b channel and use the phone with sccp firmware.
Which important features that you know of, which will not work with SIP 9.4.2 SE2 ? (are you sure?)
And @arielgrin - thanks btw, will these features work on sccp-b ?
Check out http://usecallmanager.nz/document-overview.html it outlines all the features that require the patch in order to work properly on Asterisk. BLF, Call Pickup CID, Park, etc. The maintainer of the patch is generally 3-6 months (or more) behind or so on the Asterisk version it is valid for. Currently it is patched for 13.21.1 (from June) while 13 is currently at 13.23.1 (from late Oct).
That would require you to make sure your Asterisk version is 13.21.1. There was no updates for 14 or 15 but that could be because they were just “Stable” and not “LTS”. 16 is LTS but only came out in Oct so it might not be until early 2019 for there to be a 16 version (if at all).
From what I can see in the documentation for this as well, it’s 100% Chan_SIP with nothing for PJSIP which isn’t encouraging with Chan_SIP being deprecated and its possible removal down the road. Plus the fact that Chan_SIP is also 100% community driven now, so if there are new bugs found or updates needed for this to work (or anything for Chan_SIP to work) the community has to be the ones to do and submit patches to Digium to be accepted and merged.
Not sure here, @cynjut probably knows best, but I think SCCP-B channel gets you almost all functionality, or at least the most desired ones.
What is it with this board? I have not visited here in a long long time because of negative comments like this. Imagine what someone must think when they are just finding out about SIP trunks and Asterisk and they are met with combative answers to legitimate beginner questions. There are a lot of users that have the technical know how to implement something like this but just need to be pointed in the right direction.
Negative comments like what? Recommending a low-cost alternative that would make all these items a non-issue is negative? After the OP explained he had almost 2 dozen brand new ones and wanted to use them, I reminded them that they need the CallManager patch to make functions work and then provided the link to said patch. How is that negative? Was it also negative when I pointed out the caveats and considerations of using the CallManager patch to make those functions work?
I fail to see how any of what I have said, or anyone else that has contributed, is negative outside of the fact things where pointed out to give the OP a heads up/FYI on how these phones actually work with Asterisk and the TLC that is going to be required to make it a continued thing.
What I do see as a negative comment is someone posting in the thread that isn’t actually contributing to it in anyway but “attacking” the contributors about how they are just “negative” and “ruin the forum”.
Just so we’re clear:
So, he has taken the hardest phone there is to get working, added the complexity of having to patch Asterisk, and then wants to run it all on a Mac. These are not “beginner” questions. Crap, I’ve been doing this for 15+ years, and I wouldn’t undertake this on a dare. Will we (and did we) help? I think so. Would we recommend the average new user try this? Not a chance.
I don’t think we attacked anyone - there was one response about getting better phones. For a business user, that would be a valid and (eventually) fiscally responsible approach to solving the problem. Even the recommendation to use Chan-SCCP-B was constructive, since Asterisk doesn’t need to be patched to use it and provides the full capability set of the phones “out of the box”. Once he identified himself as a hobbyist (and therefore “into the challenge”, the conversation turned to “here’s the pain the rest of us found on this journey.”
The obligatory car analogy: we have a forum about driving and fixing cars. The OP asked a question about supercharging a snow-mobile and driving along the roof of the Holland Tunnel. Yes, you can do it, but … Really?
@Ami_mac - I see that you’ve asked a lot of questions about the Cisco UCM phones over the past three years, so you should know the pain of this entire discussion as well as any of us. With the movement away from Chan-SIP, I expect lots of people are going to be coming to this forum and trying to find out how to get their BLF working again under the new system.
When that happens, I expect we’ll see the same basic answers about old Cisco phones again:
I try really hard to not be negative towards posters because I have a reputation to maintain. I try to give people answers that will help them find their own way through their problems. Sometimes, this means holding their hand step by step, and other times it’s as simple as “Yes, and start looking for ‘This’.”. For the most part, this thread hasn’t deviated too far from that goal.
This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.