Moving an extension out of the building and off the LAN

FreePBX Endpoints
1

Ok, here’s a good one.

What would it take to be able to just pick up a desk phone, drive it home, and plug it in to my home network and have it work as though I’m at my desk?

If the government shuts us down, I would like to be able to make and receive calls at home as though I’m physically in the office. I would prefer to avoid totally reconfiguring the phone. Because I will just bring it back when the shutdown is over.

I have SysAdmin Pro and EPM.

Just to be clear - I think I can figure out how to reconfigure the phone for remote operation. But I suspect that would include a factory reset and making a new (remote) endpoint and everything. What I’m wondering is can this be done without a total re-do of the phone. Is this even possible? Can phones be portable within and outside of our work LAN?

Thanks!

2

If your phone is registering to an internal address on the LAN to reach the server (whether the server is in the building or you’re using the ALG on a router) you’ll likely have to just change the registrar address to the external address.

Making the change in your template and pushing that config to the phone shouldn’t take all that long and certainly shouldn’t require you to reset to factory.

If you don’t have a static IP at home or DDNS make sure to set up the firewall and whitelist appropriately.

3

You should be using proper FQDN in the first place. LAN or not.

Since you are likely setup by internal IP address, you will need to get your DNS all straightened out.

Then update your EPM template to use the FQDN. Don’t forget to remote any VLAN settings (yet another reason VLAN is stupid for voice).

4

From a general networking perspective, this is going to be a tall order for anything you want to move. An OpenVPN connection from your home network to the work network is probably as close as you’re going to get, and the “on phone” config of that is going to have to be tuned for whichever network you are connecting it to.

On the other hand, (I can’t believe I’m saying this) if your phone server is “in the cloud” the configuration of the phone will be the same regardless of which network you are connecting to. Carry the phone around all you want - the config should be very close to the same everywhere.

5

Just went through this myself.
I used the FreePBX VPN server with my Sangoma phones.
Provisioned them with the VPN when connected on the LAN.
Opened port 1194 on my firewall.
Took the phone off site, plugged it into the internet and it connected and I could make and receive calls just like I was in the office.
Take the phone back on the LAN and it connects again without any re-config.
https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/PHON/VPN+Setup

Peter

1 Like
6

This is excellent info, thanks!

I’ve ordered a spare T46 to set up and try. I will run through the wiki and test it out.

7

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