Need to register multiple Yealink Phones to one Base Station in FreePBX

(Alan) #1

Hello,

I successfully registered a single W60B base station to FreePBX and connected three W56H phones (also Yealink brand) to the station. I can send and receive calls on one phone, but I am unable to do so with the second or third phone. Does anyone know of a way to do this? I want to avoid having to purchase a base station for every phone, and just use one for this purpose.

If there’s a better phone that you know of that will allow me to do this, please let me know. I have a situation where I need to extend phones to another nearby building without a switch in it. I already have Wifi extended to it.

Thanks for your help,

Alan

(Jared Busch) #2

Last time I looked, a year ago, FreePBX EPM could not handle that. But there have been updates in the last year.

In your shoes, I would create the basic phone in EPM, copy the config file out of the tftpboot folder and then delete it from EPM. Manually edit the file to handle the other units and copy it back to tftpboot.

#3

I have got this working in the following way;

  1. I assume the W60B Base unit & it’s initial Handset are already configured & operational as a FreePBX Extn.
  2. Register/Pair the additional W56H handsets to the W60B Base unit. I believe by default, any new handset registrations automatically link to the same Extn No/SIP Account as the original one, however, if you want each W56H to be a different Extn, continue.
  3. Create additional Extns within FreePBX for each of the W56H handsets. When configuring Extension Mapping (either from the ‘other’ tab of the Extensions module OR from the ‘Extension Mapping’ tab of the EPM module), use the SAME Brand, Model, Template, MAC Address of the W60B base for each W56H Extn, however, select a DIFFERENT ‘Account’ for each Handset/Extn (eg. Account2 for Handset2, Account3 for Handset3 etc…).
  4. Once the handset configs are rebuilt (All Handsets Green in EPM), there should be a SINGLE Config File (in the tftpboot folder) for the MAC address of the W60B base unit that contains the credentials for each Handset/Extn under different SIP Accounts (eg. account.1.user_name=100, account.2.user_name=101 etc.).
  5. Once the W60B base is re-provisioned (reboot it if necessary), each W56H handset should display & operate as its own Extn No.

Note. You can use the Web-Gui of the W60B base unit to check/perform the following;
a) Status/Handsets&VoIP - Check registration status of each W56H handset & their respective Firmware versions.
b) Account/Number Assignment - Select which Handset is using which SIP Account (ie. This is where multiple handsets can be assigned to the same or different Extn Nos). If you prefer, I believe you could also use the ‘Basefile Edit’ feature of EPM to set these assignments within your config file (where x is the Handset No & y is the SIP Account/Extn No to link it to);

  • handset.x.incoming_lines = y
  • handset.x.dial_out_default_line = y
  • handset.x.dial_out_lines = y

c) Settings/Upgrade - Allows Base Unit & Handset Firmware to be manually upgraded

For reference, I’m using the following Software/Firmware versions;

  • PBXact v15.0.17.24
  • EPM v15.0.39.40 (with 3rd Party Addon)
  • 1x W60B v77.85.0.20
  • 2x W56H v61.85.0.20

Hope this helps.

(Alan) #4

Thank you both. I will try each of these and let you know if I have any luck.

-Alan

(Alan) #5

This worked perfectly. Thanks!

#6

You’re Welcome.

(Alan) #7

Sorry to bother you again, but the customer came to me again and wants to add more than 8 phones, which is the limit per base. “No big deal,” I thought. Configured a new base and can get to it over the network, but FreePBX refuses to register it. I tried using both the original EPM file that worked for the 1st base station, but no dice.

I then copied it and created a second one that I named Yealink_Base_2. I gave it the mac of the new base station, but FreePBX just won’t give it an IP when I check it. I even messed around with trying multiple accounts, starting with 1. Any idea what I’m going wrong?

Thanks

#8

I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘used original EPM file & copied/created a 2nd one’, I believe you should just be able to configure the new W60B base station as another extension (just like having more than one handset of any brand).

I’ve not got a 2nd base station to try myself, but I would expect you simply create a NEW Extension for the 2nd W60B Base station (& it’s initial Handset) by mapping to its MAC address on Account 1. Once the initial handset is then provisioned as the new extension, simply follow the same instructions as before (from Step 2 above) to add any additional handsets to the 2nd base station on Accounts 2, 3, 4 etc. of its MAC address.

Incidentally, you said ‘FreePBX won’t give the new W60B an IP address’ - If the base station hasn’t got a valid IP address on the the network (and/or can’t communicate with the IP/FQDN of the PBX), then clearly it can’t/won’t be able to provision (ie. because it needs to be able to talk to the PBX to do that). Also, the W60B needs to know what PBX to auto-provision from (via DHCP Option 66, Yealink RPS and/or you manually setting the Auto-provisioning URL from the Web-admin GUI of the base station).