Tuesday, February 24, 2015

CUCM <None> CSS and PT

From an old CUCM Sytem Guide:

"Before you configure any partitions or calling search spaces, all directory numbers (DN) reside in a special partition named <None>, and all devices are assigned a calling search space also named <None>. When you create custom partitions and calling search spaces, any calling search space that you create also contains the <None> partition, while the <None> calling search space contains only the <None> partition."

Short story:
  • <None> partition is accessible from everywhere.
  • <None> calling search space can only access the <None> partition.

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Cisco Unity Connection CLID / Calling Number modifications in email notifications or Unified Messaging

Customer asked to have the leading PSTN access code digits removed from the CLID that was shown in email notifications / Unified Messages accessible in Outlook.

When an incoming call was presented to users, they were accustomed to seeing a 9 or a 91 in front of a number in the phone CLID display.  They liked this, as it allowed them to dial from the received calls or missed calls on their Cisco phones.

If a call went to voice mail, users were likely away from their phones and were picking up the messages on their smart phones remotely via an MS Exchange integration.  The problem then was that the phone number couldn't be clicked and dialed from the smartphone with the same leading 9 or 91 used for outgoing calls on their desk phone.

For example...
  • Incoming call from Joe's Pizza at 1(585)555-1212 shows up as 915855551212 on the Cisco phone display.  This is good, as it can be returned from the phone's directories without editting the number.
  • Incoming call from Joe's Pizza at 1(585)555-1212 gets forwarded to Unity Connection, and the message is delivered to your iPhone with the CLID of 915855551212. This is bad because the iPhone doesn't know you use a 9 in your office to make calls and considers it an invalid number.
Note: Need a picture or more detail here

My fix was to set the Calling Party Transformation Mask to XXXXXXXXXX on the voice mail's hunt pilot.  This allows the 10 CLID digit format iPhone's like to be passed to Unity Connection.  Then you also need to check Use Calling Party's External Phone Number Mask in the hunt pilot as well.

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Cisco CUCM VMware tools install issue

Just ran into a customer running CUCM 9.1.2 where I was tasked with adding another subscriber to the cluster.  Good fun with a new C240 chassis, and all things went as planned until I found I could not install VMware tools on the server.

Given it's version 9, I first tried the simple method to install from the vSphere client. Normally you can right-click the guest server and choose Guest | Install / Upgrade VMware tools.  My experience is this is typically a 30 second process, but after a couple minutes I felt it was failing and cancelled the install from the same menu.

I was able to edit the server properties through the vSphere client and under the Advanced section, checked the Check and upgrade Tools during power cycling option, but I wasn't in the mood to wait for a graceful restart, nor interupt any services.

Instead, I SSH'd to the server and  ran "utils os secure permissive".  This basically stops the CUCM firewall.

I then tried the install via the vSphere client and boom, 30 seconds or so later they are installed an up to date.

Then, for good measure ran "utils os secure enforce" to re-enable the firewall.

Good one.

For your install options per app and version, see: http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/VMware_Tools

For a similar thread and my inspiration, see: https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12274396/cucm-105-vmware-tools