VOIP HOME LAB — Part 1 Building Network Infrastructure
In the tutorial we are going to setup network infrastructure for a voice lab based on Cisco Unified Communication Manager — CUCM. First we install VMware Workstation 10 on Debian Linux. Afterwards Windows 7 is going to be installed on VMware virtual machine. Once Windows installation is finished a Cisco IP software phone 7960 — Cisco IP communicator — CIPC will be installed on Windows.
Another virtual machine will be deployed with Linux Core. Any OS can be installed but Core Linux seems to be a right choice due to its extremely little RAM and hard disk space requirements.
The next step is Open vSwitch configuration. Openvswitch installation on Debian Linux was introduced here. Openvswitch represents a single point where all virtual machines are connected together. It also connects Virtual machines to Cisco Catalyst 3550. Cisco Catalyst 3550 offers network services such as routing, firewalling, DHCP and connects hardware Cisco IP Phone 7961 to our lab network.
Once Open vSwitch and Catalyst 3550 are fully configured we will go ahead and install CUCM on a virtual machine. CUCM will be configured to support local calls between Cisco IP phone 7961G and Cisco IP Communicator.
Installation and Configuration Tasks Required to Deploy Branch Office Systems
Picture 1 — Branch Network Topology (click on image to enlarge)
Once we are able to make a phone call between Cisco IP phones inside Branch office we will stop CUCM configuration and connect Branch office LAN segment to Headquarters via a central connection point. The point is represented by Belkin SOHO router which connects segments together and connects whole infrastructure to the Internet.
Picture 2 — Headquarters and Branch Office Local Area Networks Connected via Belkin Router
Installation and Configuration Tasks Required to Deploy Headquarters Systems
Below is the Headquarters network topology. As an installation and configuration of Headquarters LAN network and systems is very similar to installation and configuration of Branch LAN network and systems we will not discuss it. Instead of it we only show additional configuration that is needed to successfully connect both locations.
Picture 3 — Headquarters Network Topology (click on image to enlarge)
Used Hardware — Branch
- Cisco Catalyst 3550 multilayer switch
- Belkin F5D8235-4 N+ Wireless Router
- Cisco IP phone 7961G
- Laptop Compaq 8510p occupied with
- — Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 / 2.4 GHz
- — 3 GM RAM memory
- — 120 GB hard disk
Used Software — Branch
- Linux Debian Wheezy kernel 3.2.0-4-686-pae
- Linux Core 5.1
- WMware Workstation 10.0.1
- Cisco Unified Communication Manager 8.5.1
- Cisco IP Communicator 8.6.1.0
- Openvswitch 2.0.0
Used Hardware — Headquarters
- Cisco router 2621XM
- Laptop Asus ASUS-K55VM-SX170V occupied with
- — Intel i7-3610QM
- — 8 GM RAM memory
- — 1000 GB hard disk
Used Software — Branch
- Linux Fedora 17 kernel 3.9.10-100.fc17.x86_64
- Linux Core 5.1
- WMware Workstation 10.0.1
- Cisco Unified Communication Manager 8.5.1
- Cisco IP Communicator 8.6.1.0
- Openvswitch 2.0.0
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Cisco IP Communicator¶
Cisco IP Communicator is a SoftPhone for VOIP communications. Mainly used for Corporations that have Cisco desk phones or users who are remote. The issue is that Cisco Jabber, a SIP client, nor the IP Communicator have Linux versions. Wine will work, but it’s normally troublesome to setup or get it working correctly. There were various issues:
- Moving the Window would crash the application
- After a crash, it was near impossible to get it to open back up
- There was a horrendous noise crackling issue (much like with Skype)
- (VPN/Network) Calls would result in no sound
Installing via PlayOnLinux¶
- Install PlayOnLinux
- Open PlayOnLinux, install a non-listed program
- Select all boxes: Use another version of Wine (only if you want to try another version), Configure Wine, Install some libraries
- Use the system wine first. You can try another version if you’d like.
- Configure Wine -> Override libraries for crypt32, run as Windows XP
- Install some libraries -> POL_Function_OverrideDLL, POL_Install_corefonts, POL_Install_crypt32, POL_Internal_InstallFonts
- Install the application normally by selecting the msi.
- It will crash at the end. This is normal.
- Make a shortcut for communicatork9.
- Run the program normally. It will try a audio tuning wizard. This should succeed. If you hear crackling, this is OK.
- Configure your phone as necessary.
Installing via Regular Wine¶
Most of the steps used for PlayOnLinux can be done in a regular wineprefix. Ensure corefonts is at least done.
Pulse Audio¶
Many VOIP applications have a sound crackling issue. Skype is no exception. In a different part of this guide, there is a trick to making Skype be OK. However, that’s for Skype. To fix it system wide, we can do this.
# sed -i.bak ’/load-module module-udev-detect/ s/$/ tsched=0/’ /etc/pulse/default.paKilling pulseaudio or restarting your system will allow this to take affect.
### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available .ifexists module-udev-detect.so load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0 .else© Copyright 2022, remyabel, nazunalika. Last updated on May 13, 2023.
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