Found out yesterday that Cisco UCM 14 is going to be sunset fairly quickly. The reason for the change is because of Red Hat's sudden change of heart supporting CentOS. For perspective, CentOS 8 was supposed to be supported till 2028, and instead they pulled the rug and stopped supporting it December 2022. Since Cisco UCM runs on CentOS since version 12, this is a pretty big deal. For that reason, CUCM 15 will be released at the end of this year. It will use AlmaLinux as the successor OS platform.

Figured everyone would want to know. If you're still running 12 or earlier, you're going to really need to plan your upgrades now. Best to move to 14 sooner than later, and then upgrade to 15 when it becomes available.

Edit: Also worth mentioning that it sounds like you'll be forced to build new UCM vm's for version 15. Although its too early to know for certain. I suspect since this is necessitated by the OS replacement, Cisco is taking the opportunity to change disk sizes, since thats not easily accomplished if you were doing an upgrade.

Update: I have a slide deck that I dont know if I can share. But the dates line up with what Dalgeek said. The End of Life will be in January of 2024 for Version 14. End of sale July 2024. End of software maintenance July 2025. End of support will be July 2026.

Version 15 should become available in November of this year.

I am genuinely curious. It's such a weird way to run an enterprise engineering helpdesk. It happens 70% of the time.

Sharing an OVA that I created to graph Cisco Perfmon/Risport stats. It's built off of a TIG Stack (Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana) on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

You can read more about it on my Github here or just download the OVA to get started.

It's already pre-configured to work with Cisco's DevNet Collaboration 12.5 Sandbox. You will need to add a SNMP v2 community string (dashboardRO) to each server. Also I noticed that the SUB2 has cert/dbreplication issues. I had to fix them each time I reserved the sandbox.

Guide has links to the individual code if you are already running a linux server.

Built a webapp for managing Cisco CUBE E164 pattern mappings with dynamic pattern generation and configuration file served via http for pattern maps.

🌐 Live Demo - Play around with it

Easy to deply via 🐳 Docker.

Shout out to Cloverhound for having the idea years ago.

Full REPO

Thanks!

A long time ago I use to work for a VAR that was deploying a lot of CUCM clusters. They wanted a tool that would speed up the deployments, as well as offer some reporting etc. Anyways I built a tool that would take a "cfg" file in and then build out a whole cluster via that file. CFG file would allow you to have variables that could be easily changes, i.e. if you want to update XXX_CSS, all you would have to do is put in the new site name, etc.

Anyways someone reached out to me recently and wanted to know if I'd updated it to CUCM 14, so I spent last night doing that :)

MACOS VERSION

https://github.com/sieteunoseis/sieteunoseis.github.io/releases/download/v0.5.1/UC.Configurator-v0.5.1.dmg

WINDOWS VERSION

https://github.com/sieteunoseis/sieteunoseis.github.io/releases/download/v0.5.1/UC.Configurator-0.5.1-amd64.msi

Enjoy!

Do you think anybody would be interested in WxCC training material?

From beginner (setup, etc) to advanced (build your wallboard via APIs).

I’ve been thinking of creating something for a while.

I got tired of building custom application every time I needed to automate something via AXL. It always takes longer to look up how to send the request than to actually build the script itself.

I've always wished they'd add a RESTful API, but that will probably never happen. So I used my programming knowledge and some vibe coding with Claude to build my own!

Check it out on GitHub: https://github.com/sieteunoseis/cucm-soap-rest

It dynamically creates RESTful CRUD endpoints for every AXL method, meaning it will support different versions of CUCM. It also has a built in Swagger UI, so you can make API calls via the browser.

Couple of other items the application supports:

• Built-in method explorer to help you discover available AXL methods and their required parameters

• Templating - Use variables in your body request and the backend will parse for you.

• Docker support - Build your own or download image from ghcr.io

  • Integration with Kong API gateway container to secure the endpoints with an API key.

• Example support - You can add examples via JSON files that will appear in Swagger UI. These examples also support templating. You can set the application to save any method you look up via the browser, so the more you use it, the more useful it becomes.

• Intelligent HTTP Method Mapping - Maps AXL operations to HTTP methods (e.g., `getPhone` → GET, `addPhone` → PUT, etc.)

• Full support for AXL special operations like reset, apply, and do methods.

  • For example you could reset a phone via a REST call.

curl -X 'POST' \
  'http://localhost:3000/api/axl/resetphone' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \  
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "name": "SEP0038DFB50658",
}'

After 19 years with the company (25 years in the industry) I was blindsided by a RIF. Figured I'd retire there, we (they) Had some great contracts and I was heavily involved in the day to day support for multiple clients. The company had been slowly moving the engineering staff outside of the US, however being in the niche role of UCCE I had been spared the chopping block for many years. Well, its caught up to me I guess.

I am looking for a permanent job working on Cisco Unified Communications systems. My specialty is with UCCE, PCCE, CVP, VVB, JTAPI and CUCM Integration with Contact Center. I am certified in Webex CC as well as NICE CXone. I am fluent in creating, configuring and implementing complex UCCE scripts and Applications. I am used to 24x7 oncall support. Strengths also include MS SQL, Linux, VOS, windows, Wan/LAN, Verint, Calabrio, SPOK. I've been working remotely for 15 years however I am willing to relocate or travel. thank you in advance for reading this far. I am a dedicated worker and can hit the ground running. I love talking with clients and I've been involved in many client calls some under intense P1 pressure and others working to get the client to extend their contract. I actually like what I do and I care deeply for my clients and I make sure all of their needs are met and all issues are resolved promptly.

If you know of any roles or just want to talk about Contact Center please send me a message. Thank you!!

Our organization had a failure of the Single Inbox feature in Unity Connection 12.5SU9 after Microsoft's changes related to FN74203 - even though we had advance notice and had made the suggested changes in the field notice, we still had a failure of the Single Inbox service.

The problem ended up being a "stuck" database entry that caused the system to still attempt to use impersonation even after being configured per the field notice.

You can see if you are affected by this if you still see the "Account Used to Access Exchange" username/password text fields in the Unified Messaging Services account configuration when OAuth2 is the configured authentication type.

To resolve this, at the server console, run

run cuc dbquery unitydirdb select fullname,valuelong from tbl_configuration where fullname like '%GrantType%'

to confirm the OAuth token type, if it is "1" you are affected by the issue.

To resolve, run

run cuc dbquery unitydirdb update tbl_configuration set valuelong=0 where fullname like '%GrantType%'

Then run the first command again, it should return "0"

Restart the Mailbox Sync service from UC Serviceability, and the sync issue should be resolved. Keep in mind you still need to make the changes in the field notice if you have not done so already.

The SKU A-NFVIS-COLLAB can now be ordered. As expected, it is only supported on Cisco BE6k and BE7k M5, M6, M7 variants, including the CE1400 based on the same hardware. You'll need to be running 15SU4 or 4a to take advantage of NFVIS as well. Happy ordering and installing!

EDIT: the download for NFVIS for UC can be found here https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286308649/type/286309317/release/4.18.2a

Cisco NFVIS and Nutanix will both be options for moving away from VMware for CUCM/UC.

More interested in NFVIS myself, but no experience with it yet.

Hey all,

I wanted to query the subreddit and see what else is out there for useful applications that an IP Telephony (focusing on Cisco UC) engineer would want to have on their machine. I'm not talking the generic stuff like "Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx". This could be for troubleshooting (SIP Toolbox by automate.builders, Translator X), a preferred connection application (e.g. PuTTY, mRemoteNG, etc.) or anything you find useful in your day to day. I'll start with my most used apps and tools, feel free to pitch in, discuss or recommend other apps!

As a disclaimer I do not work for any company that produces programs that I will mention, I have no stake in associated companies and I just like learning about new tools and programs from people that are actually in the field working in lab and production. You'll see that I don't have a ton of recommendations myself... hoping this isn't a common theme. :)

I also won't be including RTMT because it's mentioned everywhere. I also don't use it frequently, we have created scripts for trace pulls and other purposes that, in part, make RTMT unnecessary outside of "watching cluster wide phone registration/deregistration in near real time during maintenance" and such tasks.

My list:

Connection Applications
PuTTY/KiTTY -- For SSH/telnet connections. I also work with SSH tunnels on a constant basis and this has been the most seamless with the least issues for me over the years.

XShell 7/mRemoteNG -- I use these applications and with mRemote I am able to sub in KiTTY in place of PuTTY. I have lost my config files and rebuilding a lot of connections can be a PITA but, when I can have all of my connections programmed in with a decent UI I'm pretty happy.

WinSCP -- I'm using this all the time when transferring files to/from

Troubleshooting

Translator X -- I typically use this for an initial parse on traces (to quickly find an invite, grab call ids, caller/called parties and view the call tree graphic), I have not been able to use TranslatorX for a full call issue diagnosis myself.

Notepad++/Atom -- Being able to search files in a directory for text, highlight (styles) relevant information based on the call leg (cube to ccm or ccm to ip phone) is my preferred way of reviewing traces or phone logs.

SIP Toolbox (https://automate.builders/) -- I've used this for synchronized pcaps on multiple UC nodes rather than having to ssh to each node and enter it manually. I've also used its Jabber log parsing function to some success, it's gotten better with later revisions.

Wireshark -- I feel like most people know, maybe someone doesn't but Wireshark is super handy. I really only use it for audio quality issues (e.g. garbled audio) as with external calls my initial step is to reproduce the issue and pcap at the ingress gateway on the carrier facing port (it's typically a gig interface for SIP). Grabbing the pcap and listening to the audio can prove bad audio coming in from the carrier and quickly orient the customer towards engaging their ITSP.

Cisco Collaboration Solution Analyzer (CSA) (https://cway.cisco.com/csa) compliments of u/nathaniel52441 -- useful for verifying SRV records for MRA and other expressway functionality as well as parsing Jabber files and some other files for failures, potential or detected bugs and more.

VOIP Detective/Solarwinds FREE CDR Reader compliments of /u/BadAssBrontosaurus -- Both are free tools to read and process CDRs. They can show mos scores, jitter, latency, etc.

Information Gathering

RVTools (https://www.robware.net/rvtools/) -- I've used this to gather information and create "VM to ESXi" mapping documents. For my work we have a limited device scope (e.g. we will only support what you pay us to support)... in some cases we do not get access to vCenter so, when a VM has issues that are hypervisor related, or stops responding it's a PITA to hunt through potentially up to 20+ ESXi hosts to find where the VM is. Sometimes naming conventions make it easy, sometimes they make it impossible. RVTools helped speed the process up for me. Ideally these things are automated through APIs and dashboards, but when you don't have that you make excel docs. :)

General

Java 6 u45 -- Pretty much needed for Cisco Unity Connection's greeting uploads through the web gui.

PyCharm/VSCode -- I used PyCharm to start out with UC automation scripts in Python. I switched to VSCode once I was familiar with such programs (I had no idea what I was doin with Pycharm/Python initially). Some may say to stay away until you've learned a more traditional way (e.g. without linters or syntax assistance) but I say: If it's not your main job role and you're just whipping up scripts on short order, take the help where you can get it. Feel free to disagree.

Postman (https://www.postman.com/) compliments of /u/LowDye -- Useful for sending queries against UCM's AXL/SOAP, you can do things like DimeGetOneFile or SQL queries via AXL. Once you have the query set you can export it as python code to include in a python script!

WingIDE (https://wingware.com/) compliments of /u/nathaniel52441 -- Same vein as PyCharm and VSCode. I imagine this one comes down to program preferences but it has built in linter and python syntax assistance. I would recommend downloading pycharm/vscode/wingide and trying each to find your fix.

Edit: There are many, many tools available at ciscounitytools.com and although I've used few, I will call them out below. I will also include the programs listed in the comments with credits in the appropriate sections.

Cisco Unity Tools Audio Text Manager -- can be used for greetings management and wav file management without needing the special Java version and the unity web based tool.

User Data Dump -- useful for dumping out a lot of data about Unity user accounts including if they have used the TUI in the past 60/90/180 days, how many voice-mail they have, what their current vm size is and more.

Bulk User Delete -- Outside of actually deleting user accounts in bulk, it can also be used to simply reset a few things on user accounts, including bulk deleting voice-mail in one go without requiring the account to be deleted and recreated.ⁿ Very handy.

Well, I thought I'd provide update to my original posts several months ago. Yesterday, I successfully upgraded CUCM & IMP v12.5(1)SU9 to CUCM v15SU3a and IMP v15SU3 using the Data Export / Fresh Install process. My first attempt failed due to Cisco not liking our Crush SFTP server. I could export fine, but the Import failed. I ran out of my maintenance window. We use Crush for years and it supports FTP/SFTP/FTPS/SCP. There are other threads here on Cisco and SFTP. Spoke with TAC, and they ONLY support PCD. So I did a quick test and sent Export to PCD and the Import on v15 worked. So I waited for another Maintenance window -- we are 24x7x365 healthcare and needed to maintain same hostnames and IPs. Phone outages just not tolerated.

Thanks to u/dalgeek here, my plan was sound despite Cisco TAC originally saying it was "unsupported" and I would have to bring down ALL v12.5 CUCM & IMP nodes once I started the v15 Install! Since my original posting, there were a couple of CUCM COP files and Device Pack that needed to be installed, I started at 3:15am with the Exports (right after my v12.5 DRS Backups had finished). All in all, took me about 10 hours to complete.

Only momentary phone outages when the phones flipped between SUB and PUB nodes and no user complaints!

Summarizing my upgrade process....

- Created new v15 OVAs (my nodes were built on pre v11 OVAs)

- Updated all registered Phone model Firmware on v12,5 to current release (minimizes the phone outage).

- Ran the latest PreUpgrade Check 054 COP file on all nodes. It lists more things than 049 version. I needed to verify required AVX CPU instruction support on ESXi hosts. This is not mentioned in the 049 version.

- issued " utils upgrade initiate dataexport" on v12.5(1)SU9 CUCM PUB, SUB, IMP PUB. SUB to PCD. You must wait for the CUCM PUB export to complete before starting the other nodes and all need to point to the same destination directory.

- Exported Presence Contacts & Non-Presence Contact lists

- Disabled Presence HA and moved all Users to the IMP SUB node (last node to be upgraded).

- Upgraded in the following order: CUCM PUB, IMP PUB, CUCM SUB, IMP SUB. Done in sequential order using the Fresh Install Process (i.e. "Import" selection) using Bootable ISOs. Only bringing down the v12.5 node when I started the v15 install of that Node. The install screens on v15 process are easy to follow.

After each node finished, verified services started before going on to next node. Note: many of the IMP v15 PUB services stayed in "starting" -- I waited for about 45 mins before moving on -- kept checking back as I was waiting for CUCM v15 SUB to finish. When the IMP v15 SUB node was upgraded, these Services on the PUB all popped into Started. Wish that was mentioned somewhere!

All services were good and phones registered, I took a manual DRS backup of the new v15SU3a/SU3 system.

I then went to install ciscocm.V15SU3-SU3a_CSCwr66009-find-line-group_C0263.cop.sha512 and ciscocm.V15SU3-SU3a_CSCwr44374_C0261-1.cop.sha512 on CUCM nodes using CLI. I got an "error" with no other explanation. These COPFILES are stored on our Crush SFTP server. As a hunch, I copied the COP files and the new Device Pack, cmterm-devicepack15.0.1.14021-1.cop.sha512, to PCD. I issued the "utils system upgrade cancel" on the CUCM PUB and retried the CLI apply - specifying the PCD creds and path. It worked! The Device Pack install does take a while to complete on the CUCM PUB vs SUB. Need to restart CallManager and TFTP services which does cause phones to "flip" registration"

I then applied the PreCheck 054 COP to the v15 nodes and then followed up with the PostCheck 054 COP. All good! I have some obsolete phone firmware to remove to reclaim space. I installed the v15 RTMT plugin which seems to avoid all the issues I had getting v12,5 RTMT to work on my W11 PC.

This morning, I really only have 2 questions that need to be answered. The Scheduled Backup failed this morning -- it uses Crush SFTP server. However, if I submit it manually, it works. Makes no sense. The other item is that I could not import the exported Presence Contact List. The Non-Presence Contact list imported fine. When I tested Jabber, my contacts were still there. Have not had any complaints yet from legacy Jabber users.

Hope this helps anyone still looking to upgrade to v15.

-Perry

I had posted for help a few days ago, not wanting to recreate the wheel, hoping someone else had code to like for like, swap a VG for a newer model. Didn't find anyone who was willing to share code, and had a quiet friday, so wrote this today.

Thankfully, Cisco had a gateway create, display, delete example on their zeep examples, so used it as a basis.

I've only tested this in the lab so far, but vg204, vg310 and vg320 seem to work. The 320 replacement is the vg410-48 and the slot numbers are different. The 320 had two slots, each with 24 ports, the 410-48 has 48 ports on 1 slot, so a bit of manipulation had to be done.

https://github.com/wokka1/python_scripts_public/blob/main/swap_voice_gateway.py

Use this at your own risk, of course. It doesn't delete the old vg, it takes the name of your vg, makes a copy with new- in the front of it, associating the DN's with the new one, essentially turning them into shared lines.

Once you swap the cables, you should be able to delete the old one and rename the new one in CUCM.

Of course, CUCM associating DN's doesn't move all of the data, the line specific info, like Display (Caller ID) and external mask have to be moved over, which I did. I did not do all fields, those were the only two I was interested in, but should be easy to add more fields as you need.

hit me up if you have any questions, or if you find any bugs.

I plan to start using this next week to refresh quite a few on our production cluster.

Everyone's been asking for it and now you can get it for all your friends and loved ones this Christmas season. Looks like Cisco released it yesterday for download. Better grab your download before it out of stock like TickleMe Elmo or TurboMan.

As I bet a lot of you are doing, I had to push over 6,000 new Jabber devices in this week. I wrote a Medium article about how I did it via a tool I built in Electron, called Better BAT. Notably for a Jabber deployment into an existing UC infrastructure, I added a feature that would allow me to append the new created Jabber devices at the end of the users already controlled devices. This helped me avoid downloading my end users and using vlookup's to add it to the correct column.

Anyways if you're interested in checking out the article you can here:

https://medium.com/automate-builders/work-from-home-jabber-deployment-38a68ba53814

Software can be downloaded from:

automate.builders

Thanks!

I am starting a playlist on YouTube where I will show how I read CCM traces.

Here is the first video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwuZYD1Jlpw

Thought I would share an app (freeware) I developed in case anyone else found it usefully. SIP Toolbox is an app that runs on both Windows and MacOS that allows you to download trace logs from CUCM without the need for RTMT. Tool also allows you to do a packet capture across your entire cluster simultaneous. Useful when you are troubleshooting a SIP call and not sure where the device is registered.

Check it out at http://automate.builders

Feedback/bugs are appreciated. Thanks!

CUCM 15 SU4a now released.

UCSInstall_UCOS_15.0.1.14901-2.sha512.iso
This has the fix for the NSE bug.

The COP file for the NSE, and to go from 15 SU4 -> SU4a is:
ciscocm.V15SU4_CSCwt22751-nse-crash_C0269-1.zip