Cisco IP phone F-up
Good day folks. I had a little f-up over at my new shop today and it made me pretty angry, but at the same time it determined me to try and figure out what could've happened there. This is only going to be a speculative discussion since I don't know the exact layout of our network, hence I don't know what's going on past our room. So:
The repair shop where I sit is situated in a remote building down the street from the main building. There's a Cisco IP phone in this room, a 7911, like the rest of the company uses. There's obviously some sort of networking going on between the two buildings. Simply put, there's a network cable going between the buildings. It goes into a switch (from what I briefly saw, since it is located in an adjacent room where I'm not allowed to go whenever I feel like it, only when "invited", which is when I had the chance to snap some mental pictures of the equipment there) and then another network cable enters the room. There's also a single computer there, which belongs to the old man...just as old and stubborn as him
My laptop as well as other people's devices use a wireless network, also present in this building somehow. Sure enough, I saw a router amongst the switches there, though it's not entirely clear to me how it's all hooked up.
The cable coming into the room is plugged straight into the Cisco phone and, this is where the confusion began, the computer is plugged INTO the phone itself. Sure enough, it makes sense and page 29 of the manual for the phone explains this, but gives no info regarding HOW it all works out. It seemed simple at first: the phone acts as a switch so it doesn't take up a network port all for itself...
Today, the "shop master" suggested I'd rummage through the mountains upon mountains of junk we got there (literally) to see if I could scrounge up a working wireless router so we'd run some cables to some of the tables in the room as well, since there are no network plugs anywhere else in this huge room...actually there are, but they're not connected - more on this later. Fair enough I though, I found an Asus one, pretty fancy actually, and the first thing I did was disable its DHCP server so it wouldn't try to assign its own addresses to anything. I then unplugged the cable coming from the phone going into his computer, plugged that into a random LAN port and the computer in another port. At this time, I didn't know about the phone bit. This didn't work for some reason: IP addresses were not being assigned. I was hoping the "external" DHCP server would take over, as the router was just a switch at this point. The DHCP server, whatever that actual device might be, I assume is located somewhere in the main building, since these guys are also ISPs, though it could just be any regular router - anything that plays the DHCP role. Ok, so let's revert back: remove the router and plug the cable back into the PC. The PC continued to lack a network connection and having a look at the phone it was now displaying "Ethernet disconnected"....great. I tried the usual stuff of resetting, unplugging, it just didn't work. I HAD to bite the bullet and go to the main office to get scolded, even though technically it wasn't MY idea...this is what pissed me off and would sure love to break it again just for the hell of it
It was back online without anyone actually coming there...
Still: how could this have happened ? I have no idea what went terribly wrong to f-up my day there. Not only was I on the "output" side of the phone, but DHCP was off on the thing. I confirmed this by plugging it back into my laptop and it didn't get an IP either (which was normal in this case). Of course, had I known earlier, I would've probably tried unplugging the PHONE and then plugging both devices into the switch separately, but still: if the phone acts as a switch, why is it messing up when you plug another switch into it ? My only idea is that something "complained" at the "server" end - something in the control room in the main building so to say, and it shut down that network segment when it saw the intruding device being connected. I'll try it again as previously described, by plugging the incoming cable straight into the switch and ignoring the phone entirely...why do I bother ? Well nobody does these things: you want something, you gotta do it yourself...even though there should be guys taking care of the networking...I could handle it myself most likely, but hey...new guy Nobody cares about new guys....people don't do their jobs basically and I'm the one who gets scolded....yeah...it's getting better by the day >_>
The repair shop where I sit is situated in a remote building down the street from the main building. There's a Cisco IP phone in this room, a 7911, like the rest of the company uses. There's obviously some sort of networking going on between the two buildings. Simply put, there's a network cable going between the buildings. It goes into a switch (from what I briefly saw, since it is located in an adjacent room where I'm not allowed to go whenever I feel like it, only when "invited", which is when I had the chance to snap some mental pictures of the equipment there) and then another network cable enters the room. There's also a single computer there, which belongs to the old man...just as old and stubborn as him
My laptop as well as other people's devices use a wireless network, also present in this building somehow. Sure enough, I saw a router amongst the switches there, though it's not entirely clear to me how it's all hooked up.The cable coming into the room is plugged straight into the Cisco phone and, this is where the confusion began, the computer is plugged INTO the phone itself. Sure enough, it makes sense and page 29 of the manual for the phone explains this, but gives no info regarding HOW it all works out. It seemed simple at first: the phone acts as a switch so it doesn't take up a network port all for itself...
Today, the "shop master" suggested I'd rummage through the mountains upon mountains of junk we got there (literally) to see if I could scrounge up a working wireless router so we'd run some cables to some of the tables in the room as well, since there are no network plugs anywhere else in this huge room...actually there are, but they're not connected - more on this later. Fair enough I though, I found an Asus one, pretty fancy actually, and the first thing I did was disable its DHCP server so it wouldn't try to assign its own addresses to anything. I then unplugged the cable coming from the phone going into his computer, plugged that into a random LAN port and the computer in another port. At this time, I didn't know about the phone bit. This didn't work for some reason: IP addresses were not being assigned. I was hoping the "external" DHCP server would take over, as the router was just a switch at this point. The DHCP server, whatever that actual device might be, I assume is located somewhere in the main building, since these guys are also ISPs, though it could just be any regular router - anything that plays the DHCP role. Ok, so let's revert back: remove the router and plug the cable back into the PC. The PC continued to lack a network connection and having a look at the phone it was now displaying "Ethernet disconnected"....great. I tried the usual stuff of resetting, unplugging, it just didn't work. I HAD to bite the bullet and go to the main office to get scolded, even though technically it wasn't MY idea...this is what pissed me off and would sure love to break it again just for the hell of it
It was back online without anyone actually coming there...Still: how could this have happened ? I have no idea what went terribly wrong to f-up my day there. Not only was I on the "output" side of the phone, but DHCP was off on the thing. I confirmed this by plugging it back into my laptop and it didn't get an IP either (which was normal in this case). Of course, had I known earlier, I would've probably tried unplugging the PHONE and then plugging both devices into the switch separately, but still: if the phone acts as a switch, why is it messing up when you plug another switch into it ? My only idea is that something "complained" at the "server" end - something in the control room in the main building so to say, and it shut down that network segment when it saw the intruding device being connected. I'll try it again as previously described, by plugging the incoming cable straight into the switch and ignoring the phone entirely...why do I bother ? Well nobody does these things: you want something, you gotta do it yourself...even though there should be guys taking care of the networking...I could handle it myself most likely, but hey...new guy
Nobody cares about new guys....people don't do their jobs basically and I'm the one who gets scolded....yeah...it's getting better by the day >_>
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