Archive for April, 2013

Quick Tip: Get the UUID for a Disk or Partition

April 10th, 2013 By

I was just quickly running up a small linux server to use as a backup server at a remote site, and added a new disk to an existing install.

Since it’s at a remote site, I don’t want the chance of it barfing on boot, so I definitely want to specify my partition by UUID.

The UUID is used to identify a device, independently from its device name. Especially useful when mounting physical disks, it’s also useful for LVM volumes, etc.

There are a few ways to get the UUID, but by far the easiest is to simply do an ls -l in /dev/disk/by-uuid.

In my case, I’m pointing at a LVM Logical Volume, so I can take a guess that I’m looking for dm-0, but to be sure, I want to check in /dev/mapper:

Yep, so to mount that new volume in fstab, I want to add a line like the following:

 

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Initial setup for Avaya 1608 IP Phones on an IP Office 500

April 8th, 2013 By

So we’ve filled the Avaya IP Office IP500 at our management office.  At other offices, we just buy a DS16 or DS30, depending on site.  But at this office, we run a VOIP trunk, so have a VCM32, and only use up to 10 channels on that.

As we discovered, the VCM32 comes with 12 IP Endpoint Licenses. – with means we can run 12 IP Phones!

Well, that makes much more monetary sense, than installing a DS16. – 1608’s are only 20 bucks or so more expensive than the 1408’s we usually use!

So we ordered a couple of play with, and hit two snags.

1) They’re expecting you to use a POE enabled Switch.  Which we probably will, once we have a few of these phones.  But for now? No, it’s not financially viable!   So we ordered Power Supplies, at $11 a pop.

2) I thought maybe the phones would be smart enough to grab an IP from DHCP, then do a broadcast to find the IP Office box.  C’mon Damien, this is Avaya, it’s not that smart!.

Instead, I had the phone boot, get an IP, and then sit there saying ‘No FileSv Address’.   So a bit of searching around, and I found this thread.  A few minutes later, I’d added a new DHCP option to the LAN segment on our pfSense firewall, and voila, it was working!

The magic Option?

Option 242, Text “PCIPADD=192.168.40.221,MCPORT=1719,HTTPSRVR=192.168.40.221”.

Of course, you’d use the IP address of your own IP500 unit, ours won’t work 😉

 

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