Last week our Network Administrator, Tom Hentrich threw a challenge at me. Tom invited me to “go find it”! Why did he challenge me? We were both discussing open items on our TODO list to complete our VoIP system that we’re implementing here within our organization.
One of the remaining items was to determine how the configuration on a Snom 320 could be Backed Up and Restored. Sounds easy right? And so I figured that it would be and volunteered to find it in the Documentation. Tom looked at me like I was out of my tree and said… “Go for it!”
Oh, and so why are we interested in Backup and Restore? For starters it’s a Best Practice that can help an IT Administrator recover and naturally, last week one of our Phones, scheduled to be deployed to the Receptionist took a power surge that fried the phone. The replacement phone had to be programmed entirely from scratch. We want to avoid that situation going forward. Thus, the Back Up and Restore challenge was on!
To skip my personal adventure, click here to go straight to the Backup & Restore section of this post.
I like to figure out as many possibilities that I can when troubleshooting and this seemed similar… find something that doesn’t appear to exist.
My possibilities to succeed included the following.
- Installation Guide – Probability (High)
- Product Manual – Probability (High)
- System Engineer – Probability (High)
- Online Support Documentation – Probability (High)
- Web Based Switchvox User Administrator Panel – Probability (Low)
- Web Based Switchvox Admin Administrator Panel – Probability (Low)
I started with the snom 320 Quick Installation manual. This is the out of the box manual that comes with the device and I would tell you that it is very clear to understand but it’s at 50k feet and does not cover administrative tasks such as backing up your configuration or restoring a configuration. If you’re an IT Administrator I would advise that you give this manual to your end users.
Next, I paid a visit to our Systems Engineers, they advised me to check out the Product Manual and so I borrowed their copy. The 108 page snom 320 product manual made for some dry reading over lunch and surprisingly, does not cover Backup and Restore.
Oh great! Now I’m thinking that Tom is having a good laugh at my expense at this point.
Determined to succeed, I headed out to the snom web site and thoroughly checked the following Support Resources:
The closest thing I found was an entry in the Forum regarding Contact Back Ups.
I’m getting worried now because I realize that the odds of finding a Backup and Restore option in the Switchvox Web Administrator for my snom phone were really slim. Why? That’s not really the role of Switchvox. I suspected that I might find a way to Back Up my Switchvox settings but not my actual Phone settings. It turns out that I could not Back Up my phone settings from my Switchvox Web Administrator or Switchboard.
At this point, Tom walks into my office and I asked him if I could manage the phone directly from its IP Address and the answer was “Yes!” Ah, perfect, I’m thinking that this has High Probability and it’s obviously something I missed in my original possibility list.
Sure enough, after logging into the Phone as an Administrator and going into the Settings Panel I was able to locate two Backup Options.
Back Up Section
The following file types can be saved as backups from the managed phone interface:
- .cfg Config File
- .xml XML File
Choose the Config File type if you want the smaller of the two.
Step 1
Determine the IP Address of the Phone by clicking the Help button on your phone. Then click the IPAdr soft key to get the IP Address of the Phone.
Step 2
Launch a web browser and enter that ip address into the Address bar and click enter.
Step 3
Click the Settings link, you’ll find it located under the Status Category in the Vertical navigation links section on the left side of the web page.
At the top of the Settings page you’ll have two options to save the Configuration File. Click the type you prefer to save and store it in a location that you can retrieve from.
That completes the steps necessary to Back Up a Snom phone configuration. I should add a disclaimer that this method was only tested on a snom 320. The possibility exists that the process is different on other models. Please chime in on the comments if you have some knowledge of this.
Restore Section
Step 1
Repeat steps 1 and 2 from the Back Up Section and go to the managed interface for your snom 320 phone.
Step 2
Click the Advanced Link that is located in the Setup Category in the Vertical navigation links section on the left side of the web page.
Step 3
Click the Update Tab on the Advanced Settings Tab Menu options.
Step 4
Using the Browse button on the File Uploader segment of the page, locate your Back up Configuration File. Then click the Load button. Watch the LED panel on your Phone and you’ll see the Restore going on. This step will take a few minutes and when complete you’re done restoring the configuration from Back Up.
Important Behavior Anomoly
If your phone was set up with a Static IP Address it will get converted to DHCP during the restore process. This will make it appear as if the Web Page is going to time out. It’s not really timing out, rather… the IP Address used to manage the Phone no longer exists thus you get a timeout appearance.
At this point just watch the LED on the Phone. When the restore process reaches a point where you’re being asked to Select a Dial Tone pick up the Restore Process from the Phone and:
- Select A Dial Tone
- Select a Language
- Choose Your Time Zone
At this point you have nearly fully restored the Backup Configuration File.
If you would like to revert back to your Static IP Address you’ll need to.
- Go into the Phone Settings on the Phone.
- Turn off DHCP.
- Re-enter your Static IP Address.
Once that configuration is complete you have a couple of final steps.
- Using your web browser, browse out to the Static IP Address.
- Browse out to the Switchvox Admin Panel.
o Go To >> Extensions >> Manage Extensions.
o Locate your Phone and click the Modify Button.
o Enter the default password and click the Save Extension Settings Button.
In Part 2, I can address the obvious issue with this Single Phone/Browser approach. If you’re an IT Administrator you need to have a way to back up all of the Phones on your VoIP Network. We will write a utility app that will back up the files on a scheduled basis and make it available to our Customers.