Cisco IP Phones

Published on: January 23, 2025

Intro

I decided I wanted a landline phone since I had a spare Thinkcentre that used to be a server, and a free Cisco IP phone. Little did I know it would be a hellish setup.

The Cisco 7961

My first try was with a Cisco 7961, after spending hours searching for firmware I factory reset and set it off on an update. Which didnt work. It would constantly pull the term default file, the file which tells it which firmware files to download. Eventually I got fed up and got to searching on eBay for a replacement.

The Cisco 7995

After scoring a £7 7995 I gave it another go, with much and such the same results. After a while of googling I decided to try a different tftp server. I moved from a tftp server running on my NAS to the very specific version of TFTPD 32bit Version 3.23. Shockingly after pointing the DHCP server to my PCs IP and setting the TFTP path to a Samba share running on my NAS with the firmware, the phone just go to work updating.

Customisation

After getting the phone up and working I discovered the incredible usecallmanager website, which outlined the exact setup files need for getting custom backgrounds and ringtones working. After following these I managed to get my 7995 running perfectly.

Conclusion

To conclude, here are some tips if you decide to go down the Cisco IP route without wanting to use Ciscos proprietery software. Use TFTPD 32 Bit version 3.32 and make sure your DHCP server points to your TFTP server properly via DHCP option 60 AND option 150, I dont think you need both but better safe than sorry. Using the usecallmanager website you can pretty easily find the template files and the firmware can be found with a bit of hard googling, or you can email me and I'll send you them.... Thanks for reading!