End Point Manager

Theory of operation:

The main page allows you to set the time zone and the phone server's FQDN or IP. These settings are used by the program to create the configs.

The OUI list and Model List pages are pre-populated and should need no tweaking.

The MacList page is the happening page. When you enter this page, there are three fields, the mac address, the model and the extension number.

The model drop down list is created from the model page.

The extension drop-down is created from the Asterisk database's devices table. The program removes the extensions from its list if they are already assigned from within the endpoint manager and only SIP extensions are displayed.

You can enter phones in three fashions; machine gun, one at a time and by hand.
1. Machine Gun--Enter the mac list page and set the model of your phone, Click in the mac address field and start scanning with your barcode scanner. If you scanner sends a carriage return, the software will see that, load that phones info, display the same model again and the cursor will land in the mac address field ready for the next barcode. In this mode, you will assign the extensions later.

2. Single Fire Mode--Enter the model and the extension number, then click in the mac address field and pull the trigger on the scanner. Then put a sticky note on the phone's box with the extension number on it.

3. By hand--Simply set the model, extension and enter the mac address, then click on the Add button.

The software will not allow you to enter a wrong model. If the model you have chosen does not match the manufacturer, the phone will not be added. If you set the model to 330 and then scan a Snom 300, the program will object, however, if you set it to 320 and scan a Snom 300, it will accept that. There is no list of mac addresses by phone model that we know of; only by manufacturer. The program will not allow you to assign the same extension to more than one phone. There is a limitation to this. The Endpoint software cannot know about any phones on your system that were configured outside of its realm.

The software verifies that the mac address has 12 hexadecimal digits and that there is a model number and an extension set before it creates the configs.

The master config files are included in folders under the endpoint folder.

When a config is created, the master file is read into memory, the variables are set, and then it is written out to the /tftpboot/ folder on the fly. We created a couple of custom files in the /tftpboot/ folder for folks to add their own custom configuration directives. One of the custom files is phone specific, the other is brand specific. We do not mess the the more general one. The phone specific custom file will be deleted when the phone is edited in the software. If you edit a phone's config in this software, the only thing you could do is change its extension number. Since the phone specific file is name <mac><ext>_custom.cfg(or .xml if Snom) it will no longer be used. We throw a warning before the deletion and give you a chance to back out of the deletion to get you custom stuff out of the file.