Firmware Upgrade for Cisco IP Phones (CUCM)

Good morning!

I wanted to write this post long ago, however I was extremely busy and did not get around to take the required screenshots. And when preparing for the next course, I had to upgrade the firmware on our lab phones. So it became possible to write about what needs to be done on CUCM to update / change firmware. The procedure is quite simple.

1. You need to download the firmware of the required version for this type of phone from cisco.com. Please note that for CUCM versions 6.x and later, you have to download the *.cop.sgn firmware file. Other file types are for earlier versions of CUCM and for CUCME.

2. The downloaded firmware file must either be written to a CD or uploaded to an SFTP server. We will consider the procedure for the second option - in my lab I uploaded the firmware file to the SFTP server. The SFTP server is a PC with CoreFTPServer software installed. So, we place the file with the phone firmware into the source folder of the SFTP server.

3. The main actions for changing the firmware on CUCM are performed at the OS Administration web interface. From here, the firmware is uploaded to the CUCM TFTP server. When booting, CUCM automatically changes the existing firmware for this phone type to the new one.

Open OS Administration, and then select Software / Upgrades -> Install / Upgrade.

Set the path to the firmware file located on the SFTP server. Click Next.

The CUCM shows that a file with a new firmware is available for download (in this example, I perform a downgrade, i.e. I download an older firmware file - I needed this as an intermediate step when upgrading phones with very old firmware. Therefore, do not judge strictly :) ). We confirm the beginning of the firmware update. During the download process, the system will ask you to verify the checksum for the downloaded file. The checksum for each firmware can also be found on cisco.com.

4. After the process of downloading the new firmware version is completed, you need to restart the CUCM TFTP server. This is done, as you know, in the Serviceability web interface.

5. Check in CM Administration -> Device -> Device Defaults that the firmware for this type of phone in CUCM has changed to a new one.

6. Next, it remains to reset the phones to factory default (turn the power off and on, press # and hold until the phone keys start flashing, then enter the magic combination of 123456789 * 0 #). At the same time, the phone "pulls" the new firmware from the CUCM TFTP server. After downloading and registering the phone, check the firmware version through the phone menu: Settings -> Status -> Firmware version.

That's all, in fact :) Now you know how to change the phone firmware :)