Course10:Basic - Initial startup and recovery of innovaphone devices

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There are also other versions of this article available: Course11 | Course10 (this version) | Course12

This book explains the various reset modes of innovaphone devices.

Accessing the web - interface

Depending on your network infrastructure, there are two ways to access an innovaphone device. If you are in the same subnetwork (i.e. broadcast domain) as the gateway, the method to use is NetBIOS. There are different NetBIOS implementations, the one used by innovaphone relies on broadcast messages, therefore also the network boundary limitations.

The NetBIOS name of innovaphone gateways or phones is composed of two parts:
  • the device type (e.g. IP800)
  • the last 6 digits of the MAC - address (e.g. 06-14-B3)
As a result, the NetBIOS name in our example is : IP800-06-14-B3

Starting with v10, you can use alternatively the complete MAC address as NetBIOS name. For example instead of IP800-06-14-B3 you could use 0090330614B3.

In case that the NetBIOS method doesn't work, you can access the device using a second method, by its IP - address. Depending on the reset procedure, you will have to enter either a dynamic IP - address (DHCP) or 192.168.0.1 (if attached to ETH0) or 192.168.1.1 (if attached to ETH1) in your web-browser.

screenshot.png Different options for accessing a gateway


LED Status

Status of Ready LED
Meaning
Steady green
device is operational
Flashing orange
firmware update
Steady orange
TFTP mode
Flashing green deleting config
Flashing red
firmware defect


Device specific information on the fish-help.png possible LED color indications can be found in the wiki.

The 'ready LED' is the main LED of a device, since it indicates the most important status changes. However gateways, as opposed to phones, have also LEDs for their physical interfaces (e.g. ETH0).

Status of interface LED Meaning
Steady green
interface is up, no traffic
Flashing green
interface is up, traffic
Off
interface is down

Updating a device

The current state of a device software and hardware can be read from the screenshot.png General->Info screen and is described by three values:
  • firmware version
  • bootcode version
  • hardware version
The hardware version is not changeable and describes the hardware state of your device.

The other two parameters can be modified, by uploading new firmware and bootcode.

First a short explanation on the purpose of these two software pieces.
The bootcode is needed (as suggested by its name) at the initial startup/booting of the device. It unpacks the compressed firmware from flash memory and loads it into the RAM. The firmware is then started and implements all functions needed for the operation as PBX or gateway. The boot code in fact is a very stripped down version of the firmware with only most basic functionality. It uses the same device configuration.

Additionally the boot code offers two recovery methods, that will be described later on in this book.

It is recommended to have both components on the newest version possible. New boot code or firmware files are uploaded using the fish-help.png Maintenance/Upload/Bootcode menu included in the Web - UI of every innovaphone device. In order to ensure best compatibility of these two files, they should always have the screenshot.png same version number.

Recovery

innovaphone offers two mechanism to recover devices with defect software:
  • Mini - Firmware
  • TFTP - Mode

Mini - Firmware


As suggested by its name, this is a modified firmware having only an IP and HTTP stack. It offers the possibility to upload a new firmware file using the standard Web-UI procedure. By minimizing its functions, the file has such a small size that it can be encapsulated in the boot code.

If the bootcode didn't succeed to load the standard firmware and fell back to the mini-firmware, a screenshot.png Bootcode - notification in the Web - UI of the respective device is displayed.

TFTP - Mode


In case that the Mini - Firmware itself is corrupt, the device will fall back to TFTP - Mode. This is signalled by a steady orange glowing 'Ready' - LED. The gateway or phone is now working as a TFTP - server. innovaphone offers a customized TFTP -client named fish-help.png gwload, allowing you to upload a new firmware file to the device.

Here an overview of innovaphone's recovery mechanisms:

screenshot.png Recovery procedure



Reset modes

An innovaphone device has three different fish-help.png reset procedures:

  • a short reset will restart the device
  • a medium reset will reset the device either to its mini-firmware or to TFTP mode
  • a long reset will delete the config file and put the device in TFTP mode
The next pages will describe each method and its effects on the device.

Short Reset

An innovaphone gateway can be restarted using a screenshot.png reset button. Phones use a fish-help.png key combination (varies by phone types) for this purpose.

When the device is in factory settings, it will run as a DHCP client on ETH0 after a power up. After a short reset however, it will switch to a fixed IP configuration with address 192.168.0.1/225.255.255.0.

A short reset will not delete the config file. It can be compared to a reset on a PC.

Medium reset

Pressing the reset button for 2-6 seconds will perform a reset to the mini-firmware of the device. This reset allows to recover from a bad firmware or a config causing problems with the normal firmware.


Pressing the reset button for 6-12 seconds will put the device into TFTP mode. In this mode the gateway or phone is only accessible via TFTP (using the special gwload utility). This is signalled by the 'Ready' lamp steadily glowing orange.
There are two options to exit the TFTP - mode. You can power cycle or short reset the device. Or you can use the /go option of the gwload utility.


Long reset

By pressing more than 12 seconds on the reset button (or key combination on a phone), you will delete the flash memory content of the innovaphone device and by thus reset it to the factory settings.

The device will finish the reset procedure by entering in TFTP mode. As with the medium reset, you can now choose whether you want the ETH0 to be configured as DHCP client or with a static IP - address (i.e. 192.168.0.1).

screenshot.png reset options