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Since we are using the program for the first time, click on the 'New Phones Database' option and create a database of any name. Hit the save button, like below:
You should see something similar to the screen shot below:
Let's start by adding some extensions for which you want to generate the xml file. Press the 'Insert' button and add some extensions as shown above. The extension number and password here should match your sip.conf in Asterisk. Add a few extensions as shown in this screen shot:
Press the 'Templates' and you should see something like this:
Now, let's create a default template for an IP phone. We are using linksys internally in the office, so I will use that as an example. You can also provision any other IP Phone(we have tried Cisco, Linksys, Polycom and a few others). Press 'Insert' button just below the model list box. You should see something similar to the shot below:
Fill in a description of the model of phone you are going to provision, the location of default xml file and the format that you would like to output when the xml is generated for each phone.
The default xml template is the xml file that you would normally hand edit. Make sure that these are the original xml files which have not been edited yet.
The extraction format is the actual filename to be generated for each extension as specified in the 'Phones' tab. For example, Linksys expects the name to be in the format of spa+macaddress.cfg therefore we would specify spa$mac$.cfg. Notice that $mac$ is placeholder for the phones that you will later select to generate the xml for. Your phone may require the name in a different format. Click enter to save the record.
Notice that after you click enter, the software automatically loads a few detail values from its internal database as shown here:
They are color coded. For example, values for those rows colored blue come from the 'Phones' tabs and those colored yellow come from the 'Defaults' tab. Don't worry too much about these for now.
This screen basically holds all the placeholders for elements that you would like to replace in your xml file. To make an IP Phone work, some of the essential details would be the user name, password, proxy or server ip address. All of those elements and some others are already loaded by detail. All you need to do is fill up the values by doubleclicking on the 'Replace With' field. Key in the right values for your system. Notice that you cannot edit rows in blue since they are automatically picked up by the system from the 'Phones' tab. After filling up the values, your screen should look something like this:
You can add your own placeholders but more of that later.
We go back to the 'Templates' tab, as seen here:
and open up the record you created for the Phone model by pressing the 'View' button. This should automatically open the notepad for you to view or edit the xml file.
Go back to the point in xml file where you need to enter the proxy or server IP address. Since $proxy$ is a placeholder for your proxy for which the value is already specified in the provisioning tool, just place $proxy$ in the right place. It should be something like:
All placeholders are case sensitive so make sure you get the name exactly the same.
Do the same for all the rest of the parameters such as username, password, etc. Another example of placeholder is here for username and password:
Once you finish with that, save the file. You should be back to the provisioning tool. Press the 'Phones' tab to go back to the list of phones you created earlier. You now need to tag or mark all phones for which you would like to generate the xml file. Pick a few of them by pressing the Tag/Untag button. You will notice that the tagged row changes color from white to blue. No xml files will be generated for those phones that are not tagged. Your screen should look similar to this:
Press the 'Generate XML file for tagged phones' button. You should see something similar to this screen:
Since we have only one phone model at the moment, pick the one that is shown. If you have more, you can pick the template that the software is going to use to generate the xml file. Pick the location where you want to store the generated files. Lastly under the 'Filename Option' pick the case that your phone expects. This is very important since more linux systems are case sensitive. If you select 'As Is', the system will generate the file names according to the exact case you entered when entering the data under phones and model tabs. If you select lower case, all names will be converted to lower case and so on.
Now hit the 'OK' button and in a few seconds you would have generated yourself the same number of xml files as the number of phones that you tagged. Now with this tool, we all can save a lot of time, especially for installations with large number of phones. Let's go out and play!
If you like this tool, we would appreciate it if can spread the word by mentioning it in your blogs, website, etc. Hopefully it will same more people more time to do productive things like having a cold beer instead of being frustrated with vendors who don't release their provisioning tools to the general public.
Your suggestions are always welcome. If you need a new feature or want to report a bug let us know of it as well! Chances are we can use it too.
This tool is released by Lantone as a freeware.
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