3640 for lab

mikearama

Anyone got one of these in their lab???

The one I landed from ebay came with CME3.0. From what I can see on the Cisco site, it looks like that's about as high a version as is recommended. I'd love to get something more on it.

Currently, the 3640 has IOS 12.4(7h) on it. I'd like to put 12.4(25c) on it. I know I can go to CME3.1, but I'd sure like to jump to CME4.3, or even better, CME7.1

Any thoughts?

chmorin

Unfortunatly you are limited to what CME version came with the IOS that is supported by the router. I started out with a 1760V router that had CME3.x and I ended up needing to upgrade for one reason or another, but my 1760V could support 4.1 so I got the IOS for that and installed it. Worked for everything I had seen for IIUC.

I'd suggest buying something that at least has an 4.x version. My 1760V worked great, except for some NVRAM problems XD

pitviper

mikearama wrote: »

Anyone got one of these in their lab???

I have one in my CCIE Voice lab... It's a frame-relay switch / access server though

mikearama wrote: »

The one I landed from ebay came with CME3.0. From what I can see on the Cisco site, it looks like that's about as high a version as is recommended. I'd love to get something more on it.

Currently, the 3640 has IOS 12.4(7h) on it. I'd like to put 12.4(25c) on it. I know I can go to CME3.1, but I'd sure like to jump to CME4.3, or even better, CME7.1

Any thoughts?

As chmorin mentioned, you are bound to the supported IOS - CME 4.x requires 12.4(x)T versions (not supported on the 3640) and CME 7.x and above require an ISR minimum.

CME/IOS Compatibility Matrix:
Cisco Unified CME and Cisco IOS Software Version Compatibility Matrix [Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express] - Cisco Systems

mikearama

pitviper wrote: »

As chmorin mentioned, you are bound to the supported IOS - CME 4.x requires 12.4(x)T versions (not supported on the 3640) and CME 7.x and above require an ISR minimum.

Okay, gotcha... thanks for the info. The router came with 12.4(7h), and CME3.0 runs fine. And yet, the Matrix says that 3.0 should run on 12.3(4)T.

This leads me to believe that there is some leeway regarding versioning. Anyway, 3.3 says it needs 12.4(3), so I grabbed it, but I'm gonna try it first on the 12.4(7h) and see what happens.

pitviper

I think that the matrix list the "preferred" images - I had a couple odd issues in production that mysteriously went away after upgrading to only versions listed on that page. That's all that I'll use now in real life - lab should be fine though!

mikearama

pitviper wrote: »

I think that the matrix list the "preferred" images - I had a couple odd issues in production that mysteriously went away after upgrading to only versions listed on that page. That's all that I'll use now in real life - lab should be fine though!

I thought I'd look into this a bit... the IOS that came with the router (12.4(7h)) was an unlisted version in the matrix. Sure enough, the GUI wasn't a GUI, but rather had the directory structure of an FTP server or an Apache web server.

CME 3.0.3 listed 12.4(3j) as the highest working IOS, so I downgraded to it, and extracted the 3.0.3 tar file, and voila, a proper functional CME GUI. Go figure.

Thanks again for the insights, gents. Guess this'll have to do for a bit until I can fit an ISR into the budget.

tiersten

mikearama wrote: »

Sure enough, the GUI wasn't a GUI, but rather had the directory structure of an FTP server or an Apache web server.

That sounds like the default when you enable the IOS webserver but don't actually have anything to serve like SDM.

As pitviper mentioned, there is a limited choice when it comes to CME. You pretty much have to get the correct versions listed by Cisco as it will act very oddly if you don't. The interface between IOS and CME is so brittle that they need specific version matching.