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extend / improve the How-To-DECT #13

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fuu0 opened this issue Jan 15, 2025 · 2 comments
Open

extend / improve the How-To-DECT #13

fuu0 opened this issue Jan 15, 2025 · 2 comments

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@fuu0
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fuu0 commented Jan 15, 2025

Hi,

Thinking about improving the how to, but want to ask first:

  • In the RFP hardware section it says: "36 IP (PoE-only), 37 IP (ext-ant)" which is correct, but the RFP37 is also PoE only
  • The "Buying an RFP" section seems a bit outdated, but maybe it's not worth keeping it up to date. On ebay Germany you can get the RFP35 for between 40€ and 60€.
  • I would like to add information about "Where to get the firmware" to the "Software Update" section. It seems that there is no way to get a new firmware or the Mitel OMM online - neither on the Mitel homepage nor via torrent. Afaik, the legal way is to buy a software update subscription.
  • I don't know how to do this, but: it might be worth adding the information on how to get the firmware version of your RFP. I don't see it in the OMM base station overview.
  • I miss the IMHO easiest way of "Find out the IPEI of your PP" in the section - just allow the subscription and then subscribe to the base station. An entry appears without a SIP user - but with the correct IPEI
  • I bit the same as the firmware section but IMHO also worth it too: A few words about the omm licencing. The OMM licence for more RFP does not give you the right to get the latest OMM version.
  • The DHCP section seems a bit large. Maybe it makes sense to concentrate on the "how to mitel" with - for example - isc dhcp. But not also with mikrotik and dnsmasq. I think the relevant information is "what dhcp options do I need to make it work" and not "how to configure $exampleDhcpServer.
  • The section "OMM on RFP vs stand-alone OMM" is a subsection of "Plugging it in: Getting your RFP(s) up and running". The OMM is a major piece of software for the Mitel DECT Ecosystem, so it would merge it into the "Software: Configuring the RFP" section and rewrite it as "Software: Configuring the OMM"

If you like this, give me a hint. I would like to improve the manual, it helped me a lot.

@n-st
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n-st commented Jan 16, 2025

Hi fuu0,

thanks for the positive feedback and your offer to help!
In general, we're happy about any constructive pull requests. As you've noticed, the how-to grows somewhat … organically … and can get stalled for a while depending on our spare time…

  • In the RFP hardware section it says: "36 IP (PoE-only), 37 IP (ext-ant)" which is correct, but the RFP37 is also PoE only

Indeed. I probably planned to include the "PoE-only" info in the "ext-ant" explanation when I originally wrote that part, but missed it in the end…

  • The "Buying an RFP" section seems a bit outdated, but maybe it's not worth keeping it up to date. On ebay Germany you can get the RFP35 for between 40€ and 60€.

40€ on eBay still seems quite optimistic. That section can probably use a bit of polish, but I think it's still reasonable to temper people's expectations on price and (fast) availability — "cheap/functional/readily available: pick two". Personally, I wouldn't spend more than 50€ on an indoor RFP — but that's mainly because I've got a few spare ones and can wait a few months to buy more.

  • I would like to add information about "Where to get the firmware" to the "Software Update" section. It seems that there is no way to get a new firmware or the Mitel OMM online - neither on the Mitel homepage nor via torrent. Afaik, the legal way is to buy a software update subscription.

That is correct. There's not much we could usefully add to the howto — "the legal way is to buy a software update subscription" sums it up rather completely…
One thing, though: as a regular customer, Mitel would normally provide a package that contains both a stand-alone OMM package, and RFP firmware files (one for each supported hardware generation) that also automatically include the OMM (for hardware generations that support running the OMM on an RFP). Not sure if it's clear enough that one does not necessarily need a separate OMM file/package to set up a working SIP-DECT environment.

  • I don't know how to do this, but: it might be worth adding the information on how to get the firmware version of your RFP. I don't see it in the OMM base station overview.

The firmware version is visible on the login screen of the OMM web interface (which you would probably be running on one of the RFPs), and in the SSH/Telnet login banners of each RFP.
The OMM will reject RFPs running a different firmware version that its own, so in a working setup you'll see the same version everywhere — conversely, if you see a different version on one of the RFPs, that would be why it's not working. ;)

  • I miss the IMHO easiest way of "Find out the IPEI of your PP" in the section - just allow the subscription and then subscribe to the base station. An entry appears without a SIP user - but with the correct IPEI

For your approach, you'll also need to enable "auto-create on subscription" (though that's not a big deal).
What's a bit more hassle: Unlike the options that are currently listed, your approach has side-effects — the PP successfully registers with the DECT system, so if you're just testing and don't want to keep the PP connected to the system, you would then need to delete the PP from the OMM, and the base/system from the PP. For some PPs, this will also overwrite (one of) their pre-existing system registration(s).
TL;DR: Probably still worth mentioning, but should include these caveats.

  • I bit the same as the firmware section but IMHO also worth it too: A few words about the omm licencing. The OMM licence for more RFP does not give you the right to get the latest OMM version.

Are you sure?
I couldn't say either way, I don't know anyone who bought an RFP-count license without already having access to firmware updates…

  • The DHCP section seems a bit large. Maybe it makes sense to concentrate on the "how to mitel" with - for example - isc dhcp. But not also with mikrotik and dnsmasq. I think the relevant information is "what dhcp options do I need to make it work" and not "how to configure $exampleDhcpServer.

We're accepting pretty much anything that might come in handy when setting up or experimenting with the SIP-DECT hardware or software — the less reinventing of wheels is required, the better.
That said, we've long had the idea/plan to split the howto into thematic sections to make it a bit more manageable. I've poured that into issue #14 now. Help is appreciated there as well, but expect that that's probably something that needs more experimenting and discussing…

  • The section "OMM on RFP vs stand-alone OMM" is a subsection of "Plugging it in: Getting your RFP(s) up and running". The OMM is a major piece of software for the Mitel DECT Ecosystem, so it would merge it into the "Software: Configuring the RFP" section and rewrite it as "Software: Configuring the OMM"

The sections are (or at least: started out as) a step-by-step guide for the first installation. Paired with a lot of "todo" placeholders, that's made the sorting/ordering a bit wonky…
In terms of first-time setup instructions, the "on RFP vs stand-alone" distinction should probably come even earlier, since it greatly influences the DHCP/static IP configuration…
As for the rest of the login and config instructions: yup, should have called that section "[…] Configuring the OMM" in the first place, that's something worth fixing.

If you like this, give me a hint. I would like to improve the manual, it helped me a lot.

We'd be happy for you to go ahead and sort that out if you have the time. :)
Some changes are probably more clear-cut than others — I'm not quite sure how to best deal with bigger section/improvement individually without causing too many merge conflicts…
From a maintainer perspective, a bunch of small independent PRs would be ideal, but I know how painful that is to sort out on the committer side.
I'd say, approach it with common sense, group small changes but split off or postpone bigger restructurings.

No guarantees about response latency, but we're happy that we've apparently created something useful, and will of course react as soon as one of us has time. Thank you already! :)

@moepman
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moepman commented Jan 16, 2025

Not sure if it's clear enough that one does not necessarily need a separate OMM file/package to set up a working SIP-DECT environment.

There is a case where you need the files: if the RFP you received came with non IP-DECT Firmware. Not sure if that is worth mentioning.

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