UCS Solarwinds monitor

I had a requirement to add some CICM controllers of UCS-C servers to Solarwinds Orion for monitoring.

While this seems as an "easy" task, I found a lot of bumps on my way.

The recipe that made it work (in an acceptable level) was:

- In CIMC add an SNMP user and configure SNMP properties.
- Also in CIMC enable the XMP API Access
- When adding the node use SNMPv3 (SHA & AES128)
- Also check the UCS manager discovery option (CIMC login credentials)
- No resources discovered at that time
- Downloaded an Custom Poller (UnPD) from Solarwinds / Thwack regarding UCS poller
- Used the Poller manager application on Solarwinds server to add and assign this to my nodes
- Then I went ahead and created my custom views in the Nodes Section to gain visibility on this values.

CUCM TFTP File download

In order to download a file from CUCM TFTP use a browser to go to
http://<cucm IP or FQDN>:6970/<TFTP filename>

Example: http://CUCM1:6970/jabber-config.xml

Cisco Unity prompts conversion with Audacity

In order to create IVR prompts I found Audacity to be a great cross platform tool.
Download and install Audacity if you don't have it.
Record the audio via any means comfortable to you, you can use Audacity also but I will not cover that in this post.

After you open the file to Audacity as a new project and adjust the track settings as
Mono

Then select the project to 8000Hz

 

Then select the track that you want to export and export audio as:
Filename: .wav
Save as Type: Other uncompressed files
Header: WAV (Microsoft)
Encoding: U-Law

That's all, now you can use the file as an Unity prompt!

Using CSIM start to test voice gateways

A neat way to test phone lines on a Cisco voice gateway is to use a hidden command, CSIM.
This will simulate a call that will follow your dial plan and translation rules, the called number should ring (if dialed correctly) and any debug command (e.g. debug isdn q931) will give you a proper output.
Syntax is csim start xxx (where xxx= number to dial)

Example use is:
Router# csim strat 9003923455600

Keep in mind that the called party won't hear anything if he answers the phone and the the output would always display failed.

CSIM it's not documented and I will update this post to reflect any new info.

Also check this if using SSH 

CSIM not working

Well today tried to use CSIM start command to troubleshoot a PSTN line. In my previous experiences it worked fine, but now I had an issue. Command would complete but no call would be made (see output):

So a bit of digging around found that CSIM won't work via SSH.

So use telnet or console to test with CSIM.