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Thursday, September 17, 2026

Factory Resetting VTech VCS754

This has been a fantastic phone.  Its best feature is that it works as a PC based speaker phone right to your computer via USB.  its awesome.

Factory
Resetting VTech VCS754

To perform a factory reset on the VTech ErisStation VCS754, follow these steps:
  1. Unplug the data network cable from the VCS754 transformer.
  2. Unplug the power adapter from the VCS754 and wait for 2 minutes.
  3. Re-plug the power adapter to power up the VCS754 with only the power cable.
  4. Press the MENU button.
  5. Press the keys: 0, 6, #.
  6. Scroll to "Factory default" in the menu.
  7. Press "SELECT" to reboot the VCS754


Asterisk FreeBPX fail2ban whitelist and status

Here's some asterisk fail2ban info 

List Banned IPs in Fail2Ban

Fail2Ban stores a list of all the IPs currently banned from connecting to your server. Run the following command to see all active jails on your server:

sudo fail2ban-client status

The one you are probably interested in is "asterisk-iptables"

sudo fail2ban-client status asterisk-iptables



Here you'll see that 192.168.0.101 is banned.  This was a phone that I couldn't make register.

Unban Specific IP in Fail2Ban

This command will let you unban an IP.  In my example i'm going to unban 192.168.0.101 from the asterisk-iptables ban.

sudo fail2ban-client set asterisk-iptables unbanip 192.168.0.101


Now you see that the "banned IP list" is blank.

Whitelist Specific IP in Fail2Ban

sudo nano -l /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
  1. look for ignoreIP.  There should be one in there already of 127.0.0.1/8
  2. Add a space and then add the additional IP(s) that you want
ignoreip = 127.0.0.1/8 192.168.0.101 192.168.0.102
  1. Save the file and then reload Fail2Ban.
sudo systemctl reload fail2ban
You can check the fail2ban status
sudo systemctl status fail2ban


Polycom Phones with FreePBX Asterisk

 I'm using PJSIP asterisk FreePBX deployment.  Heres the configs

In a VVX 500 series phone, heres what I have:  (my pbx is 192.168.0.113)


For a Polycom SoundStation IP 6000 here's what I have


In my FreePBX gui, its pretty standard.  Extension number and password.  Nothing else changed in the GUI



What I DID have to do, was modify my fail2Ban.  I had the system sometimes banning the IP of the phones.  So I put them in a white list

Editing the Fail2Ban Configuration File

Open jail.local using a text editor like nano or vim:

sudo nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

Whitelisting an IP Address

In the jail.local file, look for the [DEFAULT] section. To whitelist an IP address, add it to the ignoreip line. If the line doesn’t exist, you can create it.

For example, to whitelist the IP 123.45.67.89, you would add:


[DEFAULT]

ignoreip = 123.45.67.89 192.168.0.101 192.168.0.102

You can also add multiple IPs, separated by space, or use CIDR notation for a range of addresses.

After adding the IP addresses to the whitelist, save the file and exit the editor. In nano, this is done by pressing CTRL + X, then Y to confirm, and Enter to save.

Restarting Fail2Ban

For the changes to take effect, you need to restart the Fail2Ban service. This can be done with the following command:

sudo systemctl restart fail2ban 



Wednesday, September 16, 2026

FreePBX GUI with Callcentric (PJSIP)

This let me make calls to/from Callcentric with FreePBX.

In CallCentric, add an 'extension'.  In my example I created extension 108, so my callcentric ID looks like 1777xxxxxxx108.  Your callcentric ID will be a bit different, but similar.

Replace 1777xxxxxxx108 with your Callcentric 1777 number.

1> Add PJSIP trunk in FreePBX GUI

2> Under "GENERAL" tab

Trunk Name: CallCentric
Outbound CallerID: 1777xxxxxxx108 (OR a DID you have with Callcentric)


3> Under "PJSIP SETTINGS" tab

Username: 1777xxxxxxx108 
AUTH username (IGNORE)

Secret: (Your Callcentric password for your 1777xxxxxxx108 extension)

SIP Server: sip.callcentric.net

SIP SERVER PORT 5060


4> Under "ADVANCED" tab

Contact User: 1777xxxxxxx108
From Domain: sip.callcentric.net
From User: 1777xxxxxxx108
Match (Permit): 199.87.144.0/21,204.11.192.0/22        (This limits the IPS that can work for some additional security)
Send RPID/PAI: Both


5> Create an inbound route

Description = Callcentric and your number
DID Number = Callcentric extension
SET DESTINATION = whatever location you want the call to go to when it rings.  I'm testing with "Speaking Clock"


Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Updating Polycom phone firmware via internet

 In the GUI, go to "Software Upgrade"




Select Check for Upgrades.

System will reach out to the Polycom servers and get a list of available upates.


upgrade in from the oldest to the newest.  I find that in my experience, I couldn't skip releases, I had to do them in order.

Click on Install. 


accept the agreement




Your phone device will reboot.  It will download the firmware, apply it and restart itself.  Can take 5+ minutes

Polycom VVX 500 with Callcentric

This is a super helpful video Setup Polycom for CallCentric


Here's the basic config in the phone.  This is all I used to get the phone to work, just like the above video.

Make sure that your network address/dns is configured properly.

Make sure your time / date is setup with NTP properly.  





This is on an IP 6000 station




SIP SETTINGS:
Sip Protocol ENABLED

IDENTIFICATION

Display Name: Poly            (this is an internal field when you call another local extension phone)
Address:    CallCentricAddress            (example 1777X2XXXXXX105)
Label:    Line 1                    (this is what the number will appear as on the phone screen itself)
Third Party Name:    1777X2XXXXXX105   Label(Your Callcentric ID for the extension)
Number of line keys:        Set this to the value to the number of instances you want to appear.

AUTHENTICATION
Domain    sip.callcentric.com
User ID    Your Callcentric ID
Password:   Assigned in call centric when you created the account

SIP SERVER 1

Address    sip.callcentric.net
port 5060
UDP ONLY
expires 3600
subscription expires 3600

Save changes and reboot phone

After a restart, will look like this in callcentric if successful





This was my callcentric config (extension 105) in my example.