How to Place a Call on 1800/2800 Series Routers through CLI?

[Matthew Martin]

Hello All,

We are trying to figure out the phone numbers associated to the POTS lines on our 1800/2800 Series Router/Gateways. I know the easiest way would probably be to just remove the phone line from the back of the router and plug it into a plain old telephone and call myself with it to get the number. But the routers I need these from are in remote locations, and I'd really rather not have someone pulling plugs out of the routers if I don't have to.

A co-worker who was our Network Admin at one point in time said he remembered being able to place a call through the Command Line of the router. But he didn't remember the exact command. He said he thought it had something to do with the CCAPI but I can't seem to find it. I looked through a couple command like the "test call ..." commands but no luck.

Router's IOS Versions: Version 12.4(13r)T  and   Version 12.4(24)T2

Does anyone know if this is possible and if so what would the command be to accomplish that...?

Thanks in Advance,

Matt

[paolo bevilacqua]

Csim start .

Undocumented and unsupported, it does not work always.

[Matthew Martin]

Hey Paolo, thanks for the reply!

Yup, that's the one...

Your right about it not always working too... Doesn't seem to be working on all the routers

Edit: Found a good site about the csim command.

http://www.markholloway.com/blog/?p=645

Thanks Again,

Matt

[Matthew Martin]

Hey again Paolo,

Is there a reason why it doesn't work sometimes?

I have 2 routers that have basically the EXACT same configuration on them and the command is working on one and not the other.... Anything else I can try?

Thanks Again,

Matt

[paolo bevilacqua]

For example, it doesn't work with SSH.

Please remember to rate useful posts clicking on the star below.

[Matthew Martin]

Yeah, I did read that at the link I posted, but I always use telnet when connecting to the routers.

Its weird, we have about 12 of the 1861 Series routers and only 2 of them aren't working with this command... I guess its just one of those things...

Ehhh.. I guess 10 of 12 ain't bad.

Thanks,

Matt

[Brian Wcisel]

Using dial peers, you can remotely sieze the line, port by port and then place a call to your cell phone.  I've used this method before and it seems to work well. 

These are some notes I have created on the topic, I hope it helps.

create dial peer with the following code.

You will need to put your IP phone in the CSS of the site of the gateway and create a speedial with 5555 on one of the lines.  When you press that speedial, you should hear dial tone.  From here, dial the number you wish to call without using your trunk code, as you are now directly connected to that analog trunk.

dial-peer voice 2 pots
no tone dialtone remote-onhook
description ***Sieze port for testing***
destination-pattern 5555
progress_ind progress enable 8
progress_ind connect enable 8
port 0/2/0
forward-digits 0

Create a route pattern in call manager

Create a route pattern in the gateway with the port pointing to the port in question

Change only the port when needing to test each port individually.

If there is an analog termination in that port, at the remote site, there will be dial-tone.  If there is not, then you will hear re-order tone(fastbusy) which means there is no transmission path to the said destination.

Message was edited by: Brian Wcisel

[paolo bevilacqua]

hortman81 wrote:
Using dial peers, you can remotely sieze the line, port by port and then place a call to your cell phone.  I've used this method before and it seems to work well.  
These are some notes I have created on the topic, I hope it helps.
create dial peer with the following code.

dial-peer voice 2 pots
 no tone dialtone remote-onhook
 description ***Sieze port for testing***
 destination-pattern 5555
 progress_ind progress enable 8
 progress_ind connect enable 8
 port 0/2/0
 forward-digits 0

That for sure does not "call from CLI".as per OP question.

Anyway note in the example above, no tone, progress_ind and foreward-digits commands are needed.

[Brian Wcisel]

Thank you for your reply, if OP is just trying to figure out which lines are associated to those ports, my example should suffice.  Unless he does not have access to an IP phone.

While it is not a solution to call from CLI, it will certainly help figure out which DID's are associated to that port if the user has access to an IP phone and the gateway.

[Matthew Martin]

Hey hortman, thanks for the reply!

Yea, I really just needed to know the phone numbers associated with the POTS lines on the routers at each of our branches.

I was able to get all the phone numbers but 2, and those 2 were the one's that the csim command would NOT work for. So after looking at the running-config for those 2 routers I notied the dial-peers were not setup correctly when these 2 were originally configured. So I think I'll have to fix these Translation Patterns, which are setup in the dial-peer's sections of those 2 routers. At least I think that's what those patterns are called, when their used within the router.? These are the patterns that you would use when dialing outside the building, for example for us we have to enter "91" then the number your dialing to get an outside dialtone.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with those patterns because unlinke the times when you issue the csim command and it it fails almost immediatley, when I run it on those 2 routers it takes a little bit before the command eventually fails. mayeb like 30 seconds or so... So I'm thinking it probably SHOULD be working if those patterns were setup correctly.

But anyway, thanks for the instrictions there Hortman. I haven't been able to go through all of them yet but that's some pretty good info... I'll see if I can get some time to see what I can do with those instructions.

Thanks Again,

Matt

[paolo bevilacqua]

Matthew Martin wrote:
Hey hortman, thanks for the reply!
Yea, I really just needed to know the phone numbers associated with the POTS lines on the routers at each of our branches.
I was able to get all the phone numbers but 2, and those 2 were the one's that the csim command would NOT work for. So after looking at the running-config for those 2 routers I notied the dial-peers were not setup correctly when these 2 were originally configured. So I think I'll have to fix these Translation Patterns, which are setup in the dial-peer's sections of those 2 routers. At least I think that's what those patterns are called, when their used within the router.? These are the patterns that you would use when dialing outside the building, for example for us we have to enter "91" then the number your dialing to get an outside dialtone.
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with those patterns because unlinke the times when you issue the csim command and it it fails almost immediatley, when I run it on those 2 routers it takes a little bit before the command eventually fails. mayeb like 30 seconds or so... So I'm thinking it probably SHOULD be working if those patterns were setup correctly.

csim doesn't obey translation-profile. That's why I told you first, that it doens't work all the time.

[Matthew Martin]

So are you saying I wouldn't need to "pre-pend" the "91" to the start of the number in order to call out?

Thanks,

Matt

[paolo bevilacqua]

Matthew Martin wrote:
So are you saying I wouldn't need to "pre-pend" the "91" to the start of the number in order to call out?
Thanks,
Matt

I'm only saying what I said: "csim do not use translation-profile". I don't know your configuration and specific case.

Anyway, a correctly configured dial-peer does not need translation-profile.

[Matthew Martin]

Humm... Ok gotcha, thanks!

Thanks Again,

Matt