HiddenOne

Over the past few days I have been installing Callmanager Express (CME) and the CME GUI on my newly aquired 2610XM. One thing that frustrated me before now was the lack of documentation on how to get started with the CME installation. My hopes are that this will provide people with enough information to get started.

Right now, I have only done a very basic configuration of CME. I do not have any IP Phones connected or anything. There will be further posts that will cover more advanced configuration topics.

There are a few things that you need in order to run CME. They are as follows:

1. An IOS version that has CME support (Use the Cisco Feature Navigator to see if your IOS supports CME).
2. CME basic files. This is related to the IOS version you have. The Cisco download page will tell you which CME basic file you should download for your version of IOS.
3. CME GUI files

Before proceeding, consult the CIsco CME Matrix. You can look at the version of CME you wish to run and the IOS version you wish to run it on. The matrix will tell you if it is possible to run that version of CME with the version of IOS you have. If you click on the specifications link for each version you will find the the minimum required DRAM and Flash needed to run CME.

The first step is to upgrade your IOS, if you need to. After that, you are ready to start uploading the CME files to Flash. This can be a bit tedious since there are so many files. After some suggestions from a member on Networking-Forums, I have found a process that saves you a bit of time.

1. Extract both the CME basic and CME GUI archives into a single folder on your computer.
2. Repackage the extracted files (except .tar files) into a new tar file (7-Zip is free and can create tar files in Windows). It is very important not to package other .tar files in this new archive, since tar files need to be individually uploaded and extracted on the router.
3. Use the following command to upload and extract each tar files you need (I usually start with the tar file I just created):

   archive tar /xtract tftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/file.tar flash:/

You should repeat the last step for each tar file you need. Some files you may not need, such as those for phones you will not be using, or one for the ACD feature.

That should be the basics of getting the needed files onto your router. In the second part I will detail how to enable the GUI interface and setup authentication for the interface.