Questions[phone](server)

First, I'll try to explain the current network layout. I'm not a super-experienced networking professional (yet...) and I have come up with a possible solution, but I wanted to run it by some experts and see what the cons are to my plan.

So we have a small business setup servicing about 12 users, right now it looks roughly like this:

Comcast Business Modem (providing two public IPs), this modem is ethernet wired to two different routers, each with its own LAN (10.0.0.1 and 10.3.2.1) corresponding with the outgoing public IP. These routers are wired into separate switches with no logical or physical link. The 10.0.0.1 network manages all of our computers (and other network devices via Wi-Fi), while the 10.3.2.1 network is reserved for phones only. All of the drops in the office are split, the PC drops wire into the 10.0.0.1 switch and the phone ethernets wire into the 10.3.2.1 switch.

No, I don't know why the network is split in half. I wasn't here when the company had it installed, nor do I know the logic or reasoning. The phone network has an old OLD machine running Windows 7 for a 3CX server. I think the last update it received was in 2014. My guess is nobody wants to touch the old system since it is somehow still working this many years later...

So I'll summarize my plan. I wish to move the 3CX server over to a much stronger network server on the other LAN and host it on a virtual machine instance (3CX is a nightmare to configure, would rather create a small redundant VM configuration so it can failover to a backup if needed), and route all phones from the 10.3.2.1 network into the 10.0.0.1 network. My plan was just to wire the two routers together and write rules for the connections. Issue is, I'm currently not sure this is the best solution. I've read a few other topics discussing how many softwares and programs can become confused by this kind of solution. Not to mention, we have some supportive devices in the office to assist with the phone system and I've no clue what they do at this time. One is a Patton VoIP gateway, the others are Arris boxes and I've not got their login credentials yet (or guessed them).

Would the better plan be to just link the networks or to make a plan to combine them and re-configure the phone 3CX system. Having the phone sessions being hosted across this link may not be the best solution.

We are about to move a portable office that has 8 phones and 12 lan connections. They are all wired back to our main switch and Nortel bcm200 phone system which are only about 20m (65ft) away. After the move the office will be 180m (600ft) away from these. What is the maximum length of cable a digital phone line can be? I am aware that a lan connection can only be 100m (305ft) when using cat5e utp. Does this rule apply to phone connections also? If so how can I extend beyond 100m for the phones? I was going to install about three cabinets, 3 switches and 6 patch panels for the lan connections but the ideal struck me tonight that maybe I could run a fibre optic line. Would this be feasible? Any feedback on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I have come across a strange problem with our VPN and BCM 50 (Nortel/Avaya) phone system.

As you can tell by my other questions I have been doing some work on setting a VPN up from one location to another and it's all working well. With one exception.

We have an IP phone that is connected at the remote location, straight to a router which has a VPN tunnel to our main practice. The phone works mostly, but every few calls it turns into a one way call. As in, the caller (from the remote phone) can't hear the receiver- but the receiver can hear the caller.

This is fixed by setting the VPN tunnel to be the default route for all traffic.

The problem with fixing it that way is that all traffic then goes through the tunnel which slows internet access etc. down considerably.

The router is set to send the following over the VPN:

192.168.1.0/24
192.168.2.0/24
192.168.4.0/24

The IP of the remote location is:

192.168.3.0/24

The remote router (where the phone is) is a Draytek 2830n, and the local router (at the main practice) is a Draytek 2820.

We are using an IPSec tunnel with AES encryption <- as a result of a previous answer pointing to the incompatibility in the hardware encryption.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Network Topology

IP Phone
Draytek Vigor 2830n

IPSec VPN <

Draytek Vigor 2820
Nortel 2550 Switch
BCM Phone System

It's important to note that although the switch is managed externally (By British Telecom), I don't believe this issue is caused by the switch config. Mainly because it works fine when I set the VPN to be the default route.

Routing Table (Remote Site)

Key: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, * - default, ~ - private
*            0.0.0.0/ 0.0.0.0          via PUBLIC IP   WAN2
S~       192.168.1.0/ 255.255.255.0    via REMOTE IP     VPN-1
S~       192.168.2.0/ 255.255.255.0    via REMOTE IP     VPN-1
C~       192.168.3.0/ 255.255.255.0    directly connected    LAN2
S~       192.168.4.0/ 255.255.255.0    via REMOTE IP     VPN-1
C    PUBLIC IP/ 255.255.255.224  directly connected    WAN2

Routing Table (Main Practice)

Key: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, * - default, ~ - private
*             0.0.0.0/         0.0.0.0 via BT GATEWAY IP,   WAN2
S        PUBLIC IP/ 255.255.255.255 via PUBLIC IP,   WAN2
*         BT GATEWAY IP/ 255.255.255.255 via EXTERNAL IP,   WAN2
C~        192.168.1.0/   255.255.255.0 is directly connected,    LAN
S~        192.168.2.0/   255.255.255.0 via REMOTE USER IP,    VPN
S~        192.168.3.0/   255.255.255.0 via REMOTE IP (BRANCH),    VPN
S~        192.168.4.0/   255.255.255.0 via REMOTE USER IP,    VPN

Update

I've narrowed it down to an IP/DHCP problem. Any phone with an IP address above 1.212 doesn't work from the remote branch. Any phone that has an IP address that is given out by the Windows DHCP scope that I maintain (1.1 - 1.150) works fine. The only other DHCP server is the BCM itself which has a scope of 1.210 - 1.240. I can't work out why a VPN tunnel'd phone wouldnt correctly communicate with the BCM.

If I make a call to an external number (Mobile for example) it works fine. If a caller calls our reception and then they transfer the call to the remote branch, we can't hear the colleague transferring the call (explaining who's calling etc.) but once the call is transferred it works fine. As in we can hear the mobile caller and vica-versa.

We have a few small sites that each have a Draytek Vigor (various models) which are configured to create a company VPN. It's setup as follows:

Branch 1 (192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0) Accepts Incoming
Branch 2 (192.168.2.0/255.255.255.0) Dials Out
Branch 3 (192.168.3.0/255.255.255.0) Dials Out
Branch 4 (192.168.4.0/255.255.255.0) Dials Out

There is a IP phones system (BCM 50/Avaya) running in Branch 1 on 192.168.1.210. I would like to be able to put an IP phone in one of the other branches that will use the VPN tunnel to connect to Branch 1. I believe, from the engineer that installed it originally, that this is a common thing to do. However, all the documents I have read state that the Branches must be on different subnets.

So, how do I make the IP phone work if it's on a separate subnet? Would it work correctly if I manually set the IP of the phone to 192.168.1.XX from a Branch other than Branch 1?

I have a USB GSM modem (HUAWEI E160). I got some software on a Windows laptop that lets me place phone calls and send texts via the modem, to regular phones. Is there any way to do something similar on UNIX/Linux?
What I'm trying to do is send NAGIOS alerts via phone. I've set up a script which creates an MP3 (Using text2wave and LAME) so all I need to do now is get it to send the audio file via a phone line, it doesn't have to do anything complicated other than;
Place the call
Wait for pick-up
Play the message
Hang up