Knowledgebase

Theory of operation

VoIP Bonding refers to the SmartNode10k capability to use two available VoIP Ethernet ports as a bonding pair. When the active port becomes unusable (cable disconnected, limited connectivity), other port is used to transport Ethernet traffic.
VOIP interface bonding is available starting with SmartMedia release 2.7.34. Detection of port failure is currently achieved using two methods:

1. Ethernet PHY polling for ethernet cable presence in VoIP interface
2. Sending IPv4 ping requests to a known host to ensure that a logical IP path is available to the unit.

The voip0 (first VoIP port) MAC and IP addresses are used on both VoIP ports of SmartNode10k when VoIP bonding is activated. In bonding mode voip1 port MAC and IP address are not usable (f.e. protocol stacks assigned to voip1 will not work and voip1 will not respond to ICMP requests). Therefore IP services and stacks (such as SIP, SIGTRAN and port ranges) must be assigned to voip0 exclusively.
VoIP Bonding feature also causes the SmartNode10k report the state of the bonding pair only as the voip0 interface. For instance the IPv4 statistics reported by the Web Portal for voip0 are effective for the whole bonding pair. The PHY state is also corresponding to the bonding pair (so it would only be down if both voip ports are down). To know the true state of the physical voip0 and voip1 ports, the SNMP protocol must be used.
The feature has no effect on Virtual IP Interfaces configured in the Web Portal. Virtual IP Interfaces configured on either voip0 or voip1 physical ports still work exactly the same way not minding the VoIP Bonding.

Web Portal presentation

VoIP0 Port Status

Since VoIP0 and VoIP1 are bonded together, VoIP0 represents an aggregated status of the bonded ports. This means VoIP0 will be shown as "RED" only if both VoIP0 and VoIP1 ports are unavailable.

VoIP1 Port Status

VoIP1 port status represents its own physical connectivity.

Web Portal Status menu behaviour

VOIP interface states will be displayed in 'Menu -> Status -> Hardware Units -> IP Interfaces' the following way

Implementation

VOIP bonding feature requires performing reconfigurations on SmartNode10k unit TelcoBoard level, which needs to performed by Patton Electronics Engineer. Please contact Patton Support for assistance.