Upgrading Polycom firmware

If you have a mixed bag of Polycom kit in your office, be sure to check out the VoIP SIP Software Release Matrix to check on compatible versions. In our case, I chose SIP version 3.1.3RevC since it’s compatible with both the IP 430 and the IP 4000. I’ll probably bump up to SIP version 3.2.0 for the IP 430; just not today.

Also pay special attention to the release notes. Just because a Firmware version is on the download page for a particular model doesn’t mean it will work. We had to mix and match with Firmware version 4.1.3 for the IP 4000 and 4.2.0 for the IP 430. This is difficult (but not impossible) since pre-4.0 Firmware versions look for bootrom.ld instead of modelnumber.bootrom.ld in 4.0 and higher versions.

The solution was simple; I dropped the following files into place:

  • IP 430 4.2.0 Bootrom (Split) 2345-11402-001.bootrom.ld
  • IP 430 3.1.3RevC SIP (Split) 2345-11402-001.sip.ld
  • IP 4000 4.1.3 Bootrom (Split) 2201-06642-001.bootrom.ld
  • IP 4000 3.1.3RevC SIP (Split) 2201-06642-001.sip.ld
  • Generic 4.1.3 Bootrom (Combined) bootrom.ld

This way both the IP 430 and the IP 4000 will properly flash themselves with the 4.1.3 Combined image, then the IP 430 will step up to the 4.2.0 Split image on its next reboot.

For even more fun, the new macaddress.cfg files support per-model config files, so I also created phone1-3.1.3C.cfg and sip-3.1.3C.cfg to selectively upgrade a few phones for testing.

Oh, and remember to move bootrom.ld out of the way if you only want to test upgrade a few phones you’ve pre-modified config files for. You really don’t want to brick your whole office, do you?