VoIP + SonicWall tz 170 configuration Nightmare

T1OC

Hi!

We have been trying to get in place VoIP system.
We have had Sonicwall tz 170 already on our server.
Our VoIP provider has assest our site and promised there would be no problems with the set up. We got lovely new Polycom phones in place. This was about 4 months ago. Since then the service has not been working properly. Every day we need to restart Sonicwall 5 times a day to be able to use phones. Given that, we still miss calls, can not access voice mail, have call drops, dead calls, crackling noises, etc. :eek:

Our provider has tried to help us reconfiguire our Sonicwall so that it could “talk to” Sonicwall, however - unsuccessfully. We have been suggested a solution – to go off and spend money on re-cabling job, for which we need to cover the costs ourselves. Other then that we have not received any other recommendations for solution to the issue.

Has anyone have an experience with similar or the same setup? Have you managed to have the VoIp setup and working as it should with the Sonicwall? Do you have any recommendations as for how could we precede it further to have this VoIP working OK?

Thanks a mill!

T10C

guigui

I had a previous experience with a sonicwall and voip and I needed to open outgoing ports toward the SIP proxy' of the voip provider.

One important thing is to decrease the registration expiry time of the phones (by default it's an hour), to 110 second or something like that : since firewall keep routes open for a set amount of time. You must make sure that it doesn't forget about your phones.

Specify a STUN server in your phone's configuration. Your provider should have one or can advise you one.

That should help.

T1OC

Thank you very much for your kind reply. We shall post results after the trial of implementing your suggestions. Thanks again.

T1OC

We've tried that and plenty of other tricks. Our provider was sweatting themselves off to get this going. No positive results. Our Sonicwall simply refused to talk to the VoIP! Something to do with VPN feature issues. We're giving up on this one it seams. I found plenty of other forums and people discussing similar issues between Sonicwall and VoiPP, so be aware! Thanks a lot.

rikili

Could you setup a DMZ, and put your VoIP devices in it? I never tryed SonicWall, but I had issues with other Firewalls, and the DMZ always worked fine!

johnmd

Does the firewall support sip ALG?
Is it inbound or outbound or both that doesn;t work properly?
Are the sip phones actually registering correctly with the provider.
If you have a spare PC you can build a trixbox and configure an IAX2 trunk on it,this will work fine behind the firewall as it was designed to work with NAT.

T1OC

Thank you for all your replies and suggestions. On the end of the day, our provider managed to "avoid" our Sonic wall and the set up goes "around" it instead of "through" it, if that makes any sense to your technical minds. The system is stable now and we are happy enough. Thanks again for your contribution and time.