When most hardware-based phones boot, they can check a configuration server for a configuration file. The configuration file is generally transferred by the phone with TFTP, FTP, or HTTP. The configuration file format varies for each phone vendor but typically the configuration file will have the MAC address (Media Access Control address, or more commonly known as the Ethernet hardware address, which is unique to every Ethernet device) of the phone in its name.
The sipXecs system knows how to generate configuration files for many different types of IP phones. The currently supported IP phones were covered in Chapter 2 in the Equipment selection
section. Any phone for which sipXecs generates a configuration file is considered to be a managed phone.
Unmanaged phones are devices for which sipXecs cannot generate the configuration files. These devices need to be manually configured or the administrator must generate his or her own configuration files and place them in the phone...