Setup SiP on 7940 - 7960
How to setup SIP on a Cisco 7940-7960 IP telephone
Note: If you intend to use any XML IP Phone Applications on your phones, be aware that the SIP image of the Cisco IP Phones has limitations compared to the Skinny (SCCP) image. Data-centric Products such as the DashPhone Application Server and DashPhone CXP work better with the Skinny image. For example, the SIP image is not capable of rendering softkeys, and the firmware runs into intermittent timeouts upon pulling URLs.
Useful cisco.com links
- Cisco SIP IP Phone 7960 Technical Documentation - Introduction page with links to firmware & IP Phone Release Notes, as well as all Administrator and User Guides. Note: access to the software from this page requires an appropriately authorised cisco.com download account. (Alternate Link)
- Software Download: SIP IP Telephone 7940/7960 Software - Download page with v8.2(0) / 10-MAR-2006 Non-CallManager SIP Flash Image for 7940/7960 IP Phones (for authentication, use anonymous as the username and your email address as the password. Details on site.)
- Cisco 7940 and 7960 IP Phones Firmware Upgrade Matrix
- Cisco Tech Note (Document ID: 5455) - Converting a Cisco 7940/7960 CallManager Phone to a SIP Phone and the Reverse Process (Alternate Link) (PDF)
Cool third party sites
- Information Technology For You Too: Cisco 7940/7960 SIP Firmware Upgrade - Step by step upgrade instructions
- www.loligo.com/asterisk/Cisco/79xx - Miscellaneous notes, example configurations and ring tones for an Asterisk setup ..
Other voip-info.org pages
- Single step upgrade tutorial - description of a technique which allows the phones to completely update from old cisco images to the latest sip images. This may be particularly useful if you have a lot of phones to manage.
- Cisco 7960 P003AM730 firmware upgrade issue and workaround
- Configuring Cisco 79xx phones with Asterisk

Comments
333Upgading from 3.4 to 8.2 SIP
333Re: Upgrading SIP Image Procedure
333Re: Upgrading SIP Image Procedure
333Update 7940 firmware
App Load ID: P00305000600
Boot Load ID: PC0303010100
Version: 5.0 (6.0)
There is no SIP firmware. I've tried to follow the instructions above mentioned but nothing happens.
The phone connect to my TFTP server on local vlan and search only 2 files:
OS79XX.TXT
phoneMacAddress.cnf.xml
This files are correctly sent to phone but the firmware image don't load.
I've tried to put P0S3-07-40 firmware.
There is a way to hard resetting the 7940?
Any ideas? Thanks
333Unlocking a Cisco 7940/7960 phone with the SIP image
As of SIP version 7.4, you unlock by pressing 'Settings' button, enter '9' or scroll down to the 'Unlock Config' option and press the Select button.
It will prompt you for a password to enter.
Default password is 'cisco' unless you already set a different password before.
Enter the password then press the Accept button.
Your phone should now be unlocked, so that you may now alter the configuration.
333Setup TFTP server on the 7940/7960
Configure TFTP server on the 7940/7960.
Press “Select�
Go down to “Alternative TFTP�
Press “Yes�
Press “Save�
Go down to “Network Configuration�
Press “Select�
Scroll down to “TFTP Server�
Press “Edit�
Under “New TFTP Server� key in IP address of the server
Example: 192.168.0.5
Press “Validat.�
Press “Save�
Press “Save�
333Setup TFTP server on the 7940/7960
Configure TFTP server on the 7940/7960.
Press “Select�
Go down to “Alternative TFTP�
Press “Yes�
Press “Save�
Go down to “Network Configuration�
Press “Select�
Scroll down to “TFTP Server�
Press “Edit�
Under “New TFTP Server� key in IP address of the server
Example: 192.168.0.5
Press “Validat.�
Press “Save�
Press “Save�
333What happens if you tried to update to 7.3 w/o upgrading to 6.3
333Upgrading SIP Image Procedure
You must first update to sip image 6.3. Once the phone has 6.3 loaded then you can upgrade to 7.3.
Upgrading to 6.3:
You must obtain the following files:
SIPDefault.cnf
OS79XX.TXT
SIP image files for both 6.3 and 7.3 (you can only get these from cisco)
1. Setup the tftp server and put the files in the tftproot directory.
2. Edit OS79XX.TXT and put P0S3-06-3-00.
3. Edit SIPDefault.conf and put P0S3-06-3-00 as the image file.
** These files must be unix text files. no CR/LF. When editing these files use wordpad.
4. The phone will get the TFTP server address from DHCP using option 66. If you need to change it on the phone, goto Network Settings option Alternate TFTP and set it to yes. Then go to TFTP server and change the address to your TFTP server. How you do this depends on what image you have currently on your phone.
5. After setting the TFTP server, reboot the phone.
6. The phone should upgrade to 6.3. If you get a checksum error then your SIPDefault.cnf or SIP.cnf is not a text file.
7. Verify the sip version, on the PHONE goto Status -> Firmware versions.
Now you can upgrade to 7.3:
Edit OS79XX.TXT, SIP image 6.3 will look in this file.
P003-07-3-00
Edit SIPDefault.conf
P0S3-07-3-00
Reboot your phone:
It appears that SIP image 6.3 looks at OS79XX.txt for a new image. It will then load the new Application Loader (for 7.3). The new Universal Application Loader no longer looks at OS79XX.txt but instead only looks at SIPDefault.cnf. What the phone will do is load the new Application Loader and reboot. After rebooting, the phone will look in SIPDefault and see the P0S3-07-3-00 and load the new SIP image. After this is done you can edit the SIP.cnf file and update your config.
P.S. I forgot to mention that after upgrading from skinny to SIP you will need to reset the TFTP server address.
HOPE this helps.