As briefly mentioned in a previous blog article the latest RMX software release now supports the ability to directly register and advertise presence for a Virtual Meeting Room (VMR). Previously calls from Lync clients to VMRs would be placed to a SIP URI that displayed Presence Unknown, which could seem like an odd scenario for users expecting to see some type of presence before placing calls to a user or contact.
Prerequisites
Before enabling SIP registration and presence for any Virtual Meeting Room on the RMX conferencing bridge the standard OCS/Lync integration steps must first be completed. The latest UC Deployment Guide covers this configuration in detail. It includes creating an SSL certificate for the RMX that is trusted by the Lync server, configuring the RMX with the proper SIP settings, and then adding routes and an application pool in Lync for the RMX.
Once video calls are working from Lync to the RMX utilizing the static routing configuration then these additional steps can be completed to setup direct registration of specific virtual meeting room on the RMX.
The only requirements within Lync are that a dedicated user account is created in Active Directory and then SIP-enabled in Lync. If external or federated Microsoft SIP users should be allowed to call the virtual meeting room then the account needs to have the External Access policy configured to allow Federated and/or External Access as well, but this is not required for internal use only.
The password value and policy is also not important as the RMX does not utilize the individual passwords of each AD user account during registration. By leveraging the Trusted Application configuration detailed in the deployment guide the RMX is able register as any existing Lync user without that account’s individual password since it is a trusted host. This prevents having to deal with multiple passwords or password expiration issues within the RMX configuration.
In the 7.2 RMX software release there are currently a limited number of meeting rooms which can be registered to Lync. Both RMX 1500/2000 models support up to 10 simultaneously registered rooms, while the RMX 4000 supports up to 20. In the next software release these limits will be increased to 24 and 48, respectively.
Lync Configuration
Before creating the Lync user account the name of the virtual meeting room must be selected. (For simplicity’s sake the user logon name and SIP URI will use the same value, but this is not a requirement as only the SIP URI is important to the RMX for proper call routing.)
- Create a new Active Directory user object. In this example an account name of msdemovmr was selected.
- Enable the new Active Directory user account in Lync using either the Control Panel or the Management Shell. The SIP Address (URI) in this example happens to match the user logon name, but as mentioned before this is not required.
Enable-CsUser -Identity SCHERTZ\msdemovmr -RegistrarPool lync.schertz.local -SipDomain mslync.net -SipAddress sip:msdemovmr@mslync.net
- Grant External User Access and Federated User Access to the new Lync account if external and/or federated contacts should be able to place video calls into virtual meeting room. For internal-only scenarios this step can be skipped.
Grant-CsExternalAccessPolicy -Identity SCHERTZ\msdemovmr -PolicyName “External Access”
In this example Lync has a User policy called ‘External Access’ with these levels enabled and that policy was assigned to the new user. If the Global policy already has these levels enabled then external and federated access will work by default.
RMX Configuration
As mentioned in the prerequisites section above the RMX is already configured for basic Lync integration, which includes defining the selected SIP domain. Typically the default or primary SIP domain is used, but when more than one SIP domain exists in Lync it is important to understand that the registered VMRs will need to utilize Lync accounts with SIP URIs defined in the same SIP domain.
The Server Domain Name setting in the RMX SIP Servers configuration must match the SIP URI for the Lync account created for this purpose (e.g. mslync.net).
The additional configuration on the RMX simply requires that a Conference Profile is enabled for SIP registration, and that a Meeting Room is created specifically to match the new Lync user account.
Only one Conference Profile per RMX can be configured for SIP registration, so all registered meeting rooms will need to use this same profile. (This limits all registered meeting rooms to the same settings for Line Rate, Encryption, Layouts, etc. To leverage multiple different meeting room configurations for Microsoft SIP callers then the traditional static routing integration needs to be used.)
- Using the RMX management console create a new Conference Profile (or edit an existing profile). On the Network Services tab enable the SIP Registration checkbox.
- Next create a new Meeting Room on the RMX. Enter the user name portion of Lync account’s SIP URI for the Routing Name. (e.g. msdemovmr). The Display Name can be anything, although matching the Lync account’s display name is recommended. The ID can be any valid, unique numeric range used to route calls to that specific meeting room.
- Once the new meeting room is created check the Meeting Rooms list and verify the SIP Registration status of the new room shows as ‘OK’ and ‘Registered’.
- Presence should now be displayed as Available in Lync for this user account. Audio and Video calls to this VMR will also be functional at this point.
Routing Name Requirements
The Routing Name of the RMX Meeting Room must exactly match the SIP URI of the Lync account to be registered as. Do not include the entire SIP URI (e.g. msdemovmr@mslync.net), only enter the user name portion of the address (e.g. msdemovmr).
Also make sure that the Routing Name is entered all in lowercase. This is important as although SIP is not case sensitive H.323 can be, and the RMX supports the unique case-sensitivity of H.323 in this field. So regardless how the case is configured on the Lync server it must always be entered in lowercase on the RMX Meeting Room as the SIP INVITE will automatically use lowercase in the addresses. (A suggested practice to help avoid this potential issue as well as simplify the configuration would be to use the numerical ID for the Routing Name and SIP URI, as numbers do not have different cases.)
To demonstrate this behavior the SIP Address for a Lync account was configured to use a mixture of upper and lower case letters. This same format is retained throughout the Control Panel and Management Shell since the raw attribute itself was stored in this format.
But when looking at a SIP INVITE it is evident that all SIP URIs are sent in lowercase characters only.
Instance-Id: 0000071D
Direction: incoming
Peer: lync.schertz.local:52716
Message-Type: request
Start-Line: INVITE sip:msdemovmr@mslync.net;maddr=lync.schertz.local SIP/2.0
From: <sip:jeff@mslync.net>;tag=48b45ea5e1;epid=172d0a520e
To: <sip:msdemovmr@mslync.net>
CSeq: 1 INVITE
Call-ID: 16dcda1fdf954cecb83365e33c73f122
This lowercase SIP URI must match the configured Meeting Room, otherwise the call will be incorrectly dropped into the default entry queue on the RMX. Hence the requirement to use only lowercase characters in the Routing Name.
doesn't need set password for the user msdemovmr in AD ? Does msdemovmr register with Lync using no password ?
No, read the section where I explained that the Trusted Application configuration allows the host to register any Lync account without using passwords.
I set the host which lync client installed on as the trusted application ,but lync client can't sign in without password.is any difference between my example and rmx virtual meeting room sign in?
We have our own MCU ,and we want to realize the MCU virtual meeting room registering without password like RMX example,how should we do ?
Thank you .
Bill, the Lync client only supports Kerberos, NTLM, and Certificate authentication, it cannot utilize the TrustedApplication approach as it's is not an application but an endpoint. I suppose if you wrote your own software client using the Lync APIs then you could leverage this approach.
How can this be done for DMA? We do not use VM on the RMX we use the DMA. I have the certificate installed but can't get the Lync client to talk to DMA to make a call. Also I am having issues getting my RMX to register to Lync. I can make a call from the RMX to a Lync client but not the other way around.
Travis, DMA does not yet support direct VMR registration, so the the RMX behind the DMA will need to register the room itself for now. Regarding your RMX setup if inbound calls from Lync to the RMX are working then you clearly have the certificate correct and routing is good as you have TLS working in that direction. For RMX to Lync call issues this is usually related to an incorrect configuration within the RMX SIP Servers parameters. Email me directly if you like and I can assist you with checking your configuration.
Jeff,
Is this still the case or can the DMA now register VMRs in Lync?
P
DMA does not yet support registration, nor presence in virtual meeting rooms.
[…] and supports the best-case scenario of routing all normal calls to the DMA yet still supports the additional configuration steps for calling presence-enabled, registered meeting rooms directly on the […]
Hi
Thanks for sharing amazing blog post.
[…] Although the Contact scenario simplifies searching and calling there still is no presence information available for the meeting room. But this gap has been addressed by Polycom and the is covered in detail in the previous article RMX Virtual Meeting Registration in Lync. […]
Hi Jeff – firstly thanks for your blog – excellently written!
I have a quick question. For my RMX on 7.0.2.68 when I go into Conference Profile I do not have a "Network Services tab" – the last tab is "Recording". Do I need to upgrade to get this functionality? I so, on my software I presume the only way is a AD Contact added with the routing in the Attribute Editor (I think you explain this in an earlier blog).
You'll need to upgrade at least 7.1 for any Lync integration or up 7.2 to support SIP registration of Meeting Rooms into Lync.
Hi Jeff!
great blog..
I did integration RMX 7.6 with Lync server… working great.
right now i'm dialing directly to Conferences by ID ( 8233@rmx.com )
i want to register the main EntryQ to the Lync so people can find it online in the BuddyList of Lync.
i did everything via your direction but the EntryQ is still "Fail" register status.
Need your help..
Thanks
Itay Moshe
Itay, I actually haven't attempted to SIP register the EQ and I'm not sure if it is even supported to do so. I'll see if I can find out from engineering if that capability is included or not.
Have you found out whether the entry queue can 'register' to the Lync server?
It may function but it's not currently supported to register an Entry Queue, only Meeting Rooms.
Grate article. It’s more clear raiser official GUID.
Can you help us to setup RMX 1500 with Lync EDGE? We connected it with FE and everything was fine. But when we try integrate it with EDGE getting fail.
Make sure that you have enabled the 'MS' ICE setting in the SIP Advanced options correctly. The Domain User Name paramers will be only the name portion of the SIP URI for the dedicated Lync user account created for ICE (e.g. 'rmxice').
Jeff,
Am I right in thinking that with the newer version of the RMX (>8.1) a separate sub-domain is no longer required (as outlined here – http://blog.schertz.name/2011/08/polycom-dma-and-… meaning you don't need to configure Edge and ICE in this way any more. Can you confirm?
Thanks,
David
No, that is incorrect. Nothing else about the configuration with Lync Server has changed in any way. So other than the process used to import that certificate everything else is identical. This article explains in detail when you should use a separate domain namespace for the MatchURI.
Jeff, great info. I have a VMR set up with a lync account on my RMX and presence shows as available, no problem dialing in and connecting. My only issue is presence state always shows available even when dialed into the room. Is this normal behaviour?
This is expected behavior in the current release of firmware. The 'Busy' red presence status will be added in the next release.
Jeff, I have gotten the RMX setup and we can make calls to 6111@polycom.domain.com using the room ID of 6111. But, when we try to create an AD account like testroom@polycom.domain.com and then Lync enable then setup a room in the rmx named testroom the call fails. Of course we never do see the room presance. We are running the code 7.1 so we are not sure what we are doing wrong here.
That functionality was added in version 7.2, which I've explained in the original article linked in the first paragraph. This will not work on 7.1.
Hi Jeff, any suggestions on how to troubleshoot? I'm working on a RMX1500 v.7.7.0.158 where one is able to dial the existing sample rooms (i.e. 1001 maple) with a Lync Client but a Lync test room with routing name=AD account name fails to register.
I would look at the SIP traffic between the RMX and the Lync Server to see why the registration is failing. It should work if you follow the article exactly.
Hi Jeff, firstly thanks for your excellent blog which is the best resource for Polycom/Lync integration on the net! I had a lab with Lync2010 and RMX integration working fine with meeting room presence. I have upgraded to RMX 7.7.0.158 and Lync2013 and now although I see the meeting room showing "Registered" on the RMX, the presence in Lync does not change (stays offline). Any idea why this is not working?
The RMX is not yet officially supported with Lync 2013. The latest 7.8 release does contain some additional fixes for Lync 2013 (and is supported with the Preview version of Lync 2013) so if you upgrade to 7.8 you should get most of the feature working, but not that it is still not supported so not all of the functionality may there. Official support will be announced for Lync 2013 in the near future.
Hello everyone,
I have installed LyncServer2013 Standard, Edge Server and I have made integration with Polycom RMX2000, all it's fine when we are calling from inside network to any VMR (virtual meeting room), but when any external user is trying to call from external network to a VMR he can connect but cannot see any video from anybody even if in that room are someone connected from inside my organization network, very weard, can someone tell what I need to do to make available to make video call to a VMR from outside my network? My edgeserver is working well because when i make video call with any lync user from external organization network to another lync user is working very well
Thank you!.
The RMX is not yet supported with Lync 2013, so only partial functionality is there with the latest firmware. As announced earlier this year a supported firmware update for Lync 2013 is due around June.
Hi Jeff,
I have a federated environment where in I have a LYNC organization in federation with the customer's LYNC organization. At our end, we have got Polycom RMX setting up behind the DMA. The Federation between the two LYNC organizations are working fine. But when the customer's LYNC client tries to call to the Polycom's VMR, it does not get connected. THe error message is "The call was not completed or has ended". Though it is working fine from our end.
Is it required to have a certificate from the customer's domain to be added at DMA end?
Amit Bajaj
Is ICE properly configured so that external Lync users can negotiate media? Is your MatchURI as defined in the route for the DMA the same as a SIP domain which is also defined in Lync and configured for federation? If your SIP domain is 'company.com' but you've used 'video.company.com' then users federated with your primary SIP domain cannot reach anything in the unknown namespace used for the MatchURI. You would need to define that string as a secondary SIP domain in Lync and them configure federation for it.
Hi Jeff,
I have deployment RMX2000 v7.8 integration Lync 2010, but, the meeting room fails registred in sip.
In RMX don´t have errors.
Any suggestions?
thanks,
Rafael
Rafael, it's hard to say but I would run a SIP trace to see what is happening when you enable registration on the Meeting Room on the RMX. The simple way to test this is to temporarily assign the Meeting Room to a different Conference Profile, like the default video profile. Then start your SIP trace on the Front-End server(s) and then reassign the Meeting Room to the conference profile with SIP Registration enabled.
Hi Jeff,
Captured the log on the FE but not show any communication RMX with Lync.
Any suggestions?
I will open a case on the polycom.
thanks,
Rafael
Hi Jeff,
Our integration works perfectly for a few days and then stops working.
It's doing this on two different sites with two different RMX units…
Once we reboot the RMX it's all good again.
The errors on the Lync Front End server are :
Message expired in the outbound queue before it could be sent
SIPPROXY_E_ROUTING_MSG_SEND_EXPIRED
Just wondering if you've seen this problem before please?
Thanks
Graeme
I've seen it reported before; please open a support ticket to get this tracked properly.
to us it is the same fail, we have no idea
Hi all,
We've been working with Polycom to resolve this issue and they have now made the following statement :
"Issue due to RMX (SIP-task) lack of resource for building connections. This issue will be fixed in 8.1.7."
So it looks like there's some light at the end of the tunnel.
Thanks
Graeme
Hi Jeff
I had some difficulty getting the registration going, but that has been resolved and now I see presence.
Problem is …. If I delete the RMX VMR, presence never changes (stays green).
Is that normal ?
How can I resolve ?
That should go away when the RMX is rebooted, but here is work-around. Instead of simply deleting the VMR (which depending on the version of RMX may prevent unregistration) you should change the meeting room's assigned conference profile to something else (like the default Video profile) which will trigger a SIP unregistration. Then you can delete the meeting room from the RMX.
Hi Jeff,
Nice blog you have. Do you think it's possible to connect a RMX located in company A, which has no Lync environment, to a Lync environment in company B through its Edge Server?
No that is not possible. The RMX is considered an internal server role to Lync and must routable (no NAT). This connection cannot be facilitated by an Edge Server or go over the Internet in general. If you had a private circuit or VPN between the to environments then you could do this, but it would be unsupported for the most part.
Thanks for the answer, Jeff. Do you know if there is any Polycom device that is capable to connect a company without Lync to another company that has Lync for audio and video calls?
I'm not sure what you are asking, that is a pretty generic scenario. Can you provide a few more details?
Hi Jeff, do you have anything on why an LRS can't join a Polycom VMR? We haven't had luck with this and are trying to find a technical explanation.
Make sure you are running the 15.04 firmware release on your LRS.
When setting up Dial In meetings in Lync can this be setup so the RMX's VMR are the Dial In meeting numbers for Lync? If so how is this done?
Thanks
No, not that I'm aware of. Stay tuned for some new capabilities which should address the scenario you appear to be working towards though.
hey Jeff, do you know why when I am vpn'd into my internal network, and signed into Lync, I can't dial into a VMR conference with the MCU prefix/conference ID (ex. 879067@xxx.xxxx.com) but can dial into it if I use its available username/sip uri corresponding to that conference id which was created in active directory and registered to show as available in Lync (ex. demovmr@xxx.xxxx.com)? I can however use either method if I am actually connected to the internal network and not VPN'd in.
It appears that the VPN route may somehow be preventing ICE from working on calls to static routes, but I have not seen that before.
If i have an edge defined in my topology…. and we add the RMX as a trusted application for RC, will i have to also setup edge services as well including federation? even though i do not want external access…
Will the RMX automatically try and use the EDGE for ICE as it is defined in topology?
my RMX is on SIP video.X and my Lync clients on business.x
You do not need to allow federation but you do need to enable ICE on the RMX regardless. This article covers the ICE configuration: http://blog.schertz.name/2015/03/polycom-rpp-configuration-for-lync
Can we add lync dialin details to existing poly com VMR meetings by editing in outlook?
Not sure what you mean. Is this in reference to PCO?