New release : CTI Report - Pharmaceutical and drug manufacturing 

                 Download now

Hopper & Alcatel VoIP

May 2, 2012

Hopper & Alcatel VoIP

A new version of VoIP Hopper has just been released (Version 2.04 published on 26/04/2012) and notably provides support for Alcatel infrastructures.

As a reminder, VoIP Hopper is an evaluation tool that tests the capabilities of a PC to
It mimics the behavior of an IP phone on a VoIP infrastructure. In particular, it allows the detection of the VLAN associated with telephone traffic and then the integration into it.

In the case of an Alcatel infrastructure, VLAN assignment can be performed in various ways, including:

  • The AVA (Automatic VLAN Assignment) protocol, which is a specific Alcatel protocol, uses option 43 of DHCP requests to provide the VLAN to IP phones.
  • The LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) protocol which enables the discovery and exchange of network topology information between devices, including VLAN information.
  • Manually assigning the VLAN on the phone or switch.

For each of the three methods identified above, a test mode has been implemented in VoIP Hopper. This implementation was done in collaboration with Jason Ostrom, the creator of VoIP Hopper, whom I thank especially for his help and the time he spent integrating these features into his excellent tool.

Three modes are therefore available in the new version of VoIP Hopper:

  • The "-t 0" mode will emulate the behavior of an Alcatel IP phone configured to receive its VLAN using AVA and its IP via Alcatel-specific DHCP.
    The following DHCP options are modified in the "DHCP Discovery" and "DHCP Request" queries to be compatible with Alcatel:
    – Option 43 = 03 2B FF FF FF
    – Option 12: Host Name = ALCATEL-iptouch-AABBCCDDEEFF
    – Option 60: Vendor Class Identifier: «alcatel.noe.0»
    – Option 61: Client identifier = 01AABBCCDDEEFF
    where AABBCCDDEEFF is an Alcatel phone MAC address.

Note : This mode was created based in particular on the work of Cédric Baillet

  • The "-t 1" mode will emulate or listen (sniff) LLDP requests in order to retrieve the VoIP VLAN and then position itself within it (hop) and perform Alcatel-compatible DHCP requests.
    The modified DHCP options are the same as for the "-t 0" mode, except for option 43, which is equal to 03. 02 FF FF FF
  • The "-t 2" mode allows you to manually specify a VLAN in which VoIP Hopper will position itself to perform Alcatel-compatible DHCP requests.

Various MAC address-based protections can be in place on the switch:

  • Limitation to Alcatel MAC addresses (00:80:9F:XX:XX:XX) of the discovery of the VoIP VLAN by LLDP
  • Restricting the MAC addresses allowed on the port
  • …

A "-m" option is therefore available for all modes allowing spoofing a
The Alcatel MAC address was retrieved from the IP phone and these protections were bypassed.

Ultimately, the commands below allow you to adapt to different Alcatel configurations:

  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 0
  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 0 -m AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 1
  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 1 -m AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 2 -v 800
  • voiphopper -i eth0 -t 2 -v 800 -m AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

Since the Hopper VoIP tool is not limited to Alcatel-Lucent infrastructures, I invite you to take a look at its many other integration capabilities.

Good placement! … whether she owns it or not 😀

Contact