Devices

Devices

Nova PBX auto-provisions popular IP phone brands. Register a phone once by MAC address and the platform handles the rest: when the phone contacts the SIPSTACK provisioning server it receives a configuration file that sets its SIP account, extension, key layout, and phone features — no manual SIP credential entry required.

Navigate to Nova PBX → Devices → Devices. Viewing this page requires View Devices or Manage Devices (or View PBX settings / Manage PBX settings and devices); registering and editing phones requires Manage Devices or Manage PBX settings and devices.

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Supported brands and models

The model catalog covers 60+ phones across three vendors. Picking a model unlocks the on-screen key-layout preview and accurate provisioning templates.

Brand	Auto-provisioning	Models
Yealink	Full (SIP NOTIFY push)	T3x / T4x / T5x desk series, W5x / W7x DECT, CP conference, EXP50 expansion
Grandstream	Full (SIP NOTIFY push), plus an hourly check	GXP and GRP desk series, GBX20, DP DECT, GAC conference
Poly	Full (SIP NOTIFY push)	VVX series, Edge E series, CCX series
Other	Generic	Registers without catalog metadata; may need manual phone-side config

Note

When you apply changes, SIPSTACK asks each registered phone to re-sync, and it downloads its new settings right away. Grandstream phones also check the provisioning server every hour on their own.

If you change the SIP password of an extension that is on a Grandstream phone and that phone could not be asked to re-sync, the Apply tells you so. The phone keeps the old password until its next hourly check-in. Reboot it to apply the change now.

SIPSTACK can keep phones on a firmware version you choose — see Firmware pinning. Without a pin, SIPSTACK leaves firmware alone: keep phones on the vendor’s recommended release yourself; each setup guide shows how.

How auto-provisioning works

Your whole organization shares one provisioning URL and one provisioning PIN:

https://<slug>:<PIN>@cfg.sipstack.com/<slug>/

<slug> is your tenant slug (also the HTTP Basic Auth username) and <PIN> is your provisioning PIN. Both live in Nova PBX → System → PBX Settings → Provisioning Access — not on this page. There are no per-device passwords: the provisioning server tells your phones apart by the MAC address you register here.

1. Generate the PIN once in Provisioning Access and put the URL in DHCP option 160 on the network your phones use (steps per DHCP server). Phones that cannot use DHCP take the same values typed into their own provisioning settings — the register page shows the fields per manufacturer.
2. You register the device in Switchboard (MAC address + brand, optionally model and a starting template).
3. You assign an extension to line 1 and click Apply Changes. Applying publishes the device’s configuration file to the provisioning server — until you apply, the server has nothing to hand the phone.
4. The phone boots, picks up the URL, authenticates with the slug and PIN, and downloads its configuration: SIP server, account credentials, extension number, key layout, and phone features (time zone, codecs, BLF keys).

Rotating the PIN keeps the old one valid for a 24-hour grace window — update DHCP option 160 at every site inside it.

Registration needs a PIN first

Until someone generates the PIN, the register page blocks with Generate your provisioning PIN first — phones would get 401 from the provisioning server, so there is nothing useful to register yet. If you do not have the Manage PBX settings and devices permission, ask a PBX admin to generate it.

Registering a device

1. Navigate to Nova PBX → Devices → Devices and click Register device.

   

2. Enter the MAC address (format AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF; the sticker is on the back of the phone). The manufacturer is auto-detected from the MAC prefix where possible.

3. Pick the Manufacturer and (optionally) the Model — choosing a model shows a live preview of the phone’s physical key layout. For a DECT system, register the base station, never a handset.

4. Optionally add a Description (“Reception desk”) and pick a Device Template to pre-fill the programmable keys (see Device Templates).

5. Click Register device.

You land in the key editor: assign an extension to line 1, drag extensions onto BLF / speed-dial slots, and follow the on-screen setup steps for your manufacturer. Finally, click Apply Changes in the banner to push the staged configuration live.

Assigning extensions

Extension assignment happens at the line level, in the device editor (device page → Open editor, or the Keys & Lines tab):

• Line 1 is the device’s primary extension — what it rings as and dials out from.
• Multi-line phones can carry additional extensions on lines 2+, or span one line across several physical keys (shared-line appearance).
• One extension can run on multiple devices simultaneously (desk phone + softphone); one device line carries exactly one extension.

DECT base stations use a Handsets tab instead — assign one extension per handset slot, then pair each handset to the base over the air. See DECT Cordless Phones.

Device detail

Click any row to open the device.

Tab	What’s there
Keys & Lines	SIP line assignments, programmable-key table, live phone-layout preview, link to the drag-and-drop editor
Handsets (DECT only)	One slot per handset — assign or clear extensions
Settings	Per-device overrides: time zone, NTP, codec preset, admin password
Status	Provisioning state, last-provisioned time / IP, firmware, quick actions

Quick actions (Status tab)

• Reprovision — asks the phone to re-sync: it re-downloads its settings without a reboot. Use after changing keys or settings.
• Reboot phone — asks the phone to restart (briefly drops in-progress calls). Try Reprovision first.
• Preview config — renders the exact config file the phone will fetch, for troubleshooting. SIP and admin passwords are masked in the preview.

Reprovision and Reboot tell you what actually happened. A request that could not be delivered is never reported as sent:

Result	Reprovision	Reboot phone
Sent	”Re-sync request sent. If the phone is online it downloads its new settings within a minute; otherwise it updates at its next scheduled check-in."	"Reboot request sent. If the phone is online it restarts within a minute.”
Offline — the phone system is offline	”The phone system is offline, so no request was sent. The phone updates at its next scheduled check-in.”	Same message.
Not ready — setup is incomplete	Assign an extension to the device (or one of its lines) and apply, or finish setting up the phone system first.	Same.
Not supported — this phone model has no remote re-sync or restart	”This phone model can’t be re-synced remotely. It updates at its next scheduled check-in.”	Power-cycle the phone to restart it.
Failed — the request could not be sent	”The re-sync request could not be sent. The phone updates at its next scheduled check-in; reboot it to update now."	"The reboot request could not be sent. Power-cycle the phone to restart it.”

A phone that is not currently registered gets nothing to receive, so Reprovision reports it as not sent; it still updates at its next scheduled check-in.

If a phone’s provisioning credentials are the problem, the fix is organization-wide, not per device: rotate the PIN in Provisioning Access and update DHCP option 160.

Provisioning status

Status	Meaning
Registered	Configuration published to the provisioning server for this device.
Pending	A push was attempted but has not succeeded — apply again to retry.
Not Connected	Never pushed: the device has no published configuration yet.

What these do not tell you

These statuses describe what SIPSTACK has published, not what the phone has fetched — the provisioning server does not report back per-phone downloads. To confirm a specific phone is really pulling its file, check the phone’s own status screen, or fetch its config yourself with curl -I -u <slug>:<PIN> https://cfg.sipstack.com/<slug>/<MAC>.cfg.

A device with no extension on any line cannot be provisioned at all: nothing is ever published for it, so it sits at Not Connected indefinitely. Assign an extension to line 1 and apply.

Tip

Bulk rollout: register every phone first with descriptive labels, then boot them one-by-one.

Config history and rollback

Every time a phone’s settings are published to the provisioning server, SIPSTACK keeps a copy. Open a device and go to Status → Config history to see when each version was published and whether it came from an Apply or an automatic retry. Click View on a version to see what changed from the one before it.

• Passwords are never kept. SIP passwords, admin and user passwords, and your provisioning PIN are removed before a version is saved.
• The newest 20 versions are kept per device. A publish that changes nothing does not add a version.

Roll back to this version restores that version’s device settings, lines, keys, template and firmware pin. Current SIP passwords are kept — a rollback never brings back an old password. The rollback is a change like any other: apply it, and the phone picks it up as usual.

Firmware pinning

A pin keeps phones on a firmware version you choose from the SIPSTACK firmware catalog. Pin a version for a phone model in PBX Settings → Firmware by model (it applies to every phone of that model in your organization), or for one device in the Firmware card on the device page (Status tab). A device pin wins over the model pin.

• The phone checks for the pinned version when it next fetches its settings, and installs it if it is running a different version. Installing firmware restarts the phone, so set pins outside busy hours.
• Removing a pin does not change the phone’s firmware. It keeps what it has, and SIPSTACK stops asking it to check.
• A pin only applies to phones of the same brand as the firmware.
• Changing a pin counts as a change: apply it to send it to your phones.

Bulk import

To register many phones at once, click Import devices on the Devices page and import a CSV file (Download template gives you the columns) with one phone per row and these columns:

Column	Required	Example
mac	Yes	80:5E:C0:12:34:56
manufacturer	Yes	yealink, polycom or grandstream
model	No	T54W
extension	No	221 — assigned to line 1
description	No	Reception desk
template	No	name of a device template

• Up to 500 rows per import.
• Validate first. Validate checks every row and reports any problem with it, such as a MAC that is already registered, without registering anything. Fix the file, then import.
• The import reports a result for each row, and the imported phones go out in one Apply at the end.
• You can turn on zero-touch provisioning for the imported phones in the same step.

Zero-touch provisioning

Zero-touch lets a phone set itself up straight out of the box, on any network, without DHCP option 160 or typing anything on the phone. SIPSTACK registers the phone’s MAC with the vendor’s redirect service (Yealink, Poly or Grandstream). When the phone first starts, it asks its vendor where to get its settings and is sent to SIPSTACK.

• Turn it on for one phone from the Zero-touch card on the device page (Status tab), or for many phones at once by importing them with Import devices and ticking Register with the vendor’s zero-touch service. Registering a phone in SIPSTACK does not turn zero-touch on by itself.
• Your provisioning PIN (optional). Enter it when you turn on zero-touch and the phone signs in to SIPSTACK without asking. The PIN is passed to the vendor and never stored by SIPSTACK. If you leave it out, the phone asks for its provisioning credentials on its screen the first time. After you rotate your PIN, re-enter it for phones registered with the old one.
• Deleting a device removes it from the vendor’s redirect service automatically, so the phone no longer gets sent to SIPSTACK.
• Each phone shows its zero-touch status. A registration that fails is retried automatically.

Replacing or re-provisioning a phone

• Replacing hardware: register the new MAC, assign the same extension to line 1, unplug the old phone and delete its entry. The new phone fetches the extension’s config on boot.
• Re-provisioning after factory reset: the device entry stays valid — the phone re-fetches its config on next boot as soon as it has the provisioning URL again (from DHCP option 160, or re-entered on the phone). Nothing needs to be reset in Switchboard.

Common questions

Phone says “registration failed” / “no service”. If you just changed the extension’s SIP password and the Apply warned that the phone did not get the re-sync request, reboot the phone. Otherwise the device likely hasn’t fetched its config. Check that (1) your organization’s PIN has been generated, (2) the phone has the provisioning URL (DHCP option 160 or the per-manufacturer fields on the register page), (3) the MAC matches what you registered, (4) line 1 has an extension assigned, and (5) you clicked Apply Changes after configuring. Step-by-step: A new phone won’t pull its configuration.

BLF keys or the voicemail light don’t update. BLF (busy lamp field) and voicemail message-waiting subscriptions require authentication: the phone must answer the challenge with the same SIP credentials it registers with. Phones provisioned by SIPSTACK already have them. On a third-party or manually configured phone, check that the SIP auth user and password are set on the account. SIPSTACK support can temporarily disable this check while you fix the phone.

Can phones show our shared phonebook? Not yet — see Phonebook.

“This MAC is already registered.” Each MAC is unique on the platform. If you bought a used phone, the previous owner’s registration may still exist — contact support to release it.

Can I register a softphone here? No — softphones (Pulse mobile/desktop) self-register through the user’s login. This page is for SIP hardware only; the two converge at the extension level.

Devices vs Extensions? Extensions are user-side (number, voicemail, forwarding rules). Devices are hardware-side (physical phones). See Extensions.