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Cisco VXC-2112: Firmware 

BIOS

The VXC-2112 has a Phoenix BIOS. Hit the DEL key on power-up to enter the setup screens.

NB I found I could only do this when the system was first powered up. You have to wait for the phone to initialise and then report 'Accessory Added: VXC connected'. Shortly after that you can press the power button on the VXC-2112 and use the DEL key to get into the BIOS. Thereafter, if you are running the native Cisco firmware, if you reboot without cycling the power you find you are trapped in the Cisco environment. Using the 'shutdown' or 'restart' menu options or the power button on the VXC-2112 does not let you get back to the BIOS however much you hammer the DEL key.

The default password for the BIOS is Fireport.

The BIOS identifies itself as "Phoenix MicroCore(tm) Setup Utility". The BIOS version in my unit was 0.3C-0407 dated 02/23/11.

The Main screen showed 256MB of RAM installed, but checking the Advanced tab showed that the video Frame Buffer Size was set to 256MB. (If you've apparently lost memory that's where it has gone). This can set to 64/128/256/512MB.

This screen also had a setting to allow Headless Boot. (i.e. It won't halt if there is no keyboard present).

The Power Management tab lets you define how the unit behaves when power is switched on (restored). Essentially the options are off/on/last state.

The Boot Device tab lets you play with the boot priority. I plugged in a 8GB SanDisk USB flash drive with Tiny Core Linux and moved that option to the top of the list. Having done this the screen showed:

1: USB Hard Disk Drive: SanDisk-(USB2.0) 2: USB Flash Device: 3. IDE Hard Disk Drive(IDE Flash) 128MB ATA Fl 4: Network Boot: VIA Networking Bootagent 5: USB Floppy Disk Drive: 6: USB CD-ROM Drive

Native Firmware

The VXC-2212 runs proprietary Cisco Software - The Cisco Virtualization Experience Client(?).

Mine was running version 7.0_213. The latest on Cisco's website is 8.0.215. To be able to download it you need a Cisco Service Contract.

 


Any comments? email me. Added September 2019