HelixNet IP Networking Guide
HelixNet IP Networking Guide
GUIDE
IP Network Guidance:
HelixNet Digital Partyline
Index
Introduction ...................................................................................................3
HelixNet Network Guidance ..........................................................................3
HelixNet "Network" Digital Partyline .............................................................4
Network Topology..........................................................................................5
Network Configuration ..................................................................................7
Firewall: TCP/UDP IP Ports.............................................................................9
Link-Master Mode..........................................................................................9
HelixNet Pairing by Name ..............................................................................10
Managed Ethernet Switch .............................................................................10
Unmanaged Ethernet Switch .........................................................................11
Hubs ...............................................................................................................11
Connecting HelixNet to Your Network ..........................................................11
Disable IMGP Snooping..................................................................................12
HelixNet Audio Bandwidth.............................................................................13
Power over Ethernet (PoE) Specification.......................................................17
Technical Support Options.............................................................................18
Glossary of Terms ..........................................................................................18
About Clear-Com............................................................................................22
Clear-Com Offices ..........................................................................................22
HelixNet This guide provides specifications, best practices and guidance for the integration of
Network HelixNet into an existing or new IP network. Several of the terms used in this paper are
Guidance technical in nature, please see the glossary at the end of the document for explanations
and definitions.
Figure 1
Network The HelixNet Main Station (HMS-4X), Remote Station (HRM-4X), Speaker Station (HKB-
Topology 2X) and Beltpack (HXII-BP) use a 100Mb Network Interface Card (NIC). Devices are
physically added to the network by connecting the RJ45 LAN port on the device to an
Ethernet switch port using a shielded CAT5 or CAT6 cable. HRM, HKB and HXII-BP units
can be powered using PoE Ethernet switches or a local power supply. To connect the
HMS-4X to the Ethernet switch, it must be fitted with a HLI-ET2
2-port Ethernet module (pictured). There are two ports
available on each module. The HLI-ET2 ports act as two normal
switch ports. They can be daisy chained together, but they do
not use Spanning Tree Protocol - connecting both ports to the
same switch can cause redundant paths or loops which will
cause a packet storm and severely degrade both networks.
Best practice would be to use one port to connect to the
network switch, and the second port to daisy chain to other HLI-ET2
HelixNet or LQ devices. Module
Figure 3
Figure 4
HMS Network Configuration:
IP Address: 192.168.30.10
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.30.1
HRM Network Configuration:
IP Address: 172.30.10.67
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.30.10.1
Pair to Station:192.168.30.10
HKB Network Configuration:
IP Address: 172.30.10.25
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.30.10.1
Pair to Station:192.168.30.10
Figure 5
HMS Network Configuration:
IP Address: 192.168.30.10
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.30.1
Here the Router on the HMS side must port-forward everything from 6001 TCP/UDP to
192.168.30.10:6001
HRM Network Configuration:
IP Address: 172.30.10.67
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.30.10.1
Pair to Station: 69.70.166.37
HKB Network Configuration:
IP Address: 172.30.10.25
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.30.10.1
Pair to Station: 69.70.166.37
Firewall: To support remote connectivity of HelixNet endpoints external to a LAN or WAN, port
TCP/UDP forwarding rules will be needed to achieve the required connectivity to the HMS that
IP Ports has been set into Link-Master mode. Listed below is the Port # and a description of what
the opened port provides access to.
- Port 6001 TCP - Pairing with HKB-2X, HRM-4X, HXII-BP, Authenticate, update,
and reboot
- Port 6001 UDP - Audio
- Port 80 HTML – Core Configuration Manager (not recommended as
management of the system should be limited to a device within the secured
network)
Link-Master To create a Link-Group, you must designate one unit as Link-Master in the Core
Mode Configuration Manager (CCM). The Core Configuration Manager (CCM) interface
provides an intuitive software utility for HelixNet on any browser-enabled platform. The
CCM facilitates a quick and simple means of configuring any devices in a Link-Group,
including role-based configuration of endpoints, save and restore, and live monitoring
of all system components.
The Link-Master designation serves three main purposes:
- It facilitates Link-Group membership.
- It is the owner of configured Role information, meaning that Roles will only
persist (be maintained consistently) if the Link-Master is operational.
- It is responsible for the synchronization and distribution of both configuration
(Roles) and device availability status throughout the Link-Group.
Note: Clear-Com recommends that the IP address of the Link-Master is allocated
statically. When allocated by DHCP, the IP address can change. If this happens the Link-
Members will no longer be able to reach the Link-Master device, and Role information
may not be available.
Note: Any device can be set to Link-Master or Link-Member. The default setting for
HelixNet linking mode is Link Disabled.
HelixNet devices that are not identified as master will have the designation of Link-
Member. Joining a device to a Link-Group requires that device to be set to Link-Member
which will prompt the user to enter the IP address of the Link-Master. Once joined to
the Link-Group, all devices attempt to connect to all other devices within the group.
HelixNet HKB-2X, HRM-4X, and HXII-BP on the same subnet can pair to a system by name. The
Pairing by system uses mDNS to propagate HMS and HRM (when configured as an expansion host)
Name presence in a network. As a device populates it’s mDNS entry, it specifies an ID, an IP
address, a name and a list of services.
When configuration changes, the mDNS entry is updated and all devices connected “by
name” will update and re-pair/link/expand as required.
NETWORK INSTALLATION
Managed When connecting HelixNet to a managed network switch, ensure that the connection performs
Ethernet at a minimum of 100Mb full duplex.
Switch If the system is using more than one switch, ensure that the bridge between the switches also
operates at a minimum of 1Gb full duplex. When using a managed switch, the port connected
to the HelixNet Main Station and endpoints should be set at 100Mb versus letting the port auto-
negotiate.
Note: You do not need to set all ports to 100Mb, only the ones connected to the HMS-4X, HRM-
4X, HKB-2X & HXII-BP.
We recommend the following specifications when selecting a managed switch to use with
HelixNet:
- 100/1000Base-T Layer 3 Managed Switch
- QoS support with the audio traffic prioritized over other data
- If Energy Efficient Ethernet is supported, ensure it is disabled
- SPF/Mini-GBIC support
If connecting two or more switches together, we recommend the bridge / link ports
between the switches supports at least 1GB.
HelixNet tags relevant packets at DSCP=41, Assured Forwarding (AF) beginning with
version 4.2 and onwards. Previous versions used DSCP=46.
If you have no other alternative, use an unmanaged switch where port speed is 100Mb,
full duplex (port speed is 100Mb in and out). And ensure the unmanaged switch does
NOT have Green Energy Efficient settings hard coded into the system.
Hubs Hubs should not be used with HelixNet. A Hub’s all port transmission will crash the
HelixNet Network.
Connecting Integrating HelixNet into your network may need an IP addressing scheme defined with
HelixNet to the help of your IT department. We recommend using a STATIC IP address for the
Your HelixNet Main Station then leaving all other HelixNet devices on DHCP. However, there
Network are a few scenarios where DHCP may not be desirable.
- In a large HelixNet systems with roughly 30 HRMs, 10 HKBs and 10 beltpacks, a
DHCP server may not assign addresses to devices fast enough for a network this
size. In this case, it is better to utilize static IPs for each device.
- When a port on a Cisco switch starts up, there is a Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
exchange before IP traffic starts flowing properly. This exchange can take up to
a minute to complete. In this situation HelixNet devices configured for DHCP
addressing will often timeout before receiving its initial IP address. They will
retry and get a proper IP address a minute later, but our recommendation in this
case is to either use static IP addresses or enabling PortFast on Cisco switches
port.
If no DHCP server is found, the Main Station and all other HelixNet devices will revert to
an unused link-local address in the 169.254.0.0/16 block - devices on this subnet block
will then be discovered by the Main Station. If neither of these options are used, the
Networking menu on the device allows you to disable DHCP and set static IP addresses.
Figure 6
- Each HelixNet device transmits at 300 kbps when a user is talking.
- The HMS-4X only routes audio where appropriate, between an audio source and
a listening destination. Audio mixing is done at each destination.
- An audio source is sent once to the HMS-4X. The HMS-4X then sends the audio
stream point-to-point to each destination that is currently listening to that
source.
- Talk pressed/latched = 300kbps is sent to HMS-4X.
- Each 2W/4W/PGM port when assigned = 300kbps is sent internally to HMS-4X.
- PGM on an HRM if assigned = 300kbps for the mic, 300kbps for PGM/SA
- No Talk or No Assignment = no audio is sent to HMS-4X.
Note: Enabling VOX on 2-wire or 4-wire port will significantly reduce the bandwidth as
otherwise, audio will always be sent from the I/O source to any listener in the system.
The same occurs for the distribution of the Program.
- Audio and Data sent will max out at 1.2Mbps per destination.
- Between linked HMS-4X stations, each audio source is sent once, and only if a
user is listening on the second HMS-4X.
Figure 7
Figure 8
Examples Workflow (worst-case scenarios where most or all talk keys are latched):
Specification Value
IP Version IPv4
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For more information on topics,
Static IP
A static IP address is an IP address that was manually configured for a device, versus
one that was assigned via a DHCP server. It's called static because it doesn't change.
Subnet
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. The practice of dividing
a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
TCP
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a standard that defines how to establish and
maintain a network conversation via which application programs can exchange data.
TCP works with the Internet Protocol (IP), which defines how computers send packets
of data to each other
UDP
(User Datagram Protocol) is an alternative communications protocol to Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP) used primarily for establishing low-latency and loss tolerating
connections between applications on the Internet.
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