More info, conclusion

The phone works like a great SIP-phone now, but in the mean time more people have found out about them. One of the sources is a thread (in German) where people discuss the phones and hacking them. There's more info here and here too. Joost is working on some binaries to add functions to the phone, too.

It may be interpreted as a sign of the times that hardware worth like a hundred bucks or so can't be used anymore, just because the people selling it have given up on the servers the devices connect to. On the other hand, it may also be interpreted as a sign of the times that these devices get snapped up by a whole variety of hobbyists and tinkerers, which actually succeed in making it into a worthwile device with only some elbow grease. These devices have the possibility to become a nice general-purpose ARM board. In the mean time, I like 'em just fine as the phone they are, though.

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30 comments

Petr wrote at 24 Feb 2019, 13.22:

Maybe, if you said what exactly did your DNS server intercept, it would be far more useful for those having their own server! Thanks!

Sergej wrote at 24 Dec 2016, 2.33:

Pleeeeaaaase Start your DNS Server again ok Tell us how to hack at home Webserver and dns

fenicks wrote at 13 Dec 2012, 19.35:

Dear sir, Is the server still running? Itried to get my vp5500 updated via the soft hack method but nothing seems to happen. no time change and no reboot. kind regards, fenicks

Moodswing wrote at 30 Sep 2011, 21.13:

Sir Sprite_tm, when I become king, you _will_ be knighted...

cautje wrote at 12 Sep 2011, 20.27:

Hi! i tried to doe the dns hack but it\'s not working. My phone reboots and no data is running in my router. In the sit\'s ip adres is see, Nothing to see Is it stil running ? THX!

Sprite_tm wrote at 5 Apr 2011, 10.05:

Works again. Seems the apaches virtualhost stuff was borked, making it serve files from a different directory; all fixed now.

wogri wrote at 4 Apr 2011, 17.40:

it seems that the dns-server here doesn\'t work anymore as expected (seems like the philips-directory is missing). you can try mine if you want to: 85.233.97.253

Hans wrote at 7 Mar 2011, 17.48:

Hello there, I am running into problems with the dns hack. Is your server still up and running? The VP6500 does not update after connecting with a \"patched\" router... Please let me know if the errror is on my side or the files have been removed. Thanks!

Hans wrote at 7 Mar 2011, 17.48:

wouter wrote at 16 Oct 2010, 15.45:

Had this phone lying around and now it works again. Great thanx. looking forward tot video phone functions

sunrise wrote at 2 Oct 2010, 14.17:

now my phome is also fully functional for normal (non-video)sip calling

malave wrote at 15 Sep 2010, 12.12:

Hi i speak english not so well and i\'m try to understand hot to unlock this phone. in this second method i still need an linux router and this file? or i need only router with dhcp server??

sunrise wrote at 22 Aug 2010, 14.04:

Thanks for this firmware update. I will configure sip soon. regards

Sprite_tm wrote at 16 Aug 2010, 11.42:

YogiBear75: Please contact me by mail (contact link is at the bottom of every page) and I\'ll see what I can do.

YogiBear75 wrote at 14 Aug 2010, 20.15:

Hi there, One VP5500 worked like a charm with telnet :) (v4.20) Other one I own is v3.27, but it doesn\'t get hack2.tgz but needs/wants 10.1.2.202 - - [14/Aug/2010:21:47:18 +0200] \"GET /philips/vp5500/swinfo HTTP/1.0\" 200 264 \"-\" \"Wget/1.8.2\" 10.1.2.202 - - [14/Aug/2010:21:47:23 +0200] \"GET /philips/vp5500/package1_V3.22 HTTP/1.0\" 200 162208 \"-\" \"Wget/1.8.2\" I tried, rename the hack2.tgz to package1_V3.22 And I tried to hack the swinfo with a hex editor so the line reading packag1_V3.22 to change into hack2.tgz and deleted the spare characters. Both with no luck... Is there another way ? Maybe special swinfo ? Otherwise I need to try the hardware hack :) But it was so easy to telnet to the 4.20 via the swinfo and DNS and NTP hacks ;o) Please assist. Thanks, Yogi

neo wrote at 23 Jun 2010, 8.55:

I second urban\'s comment. This is really annoying. I\'m sure this is configured in some config files, but which?

urban wrote at 14 Jun 2010, 16.12:

Thanks for the hack! This box is awesome, but has one, big \"bug\" - the busy/ringing/etc signal is player by handsfree speaker, not ear speaker, is there any way to change this?

Moritz wrote at 21 Apr 2010, 21.19:

Thank you!

Daniel G wrote at 16 Apr 2010, 10.28:

Does anyone know a good place to get a set? I can\'t seem to find a set on the secondhand sites like (Marktplaats, Speurders and eBay).

Michael wrote at 27 Mar 2010, 17.14:

Thanks for providing the DNS and the hack! Btw., can anyone confirm that the VP6500 has 64 MB RAM and 64 MB Flash?

obsidian wrote at 24 Mar 2010, 21.36:

@dl4sac: It seems that the hack2 update doesn\'t work on the VP5500. Until sprite gets round to looking into it, you can use my backup of the original swinfo and hack.tgz. Just use my nameserver at 85.214.148.94 @sprite: Thanks a ton for this momentous hack.

dl4sac wrote at 22 Mar 2010, 18.05:

Hi Sprite, many thanks for the nice Mod. i make the update, time 1:58 and running to 2:03 then the phone display BIG: 2:04 but i can see no reeboot and no other Menüe, testet with two phones. regards....Henry

snapper wrote at 21 Mar 2010, 18.37:

Experia Box needed help !!! hello, I have an Experia Box (gigaset sx551)for the philips vp5500 phone. Unfortunately, nothing is found because the VP5500 to register there, including no other analog phones ? although the fact it is a VOIP box?? There are from Hollands pdf user manual from Philips for the VP5500 the pages from 11-13 removed , where should stand as the phone is registered. also in the user manual sx551 I found nothing about it, someone an idea? regards

Joel wrote at 20 Mar 2010, 16.53:

Found how to activate the AutoAnswer mode: /user_settings/PhoneProfile.conf [Profile] AutoAnswer = 1 But how to activate the cam? Any idea?

Thomas wrote at 20 Mar 2010, 13.20:

Hoi - Problem solved. I was using cascaded routers and apparently was causing problems. By using a single router with static IP-settings the update worked, thanks! Telneting into the phone revealed a richer set of open source utilities than the usual busybox installation and, compared to most wlan routers, hardware resources are ample. This is going to be a nice toy :-)

Thomas wrote at 20 Mar 2010, 12.04:

Spike, I\\\'m following the \\\"newer howto\\\" and I\\\'m stuck. The clock first jumps to 01:58, but after that nothing happens (besides the screen-saver getting active at 02:03 - it shows 02:30 now). In your first \\\"older, diy howto) you mentioned that one might have to wait until 04:00am. Is that what I should do? Is there any configuration/port forward setting I should have done, or anything I can test? M.vr.gr, Thomas

Joel wrote at 20 Mar 2010, 8.52:

Thank you very much! Great job! By the way, do you have an idea how to activate PhoneProfiles and the AutoAnswer mode. Found a lot of conf files meanwhile, but still not sure how to change the settings. cu Joel

s2 wrote at 19 Mar 2010, 17.50:

Thank you very very much! This works fine!

Sprite_tm wrote at 18 Mar 2010, 13.44:

Thanks, and yes, I know that the update-servers IP is in a pool of ADSL adresses now. The person receiving that IP has the possibility to start the weirdest botnet in known history :) I have an image of the firmware but I can\'t really share it: it has proprietary parts which I officially can\'t distribute. Sorry, you\'ll have to wait for your phone to arrive ;)

Sören wrote at 18 Mar 2010, 13.24:

Great hack & description - thank you very much! There\\\'s a wild discussion going on about the VP5500 which was recently sold as non-functioning device for 10 Bucks in germany: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/170483 There\\\'s a collection of data about the Hardware available at http://das-labor.org/wiki/VP5500 Concerning the URLs mentioned above: The server isn\\\'t reachable any more and the IP seems to have been integrated into a pool of dynamically assigned ip addresses (at least the PTR records for neighboring IPs resolve as \\\"ipXXXXX.direct-adsl.nl\\\")... I haven\\\'t received my device yet, but do you happen to have the firmware image and could you send it to me (sh at 3dots dot de) - or even better: host it somewhere? best - Soeren

Hacking the VPx500 - More info, conclusion

More info, conclusion