SIP Overview

Prepared by: Nguyen Pham Date: 15-Feb-2008

Contents
1. SIP and its network elements 2. SIP messages 3. Some SIP features

1. SIP and its network elements

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is a peer-topeer signalling protocol SIP purpose is to make communication available on the IP network Types of communication can be (but not limited to): audio, video, instant messaging, A SIP subscriber is defined by sip URI, which has the form of: sip:username@domain

SIP network elements

User Agent Proxy server Registrar Redirect server

 User Agent (UA) is the SIP end point: usually an application on the PC, on the mobile phones, or whatever device capable of a IP address. Proxy servers perform routing of the SIP messages from UA to UA. Registrar servers store the location data of UAs: mapping a SIP URI with a IP/port. Redirect sever: an alternative to the proxy server, less common used
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Simple SIP signalling (SIP messages omitted)

Location DB DNS
Lookup INVITE Lookup

Location DB

Registrar REGISTER

Proxy INVITE

Proxy INVITE

Registrar REGISTER

sip:userA@domain1.com Peer to Peer Media

sip:userB@domain2.com

Redirect (Proxy alternative)

Redirect server Reply with Bs location

INVITE

User A

INVITE

User B

In Redirect mode, the signalling path is also peer-topeer Less workload for the core network
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2. SIP Messages
INVITE sip:UserB@there.com SIP/2.0

Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.99.1:5060 From: BigGuy <sip:UserA@here.com> To: LittleGuy <sip:UserB@there.com> Call-ID: 12345600@here.com CSeq: 1 INVITE Subject: Happy Christmas Contact: BigGuy <sip:UserA@192.168.99.1> Content-Type: application/sdp Content-Length: 147 o=UserA 2890844526 2890844526 IN IP4 here.com s=Session SDP c=IN IP4 100.101.102.103 t=0 0 m=audio 49172 RTP/AVP 0 a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000

SIP messages are humanreadable Part 1: defining message type Part 2: Message header Part 3: Message body
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Types of message
SIP Requests:
Register: UA sends Register message to Registrar with IP address and port information Invite: Invite a callee to a session ACK: Acknowledge message Bye: Tear down a session Cancel: Cancel a not fully-established session Other Request Methods can be found in RFC 3261
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Types of message
SIP Responses: Containing the reply code in the first line
1xx: Information 2xx: Success 3xx: Redirection 4xx: Sender Client error 5xx: Server error 6xx: Global failure
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Types of message
UAs usually arrange messages into transactions and dialogs Transaction: A request and relevant responses Dialog: Set of transactions belonging to a session

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3. Some SIP features

This part includes concepts on some basic SIP features: Types of Proxy and the use Message forking Instant messaging Conference

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Types of Proxy
Stateless Proxy: Routing only Stateful Proxy: Store the call parties states during the session
Transaction Stateful Proxy Dialog Stateful Proxy: a prerequisite for other features such as: call details report, billing,

Back to Back User Agent (BBUA): BBUA is a UA enhanced with additional services that are transparent to the other call parties.
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Message forking
Proxy can forward a message to multiple destinations
Parallel forking: Simultaneously send invitations to all the destinations Recursive forking: Iterate through the list of destinations and try one at a time

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Message forking
User B device 1 INVITE Proxy INVITE User B device 2 INVITE INVITE User A User B device 2

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Instant Messaging
A SIP message with method MESSAGE is used to send IM, with the message contained in the body SIP IM problems:
Session handling SPIM filtering

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Conference

Proxy

User B

User A

User C

Signalling Media
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Conference
The SIP core network only provide signalling path Conference media stream is managed by the end-devices Alternative: Conferencing server for media relay

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Find out more

NAT and firewall traverse SIP-PSTN integration Security of the communication

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References
http://www.iptel.org/sip/intro http://www.tech-invite.com/

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Q&A

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Thank you!

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