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RFC 2543

SIP: Session Initiation Protocol

Pages: 151
Obsoleted by:  32613262326332643265
Part 1 of 6 – Pages 1 to 20
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Network Working Group                                          M. Handley
Request for Comments: 2543                                          ACIRI
Category: Standards Track                                  H. Schulzrinne
                                                              Columbia U.
                                                              E. Schooler
                                                                 Cal Tech
                                                             J. Rosenberg
                                                                Bell Labs
                                                               March 1999

                    SIP: Session Initiation Protocol

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

IESG Note

   The IESG intends to charter, in the near future, one or more working
   groups to produce standards for "name lookup", where such names would
   include electronic mail addresses and telephone numbers, and the
   result of such a lookup would be a list of attributes and
   characteristics of the user or terminal associated with the name.
   Groups which are in need of a "name lookup" protocol should follow
   the development of these new working groups rather than using SIP for
   this function. In addition it is anticipated that SIP will migrate
   towards using such protocols, and SIP implementors are advised to
   monitor these efforts.

Abstract

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an application-layer control (signaling) protocol for creating, modifying and terminating sessions with one or more participants. These sessions include Internet multimedia conferences, Internet telephone calls and multimedia distribution. Members in a session can communicate via multicast or via a mesh of unicast relations, or a combination of these.
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   SIP invitations used to create sessions carry session descriptions
   which allow participants to agree on a set of compatible media types.
   SIP supports user mobility by proxying and redirecting requests to
   the user's current location. Users can register their current
   location.  SIP is not tied to any particular conference control
   protocol. SIP is designed to be independent of the lower-layer
   transport protocol and can be extended with additional capabilities.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ........................................ 7 1.1 Overview of SIP Functionality ....................... 7 1.2 Terminology ......................................... 8 1.3 Definitions ......................................... 9 1.4 Overview of SIP Operation ........................... 12 1.4.1 SIP Addressing ...................................... 12 1.4.2 Locating a SIP Server ............................... 13 1.4.3 SIP Transaction ..................................... 14 1.4.4 SIP Invitation ...................................... 15 1.4.5 Locating a User ..................................... 17 1.4.6 Changing an Existing Session ........................ 18 1.4.7 Registration Services ............................... 18 1.5 Protocol Properties ................................. 18 1.5.1 Minimal State ....................................... 18 1.5.2 Lower-Layer-Protocol Neutral ........................ 18 1.5.3 Text-Based .......................................... 20 2 SIP Uniform Resource Locators ....................... 20 3 SIP Message Overview ................................ 24 4 Request ............................................. 26 4.1 Request-Line ........................................ 26 4.2 Methods ............................................. 27 4.2.1 INVITE .............................................. 28 4.2.2 ACK ................................................. 29 4.2.3 OPTIONS ............................................. 29 4.2.4 BYE ................................................. 30 4.2.5 CANCEL .............................................. 30 4.2.6 REGISTER ............................................ 31 4.3 Request-URI ......................................... 34 4.3.1 SIP Version ......................................... 35 4.4 Option Tags ......................................... 35 4.4.1 Registering New Option Tags with IANA ............... 35 5 Response ............................................ 36 5.1 Status-Line ......................................... 36 5.1.1 Status Codes and Reason Phrases ..................... 37 6 Header Field Definitions ............................ 39 6.1 General Header Fields ............................... 41 6.2 Entity Header Fields ................................ 42 6.3 Request Header Fields ............................... 43
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   6.4        Response Header Fields ..............................   43
   6.5        End-to-end and Hop-by-hop Headers ...................   43
   6.6        Header Field Format .................................   43
   6.7        Accept ..............................................   44
   6.8        Accept-Encoding .....................................   44
   6.9        Accept-Language .....................................   45
   6.10       Allow ...............................................   45
   6.11       Authorization .......................................   45
   6.12       Call-ID .............................................   46
   6.13       Contact .............................................   47
   6.14       Content-Encoding ....................................   50
   6.15       Content-Length ......................................   51
   6.16       Content-Type ........................................   51
   6.17       CSeq ................................................   52
   6.18       Date ................................................   53
   6.19       Encryption ..........................................   54
   6.20       Expires .............................................   55
   6.21       From ................................................   56
   6.22       Hide ................................................   57
   6.23       Max-Forwards ........................................   59
   6.24       Organization ........................................   59
   6.25       Priority ............................................   60
   6.26       Proxy-Authenticate ..................................   60
   6.27       Proxy-Authorization .................................   61
   6.28       Proxy-Require .......................................   61
   6.29       Record-Route ........................................   62
   6.30       Require .............................................   63
   6.31       Response-Key ........................................   63
   6.32       Retry-After .........................................   64
   6.33       Route ...............................................   65
   6.34       Server ..............................................   65
   6.35       Subject .............................................   65
   6.36       Timestamp ...........................................   66
   6.37       To ..................................................   66
   6.38       Unsupported .........................................   68
   6.39       User-Agent ..........................................   68
   6.40       Via .................................................   68
   6.40.1     Requests ............................................   68
   6.40.2     Receiver-tagged Via Header Fields ...................   69
   6.40.3     Responses ...........................................   70
   6.40.4     User Agent and Redirect Servers .....................   70
   6.40.5     Syntax ..............................................   71
   6.41       Warning .............................................   72
   6.42       WWW-Authenticate ....................................   74
   7          Status Code Definitions .............................   75
   7.1        Informational 1xx ...................................   75
   7.1.1      100 Trying ..........................................   75
   7.1.2      180 Ringing .........................................   75
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   7.1.3      181 Call Is Being Forwarded .........................   75
   7.1.4      182 Queued ..........................................   76
   7.2        Successful 2xx ......................................   76
   7.2.1      200 OK ..............................................   76
   7.3        Redirection 3xx .....................................   76
   7.3.1      300 Multiple Choices ................................   77
   7.3.2      301 Moved Permanently ...............................   77
   7.3.3      302 Moved Temporarily ...............................   77
   7.3.4      305 Use Proxy .......................................   77
   7.3.5      380 Alternative Service .............................   78
   7.4        Request Failure 4xx .................................   78
   7.4.1      400 Bad Request .....................................   78
   7.4.2      401 Unauthorized ....................................   78
   7.4.3      402 Payment Required ................................   78
   7.4.4      403 Forbidden .......................................   78
   7.4.5      404 Not Found .......................................   78
   7.4.6      405 Method Not Allowed ..............................   78
   7.4.7      406 Not Acceptable ..................................   79
   7.4.8      407 Proxy Authentication Required ...................   79
   7.4.9      408 Request Timeout .................................   79
   7.4.10     409 Conflict ........................................   79
   7.4.11     410 Gone ............................................   79
   7.4.12     411 Length Required .................................   79
   7.4.13     413 Request Entity Too Large ........................   80
   7.4.14     414 Request-URI Too Long ............................   80
   7.4.15     415 Unsupported Media Type ..........................   80
   7.4.16     420 Bad Extension ...................................   80
   7.4.17     480 Temporarily Unavailable .........................   80
   7.4.18     481 Call Leg/Transaction Does Not Exist .............   81
   7.4.19     482 Loop Detected ...................................   81
   7.4.20     483 Too Many Hops ...................................   81
   7.4.21     484 Address Incomplete ..............................   81
   7.4.22     485 Ambiguous .......................................   81
   7.4.23     486 Busy Here .......................................   82
   7.5        Server Failure 5xx ..................................   82
   7.5.1      500 Server Internal Error ...........................   82
   7.5.2      501 Not Implemented .................................   82
   7.5.3      502 Bad Gateway .....................................   82
   7.5.4      503 Service Unavailable .............................   83
   7.5.5      504 Gateway Time-out ................................   83
   7.5.6      505 Version Not Supported ...........................   83
   7.6        Global Failures 6xx .................................   83
   7.6.1      600 Busy Everywhere .................................   83
   7.6.2      603 Decline .........................................   84
   7.6.3      604 Does Not Exist Anywhere .........................   84
   7.6.4      606 Not Acceptable ..................................   84
   8          SIP Message Body ....................................   84
   8.1        Body Inclusion ......................................   84
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   8.2        Message Body Type ...................................   85
   8.3        Message Body Length .................................   85
   9          Compact Form ........................................   85
   10         Behavior of SIP Clients and Servers .................   86
   10.1       General Remarks .....................................   86
   10.1.1     Requests ............................................   86
   10.1.2     Responses ...........................................   87
   10.2       Source Addresses, Destination Addresses and
              Connections .........................................   88
   10.2.1     Unicast UDP .........................................   88
   10.2.2     Multicast UDP .......................................   88
   10.3       TCP .................................................   89
   10.4       Reliability for BYE, CANCEL, OPTIONS, REGISTER
              Requests ............................................   90
   10.4.1     UDP .................................................   90
   10.4.2     TCP .................................................   91
   10.5       Reliability for INVITE Requests .....................   91
   10.5.1     UDP .................................................   92
   10.5.2     TCP .................................................   95
   10.6       Reliability for ACK Requests ........................   95
   10.7       ICMP Handling .......................................   95
   11         Behavior of SIP User Agents .........................   95
   11.1       Caller Issues Initial INVITE Request ................   96
   11.2       Callee Issues Response ..............................   96
   11.3       Caller Receives Response to Initial Request .........   96
   11.4       Caller or Callee Generate Subsequent Requests .......   97
   11.5       Receiving Subsequent Requests .......................   97
   12         Behavior of SIP Proxy and Redirect Servers ..........   97
   12.1       Redirect Server .....................................   97
   12.2       User Agent Server ...................................   98
   12.3       Proxy Server ........................................   98
   12.3.1     Proxying Requests ...................................   98
   12.3.2     Proxying Responses ..................................   99
   12.3.3     Stateless Proxy: Proxying Responses .................   99
   12.3.4     Stateful Proxy: Receiving Requests ..................   99
   12.3.5     Stateful Proxy: Receiving ACKs ......................   99
   12.3.6     Stateful Proxy: Receiving Responses .................  100
   12.3.7     Stateless, Non-Forking Proxy ........................  100
   12.4       Forking Proxy .......................................  100
   13         Security Considerations .............................  104
   13.1       Confidentiality and Privacy: Encryption .............  104
   13.1.1     End-to-End Encryption ...............................  104
   13.1.2     Privacy of SIP Responses ............................  107
   13.1.3     Encryption by Proxies ...............................  108
   13.1.4     Hop-by-Hop Encryption ...............................  108
   13.1.5     Via field encryption ................................  108
   13.2       Message Integrity and Access Control:
              Authentication ......................................  109
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   13.2.1     Trusting responses ..................................  112
   13.3       Callee Privacy ......................................  113
   13.4       Known Security Problems .............................  113
   14         SIP Authentication using HTTP Basic and Digest
              Schemes .............................................  113
   14.1       Framework ...........................................  113
   14.2       Basic Authentication ................................  114
   14.3       Digest Authentication ...............................  114
   14.4       Proxy-Authentication ................................  115
   15         SIP Security Using PGP ..............................  115
   15.1       PGP Authentication Scheme ...........................  115
   15.1.1     The WWW-Authenticate Response Header ................  116
   15.1.2     The Authorization Request Header ....................  117
   15.2       PGP Encryption Scheme ...............................  118
   15.3       Response-Key Header Field for PGP ...................  119
   16         Examples ............................................  119
   16.1       Registration ........................................  119
   16.2       Invitation to a Multicast Conference ................  121
   16.2.1     Request .............................................  121
   16.2.2     Response ............................................  122
   16.3       Two-party Call ......................................  123
   16.4       Terminating a Call ..................................  125
   16.5       Forking Proxy .......................................  126
   16.6       Redirects ...........................................  130
   16.7       Negotiation .........................................  131
   16.8       OPTIONS Request .....................................  132
   A.         Minimal Implementation ..............................  134
   A.1        Client ..............................................  134
   A.2        Server ..............................................  135
   A.3        Header Processing ...................................  135
   B.         Usage of the Session Description Protocol (SDP)......  136
   B.1        Configuring Media Streams ...........................  136
   B.2        Setting SDP Values for Unicast ......................  138
   B.3        Multicast Operation .................................  139
   B.4        Delayed Media Streams ...............................  139
   B.5        Putting Media Streams on Hold .......................  139
   B.6        Subject and SDP "s=" Line ...........................  140
   B.7        The SDP "o=" Line ...................................  140
   C.         Summary of Augmented BNF ............................  141
   C.1        Basic Rules .........................................  143
   D.         Using SRV DNS Records ...............................  146
   E.         IANA Considerations .................................  148
   F.         Acknowledgments .....................................  149
   G.         Authors' Addresses ..................................  149
   H.         Bibliography ........................................  150
   I.         Full Copyright Statement ............................  153
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1 Introduction

1.1 Overview of SIP Functionality

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an application-layer control protocol that can establish, modify and terminate multimedia sessions or calls. These multimedia sessions include multimedia conferences, distance learning, Internet telephony and similar applications. SIP can invite both persons and "robots", such as a media storage service. SIP can invite parties to both unicast and multicast sessions; the initiator does not necessarily have to be a member of the session to which it is inviting. Media and participants can be added to an existing session. SIP can be used to initiate sessions as well as invite members to sessions that have been advertised and established by other means. Sessions can be advertised using multicast protocols such as SAP, electronic mail, news groups, web pages or directories (LDAP), among others. SIP transparently supports name mapping and redirection services, allowing the implementation of ISDN and Intelligent Network telephony subscriber services. These facilities also enable personal mobility. In the parlance of telecommunications intelligent network services, this is defined as: "Personal mobility is the ability of end users to originate and receive calls and access subscribed telecommunication services on any terminal in any location, and the ability of the network to identify end users as they move. Personal mobility is based on the use of a unique personal identity (i.e., personal number)." [1]. Personal mobility complements terminal mobility, i.e., the ability to maintain communications when moving a single end system from one subnet to another. SIP supports five facets of establishing and terminating multimedia communications: User location: determination of the end system to be used for communication; User capabilities: determination of the media and media parameters to be used; User availability: determination of the willingness of the called party to engage in communications; Call setup: "ringing", establishment of call parameters at both called and calling party;
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   Call handling: including transfer and termination of calls.

   SIP can also initiate multi-party calls using a multipoint control
   unit (MCU) or fully-meshed interconnection instead of multicast.
   Internet telephony gateways that connect Public Switched Telephone
   Network (PSTN) parties can also use SIP to set up calls between them.

   SIP is designed as part of the overall IETF multimedia data and
   control architecture currently incorporating protocols such as RSVP
   (RFC 2205 [2]) for reserving network resources, the real-time
   transport protocol (RTP) (RFC 1889 [3]) for transporting real-time
   data and providing QOS feedback, the real-time streaming protocol
   (RTSP) (RFC 2326 [4]) for controlling delivery of streaming media,
   the session announcement protocol (SAP) [5] for advertising
   multimedia sessions via multicast and the session description
   protocol (SDP) (RFC 2327 [6]) for describing multimedia sessions.
   However, the functionality and operation of SIP does not depend on
   any of these protocols.

   SIP can also be used in conjunction with other call setup and
   signaling protocols. In that mode, an end system uses SIP exchanges
   to determine the appropriate end system address and protocol from a
   given address that is protocol-independent. For example, SIP could be
   used to determine that the party can be reached via H.323 [7], obtain
   the H.245 [8] gateway and user address and then use H.225.0 [9] to
   establish the call.

   In another example, SIP might be used to determine that the callee is
   reachable via the PSTN and indicate the phone number to be called,
   possibly suggesting an Internet-to-PSTN gateway to be used.

   SIP does not offer conference control services such as floor control
   or voting and does not prescribe how a conference is to be managed,
   but SIP can be used to introduce conference control protocols. SIP
   does not allocate multicast addresses.

   SIP can invite users to sessions with and without resource
   reservation.  SIP does not reserve resources, but can convey to the
   invited system the information necessary to do this.

1.2 Terminology

In this document, the key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [10] and indicate requirement levels for compliant SIP implementations.
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1.3 Definitions

This specification uses a number of terms to refer to the roles played by participants in SIP communications. The definitions of client, server and proxy are similar to those used by the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) (RFC 2068 [11]). The terms and generic syntax of URI and URL are defined in RFC 2396 [12]. The following terms have special significance for SIP. Call: A call consists of all participants in a conference invited by a common source. A SIP call is identified by a globally unique call-id (Section 6.12). Thus, if a user is, for example, invited to the same multicast session by several people, each of these invitations will be a unique call. A point-to-point Internet telephony conversation maps into a single SIP call. In a multiparty conference unit (MCU) based call-in conference, each participant uses a separate call to invite himself to the MCU. Call leg: A call leg is identified by the combination of Call-ID, To and From. Client: An application program that sends SIP requests. Clients may or may not interact directly with a human user. User agents and proxies contain clients (and servers). Conference: A multimedia session (see below), identified by a common session description. A conference can have zero or more members and includes the cases of a multicast conference, a full-mesh conference and a two-party "telephone call", as well as combinations of these. Any number of calls can be used to create a conference. Downstream: Requests sent in the direction from the caller to the callee (i.e., user agent client to user agent server). Final response: A response that terminates a SIP transaction, as opposed to a provisional response that does not. All 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx and 6xx responses are final. Initiator, calling party, caller: The party initiating a conference invitation. Note that the calling party does not have to be the same as the one creating the conference. Invitation: A request sent to a user (or service) requesting participation in a session. A successful SIP invitation consists of two transactions: an INVITE request followed by an ACK request.
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   Invitee, invited user, called party, callee: The person or service
        that the calling party is trying to invite to a conference.

   Isomorphic request or response: Two requests or responses are defined
        to be isomorphic for the purposes of this document if they have
        the same values for the Call-ID, To, From and CSeq header
        fields. In addition, isomorphic requests have to have the same
        Request-URI.

   Location server: See location service.

   Location service: A location service is used by a SIP redirect or
        proxy server to obtain information about a callee's possible
        location(s). Location services are offered by location servers.
        Location servers MAY be co-located with a SIP server, but the
        manner in which a SIP server requests location services is
        beyond the scope of this document.

   Parallel search: In a parallel search, a proxy issues several
        requests to possible user locations upon receiving an incoming
        request.  Rather than issuing one request and then waiting for
        the final response before issuing the next request as in a
        sequential search , a parallel search issues requests without
        waiting for the result of previous requests.

   Provisional response: A response used by the server to indicate
        progress, but that does not terminate a SIP transaction. 1xx
        responses are provisional, other responses are considered final.

   Proxy, proxy server: An intermediary program that acts as both a
        server and a client for the purpose of making requests on behalf
        of other clients. Requests are serviced internally or by passing
        them on, possibly after translation, to other servers. A proxy
        interprets, and, if necessary, rewrites a request message before
        forwarding it.

   Redirect server: A redirect server is a server that accepts a SIP
        request, maps the address into zero or more new addresses and
        returns these addresses to the client. Unlike a proxy server ,
        it does not initiate its own SIP request. Unlike a user agent
        server , it does not accept calls.

   Registrar: A registrar is a server that accepts REGISTER requests. A
        registrar is typically co-located with a proxy or redirect
        server and MAY offer location services.
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   Ringback: Ringback is the signaling tone produced by the calling
        client's application indicating that a called party is being
        alerted (ringing).

   Server: A server is an application program that accepts requests in
        order to service requests and sends back responses to those
        requests.  Servers are either proxy, redirect or user agent
        servers or registrars.

   Session: From the SDP specification: "A multimedia session is a set
        of multimedia senders and receivers and the data streams flowing
        from senders to receivers. A multimedia conference is an example
        of a multimedia session." (RFC 2327 [6]) (A session as defined
        for SDP can comprise one or more RTP sessions.) As defined, a
        callee can be invited several times, by different calls, to the
        same session. If SDP is used, a session is defined by the
        concatenation of the user name , session id , network type ,
        address type and address elements in the origin field.

   (SIP) transaction: A SIP transaction occurs between a client and a
        server and comprises all messages from the first request sent
        from the client to the server up to a final (non-1xx) response
        sent from the server to the client. A transaction is identified
        by the CSeq sequence number (Section 6.17) within a single call
        leg.  The ACK request has the same CSeq number as the
        corresponding INVITE request, but comprises a transaction of its
        own.

   Upstream: Responses sent in the direction from the user agent server
        to the user agent client.

   URL-encoded: A character string encoded according to RFC 1738,
        Section 2.2 [13].

   User agent client (UAC), calling user agent: A user agent client is a
        client application that initiates the SIP request.

   User agent server (UAS), called user agent: A user agent server is a
        server application that contacts the user when a SIP request is
        received and that returns a response on behalf of the user. The
        response accepts, rejects or redirects the request.

   User agent (UA): An application which contains both a user agent
        client and user agent server.

   An application program MAY be capable of acting both as a client and
   a server. For example, a typical multimedia conference control
   application would act as a user agent client to initiate calls or to
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   invite others to conferences and as a user agent server to accept
   invitations. The properties of the different SIP server types are
   summarized in Table 1.


    property                   redirect  proxy   user agent  registrar
                                server   server    server
    __________________________________________________________________
    also acts as a SIP client     no      yes        no         no
    returns 1xx status           yes      yes       yes         yes
    returns 2xx status            no      yes       yes         yes
    returns 3xx status           yes      yes       yes         yes
    returns 4xx status           yes      yes       yes         yes
    returns 5xx status           yes      yes       yes         yes
    returns 6xx status            no      yes       yes         yes
    inserts Via header            no      yes        no         no
    accepts ACK                  yes      yes       yes         no


   Table 1: Properties of the different SIP server types


1.4 Overview of SIP Operation

This section explains the basic protocol functionality and operation. Callers and callees are identified by SIP addresses, described in Section 1.4.1. When making a SIP call, a caller first locates the appropriate server (Section 1.4.2) and then sends a SIP request (Section 1.4.3). The most common SIP operation is the invitation (Section 1.4.4). Instead of directly reaching the intended callee, a SIP request may be redirected or may trigger a chain of new SIP requests by proxies (Section 1.4.5). Users can register their location(s) with SIP servers (Section 4.2.6).

1.4.1 SIP Addressing

The "objects" addressed by SIP are users at hosts, identified by a SIP URL. The SIP URL takes a form similar to a mailto or telnet URL, i.e., user@host. The user part is a user name or a telephone number. The host part is either a domain name or a numeric network address. See section 2 for a detailed discussion of SIP URL's. A user's SIP address can be obtained out-of-band, can be learned via existing media agents, can be included in some mailers' message headers, or can be recorded during previous invitation interactions. In many cases, a user's SIP URL can be guessed from their email address.
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   A SIP URL address can designate an individual (possibly located at
   one of several end systems), the first available person from a group
   of individuals or a whole group. The form of the address, for
   example, sip:sales@example.com , is not sufficient, in general, to
   determine the intent of the caller.

   If a user or service chooses to be reachable at an address that is
   guessable from the person's name and organizational affiliation, the
   traditional method of ensuring privacy by having an unlisted "phone"
   number is compromised. However, unlike traditional telephony, SIP
   offers authentication and access control mechanisms and can avail
   itself of lower-layer security mechanisms, so that client software
   can reject unauthorized or undesired call attempts.

1.4.2 Locating a SIP Server

When a client wishes to send a request, the client either sends it to a locally configured SIP proxy server (as in HTTP), independent of the Request-URI, or sends it to the IP address and port corresponding to the Request-URI. For the latter case, the client must determine the protocol, port and IP address of a server to which to send the request. A client SHOULD follow the steps below to obtain this information, but MAY follow the alternative, optional procedure defined in Appendix D. At each step, unless stated otherwise, the client SHOULD try to contact a server at the port number listed in the Request-URI. If no port number is present in the Request-URI, the client uses port 5060. If the Request-URI specifies a protocol (TCP or UDP), the client contacts the server using that protocol. If no protocol is specified, the client tries UDP (if UDP is supported). If the attempt fails, or if the client doesn't support UDP but supports TCP, it then tries TCP. A client SHOULD be able to interpret explicit network notifications (such as ICMP messages) which indicate that a server is not reachable, rather than relying solely on timeouts. (For socket-based programs: For TCP, connect() returns ECONNREFUSED if the client could not connect to a server at that address. For UDP, the socket needs to be bound to the destination address using connect() rather than sendto() or similar so that a second write() fails with ECONNREFUSED if there is no server listening) If the client finds the server is not reachable at a particular address, it SHOULD behave as if it had received a 400-class error response to that request. The client tries to find one or more addresses for the SIP server by querying DNS. The procedure is as follows:
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 14
        1.   If the host portion of the Request-URI is an IP address,
             the client contacts the server at the given address.
             Otherwise, the client proceeds to the next step.

        2.   The client queries the DNS server for address records for
             the host portion of the Request-URI. If the DNS server
             returns no address records, the client stops, as it has
             been unable to locate a server. By address record, we mean
             A RR's, AAAA RR's, or other similar address records, chosen
             according to the client's network protocol capabilities.


        There are no mandatory rules on how to select a host name
        for a SIP server. Users are encouraged to name their SIP
        servers using the sip.domainname (i.e., sip.example.com)
        convention, as specified in RFC 2219 [16]. Users may only
        know an email address instead of a full SIP URL for a
        callee, however. In that case, implementations may be able
        to increase the likelihood of reaching a SIP server for
        that domain by constructing a SIP URL from that email
        address by prefixing the host name with "sip.". In the
        future, this mechanism is likely to become unnecessary as
        better DNS techniques, such as the one in Appendix D,
        become widely available.

   A client MAY cache a successful DNS query result. A successful query
   is one which contained records in the answer, and a server was
   contacted at one of the addresses from the answer. When the client
   wishes to send a request to the same host, it MUST start the search
   as if it had just received this answer from the name server. The
   client MUST follow the procedures in RFC1035 [15] regarding DNS cache
   invalidation when the DNS time-to-live expires.

1.4.3 SIP Transaction

Once the host part has been resolved to a SIP server, the client sends one or more SIP requests to that server and receives one or more responses from the server. A request (and its retransmissions) together with the responses triggered by that request make up a SIP transaction. All responses to a request contain the same values in the Call-ID, CSeq, To, and From fields (with the possible addition of a tag in the To field (section 6.37)). This allows responses to be matched with requests. The ACK request following an INVITE is not part of the transaction since it may traverse a different set of hosts.
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 15
   If TCP is used, request and responses within a single SIP transaction
   are carried over the same TCP connection (see Section 10). Several
   SIP requests from the same client to the same server MAY use the same
   TCP connection or MAY use a new connection for each request.

   If the client sent the request via unicast UDP, the response is sent
   to the address contained in the next Via header field (Section 6.40)
   of the response. If the request is sent via multicast UDP, the
   response is directed to the same multicast address and destination
   port. For UDP, reliability is achieved using retransmission (Section
   10).

   The SIP message format and operation is independent of the transport
   protocol.

1.4.4 SIP Invitation

A successful SIP invitation consists of two requests, INVITE followed by ACK. The INVITE (Section 4.2.1) request asks the callee to join a particular conference or establish a two-party conversation. After the callee has agreed to participate in the call, the caller confirms that it has received that response by sending an ACK (Section 4.2.2) request. If the caller no longer wants to participate in the call, it sends a BYE request instead of an ACK. The INVITE request typically contains a session description, for example written in SDP (RFC 2327 [6]) format, that provides the called party with enough information to join the session. For multicast sessions, the session description enumerates the media types and formats that are allowed to be distributed to that session. For a unicast session, the session description enumerates the media types and formats that the caller is willing to use and where it wishes the media data to be sent. In either case, if the callee wishes to accept the call, it responds to the invitation by returning a similar description listing the media it wishes to use. For a multicast session, the callee SHOULD only return a session description if it is unable to receive the media indicated in the caller's description or wants to receive data via unicast. The protocol exchanges for the INVITE method are shown in Fig. 1 for a proxy server and in Fig. 2 for a redirect server. (Note that the messages shown in the figures have been abbreviated slightly.) In Fig. 1, the proxy server accepts the INVITE request (step 1), contacts the location service with all or parts of the address (step 2) and obtains a more precise location (step 3). The proxy server then issues a SIP INVITE request to the address(es) returned by the location service (step 4). The user agent server alerts the user (step 5) and returns a success indication to the proxy server (step
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 16
   6). The proxy server then returns the success result to the original
   caller (step 7). The receipt of this message is confirmed by the
   caller using an ACK request, which is forwarded to the callee (steps
   8 and 9). Note that an ACK can also be sent directly to the callee,
   bypassing the proxy. All requests and responses have the same Call-
   ID.





                                         +....... cs.columbia.edu .......+
                                         :                               :
                                         : (~~~~~~~~~~)                  :
                                         : ( location )                  :
                                         : ( service  )                  :
                                         : (~~~~~~~~~~)                  :
                                         :     ^    |                    :
                                         :     | hgs@lab                 :
                                         :    2|   3|                    :
                                         :     |    |                    :
                                         : henning  |                    : 
+.. cs.tu-berlin.de ..+ 1: INVITE        :     |    |                    :
:                     :    henning@cs.col:     |   \/ 4: INVITE  5: ring :
: cz@cs.tu-berlin.de ========================>(~~~~~~)=========>(~~~~~~) :
:                    <........................(      )<.........(      ) :
:                     : 7: 200 OK        :    (      )6: 200 OK (      ) :
:                     :                  :    ( work )          ( lab  ) :
:                     : 8: ACK           :    (      )9: ACK    (      ) :
:                    ========================>(~~~~~~)=========>(~~~~~~) :
+.....................+                  +...............................+

  ====> SIP request                                                         
  ....> SIP response                                                       
  
   ^
   |    non-SIP protocols                                                  
   |
  

   Figure 1: Example of SIP proxy server



   The redirect server shown in Fig. 2 accepts the INVITE request (step
   1), contacts the location service as before (steps 2 and 3) and,
   instead of contacting the newly found address itself, returns the
   address to the caller (step 4), which is then acknowledged via an ACK
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 17
   request (step 5). The caller issues a new request, with the same
   call-ID but a higher CSeq, to the address returned by the first
   server (step 6). In the example, the call succeeds (step 7). The
   caller and callee complete the handshake with an ACK (step 8).


   The next section discusses what happens if the location service
   returns more than one possible alternative.

1.4.5 Locating a User

A callee may move between a number of different end systems over time. These locations can be dynamically registered with the SIP server (Sections 1.4.7, 4.2.6). A location server MAY also use one or more other protocols, such as finger (RFC 1288 [17]), rwhois (RFC 2167 [18]), LDAP (RFC 1777 [19]), multicast-based protocols [20] or operating-system dependent mechanisms to actively determine the end system where a user might be reachable. A location server MAY return several locations because the user is logged in at several hosts simultaneously or because the location server has (temporarily) inaccurate information. The SIP server combines the results to yield a list of a zero or more locations. The action taken on receiving a list of locations varies with the type of SIP server. A SIP redirect server returns the list to the client as Contact headers (Section 6.13). A SIP proxy server can sequentially or in parallel try the addresses until the call is successful (2xx response) or the callee has declined the call (6xx response). With sequential attempts, a proxy server can implement an "anycast" service. If a proxy server forwards a SIP request, it MUST add itself to the beginning of the list of forwarders noted in the Via (Section 6.40) headers. The Via trace ensures that replies can take the same path back, ensuring correct operation through compliant firewalls and avoiding request loops. On the response path, each host MUST remove its Via, so that routing internal information is hidden from the callee and outside networks. A proxy server MUST check that it does not generate a request to a host listed in the Via sent-by, via- received or via-maddr parameters (Section 6.40). (Note: If a host has several names or network addresses, this does not always work. Thus, each host also checks if it is part of the Via list.) A SIP invitation may traverse more than one SIP proxy server. If one of these "forks" the request, i.e., issues more than one request in response to receiving the invitation request, it is possible that a client is reached, independently, by more than one copy of the
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 18
   invitation request. Each of these copies bears the same Call-ID. The
   user agent MUST return the same status response returned in the first
   response. Duplicate requests are not an error.

1.4.6 Changing an Existing Session

In some circumstances, it is desirable to change the parameters of an existing session. This is done by re-issuing the INVITE, using the same Call-ID, but a new or different body or header fields to convey the new information. This re INVITE MUST have a higher CSeq than any previous request from the client to the server. For example, two parties may have been conversing and then want to add a third party, switching to multicast for efficiency. One of the participants invites the third party with the new multicast address and simultaneously sends an INVITE to the second party, with the new multicast session description, but with the old call identifier.

1.4.7 Registration Services

The REGISTER request allows a client to let a proxy or redirect server know at which address(es) it can be reached. A client MAY also use it to install call handling features at the server.

1.5 Protocol Properties

1.5.1 Minimal State

A single conference session or call involves one or more SIP request-response transactions. Proxy servers do not have to keep state for a particular call, however, they MAY maintain state for a single SIP transaction, as discussed in Section 12. For efficiency, a server MAY cache the results of location service requests.

1.5.2 Lower-Layer-Protocol Neutral

SIP makes minimal assumptions about the underlying transport and network-layer protocols. The lower-layer can provide either a packet or a byte stream service, with reliable or unreliable service. In an Internet context, SIP is able to utilize both UDP and TCP as transport protocols, among others. UDP allows the application to more carefully control the timing of messages and their retransmission, to perform parallel searches without requiring TCP connection state for each outstanding request, and to use multicast. Routers can more readily snoop SIP UDP packets. TCP allows easier passage through existing firewalls.
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 19
                                         +....... cs.columbia.edu .......+
                                         :                               :
                                         : (~~~~~~~~~~)                  :
                                         : ( location )                  :
                                         : ( service  )                  :
                                         : (~~~~~~~~~~)                  :
                                         :    ^   |                      :
                                         :    | hgs@lab                  :
                                         :   2|  3|                      :
                                         :    |   |                      :
                                         : henning|                      : 
+.. cs.tu-berlin.de ..+ 1: INVITE        :    |   |                      :
:                     :    henning@cs.col:    |   \/                     : 
: cz@cs.tu-berlin.de =======================>(~~~~~~)                    : 
:       | ^ |        <.......................(      )                    :
:       | . |         : 4: 302 Moved     :   (      )                    :
:       | . |         :    hgs@lab       :   ( work )                    :
:       | . |         :                  :   (      )                    :
:       | . |         : 5: ACK           :   (      )                    :
:       | . |        =======================>(~~~~~~)                    :
:       | . |         :                  :                               :
+.......|...|.........+                  :                               :
        | . |                            :                               :
        | . |                            :                               :
        | . |                            :                               :
        | . |                            :                               :
        | . | 6: INVITE hgs@lab.cs.columbia.edu                 (~~~~~~) : 
        | . ==================================================> (      ) :
        | ..................................................... (      ) :
        |     7: 200 OK                  :                      ( lab  ) : 
        |                                :                      (      ) :
        |     8: ACK                     :                      (      ) :
        ======================================================> (~~~~~~) :
                                         +...............................+ 
                                                                          
  ====> SIP request                                                        
  ....> SIP response                                                       
    
    ^
    |   non-SIP protocols                                                  
    |




   Figure 2: Example of SIP redirect server
ToP   noToC   RFC2543 - Page 20
   When TCP is used, SIP can use one or more connections to attempt to
   contact a user or to modify parameters of an existing conference.
   Different SIP requests for the same SIP call MAY use different TCP
   connections or a single persistent connection, as appropriate.

   For concreteness, this document will only refer to Internet
   protocols.  However, SIP MAY also be used directly with protocols
   such as ATM AAL5, IPX, frame relay or X.25. The necessary naming
   conventions are beyond the scope of this document. User agents SHOULD
   implement both UDP and TCP transport. Proxy, registrar, and redirect
   servers MUST implement both UDP and TCP transport.

1.5.3 Text-Based

SIP is text-based, using ISO 10646 in UTF-8 encoding throughout. This allows easy implementation in languages such as Java, Tcl and Perl, allows easy debugging, and most importantly, makes SIP flexible and extensible. As SIP is used for initiating multimedia conferences rather than delivering media data, it is believed that the additional overhead of using a text-based protocol is not significant.


(page 20 continued on part 2)

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