Understanding an IETF standard:

The Session Initiation Protocol (RFC 3261)

N. Montavont
TELECOM Bretagne
February 2012
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETFT) is responsible for developing and promoting
Internet standards, dealing in particular with the TCP/IP protocols suite. The main purpose
of this exercise is to learn how to read and interpret an IETF standard, how to extract
information from an RFC and to study the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Answer the
following questions, by using the SIP standard, RFC 3261.
1. The IETF
(Questions for those answers are not in the RFC3261)
Question 1
(a) What is the IETF. How is it organized?
(b) Which are the different type of documents the IETF publishes?
(c) What is the process for a document to become a standard?
Question 2
Concerning the RFC 3261, what type of document is it?
Question 3
What does mean: Obsoletes: 2543
Question 4
Does this specification is the last version / description of SIP?
2. SIP
Question 5
Give a brief definition of SIP. What is SIP used for? (at the end of the exercise, we
will come back on this question, as you should have a better understanding of SIP)
Question 6
Which communication model is adopted by SIP to exchange messages?
Question 7
What is the location? Does SIP give a solution to set up location? (if yes, how?)

Question 8
(a) What is the role of a proxy?
(b) What are the difference among a proxy without state and a proxy with state?
Question 9
(a) What is a User Agent?
(b) What is a server?
(c) Is a proxy a User Agent?
(d) Is a softphone a User Agent?
(e) Is a softphone a server?
3. The messages
Question 10
(a) What is the format of a request? Give an example of a request (only the first line)
(b) What is the format of a response? Give an example of a response (only the first
line)
Question 11
What is a transaction? How is it identified?
Question 12
What is a dialog? By which request a dialog is created? How a dialog is identified?
Question 13
(a) How do the responses are identified?
(b) What is a provisional response? When is it sent?
Question 14
What are the mandatory headers? Give a definition of each of them
Question 15
(a) Consider the via header described in page 39. What is the function of this field?
(b) Is it mandatory in all requests? Is it mandatory in all responses?
(c) Describe its usage
(d) In the following example, give the content of the via header(s) for each message

Question 16
(a) What is the purpose of the Max-Forwards field? Is it decremented at each
crossed IP router?
(b) What should a SIP element do upon the reception of a request that contains MaxForwards: 0 ?
Question 17
Write the message(s) following the one decribed below, considering that the proxy
receiving this request do not know the user (none user defined with this URI
!
INVITE sip:bob@biloxi.example.com SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/UDP client.atlanta.example.com:
5060 ;branch=z9hG4bK74bf9
Max-Forwards: 70
From: Alice <sip:alice@atlanta.example.com> ;tag=9fxced76sl
To: Bob <sip:bob@biloxi.example.com>
Call-ID: 2xTb9vxSit55XU7p8@atlanta.example.com
CSeq: 1 INVITE
Contact: <sip:alice@client.atlanta.example.com>
Content-Type: application/sdp
Content-Length: 151
v=0
o=alice 2890844526 2890844526 IN IP4 client.atlanta.example.com
s=c=IN IP4 192.0.2.101
t=0 0
m=audio 49172 RTP/AVP 0
a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000

4. Protocol deployment and operation

Question 18
Represent in a message sequence chart a voice call between two softphones
belonging to the same domain, which do not know their mutual location.
Question 19
Is it possible to change the parameters of an ongoing session ? (if yes, describe how
it is done)
Question 20
(a) What is the difference between the requests BYE and CANCEL?
(b) Give an illustration for each of them
Question 21
Describe the messages (and their content) that are exchanged to register a client
with a server.
Question 22
Come back on Question 5, and give a better definition of SIP