RFC2543 - SIP: Session Initiation Protocol
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.
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
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
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
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
