[OpenSIPS-Users] Enhaced sip capturing process

[Ionita Ionut-Razvan]

Hi all,

In OpenSIPS 2.2, the whole SIP capturing process was dramatically re-worked, to make it more flexible, higher performance and more powerful. The re-work covers the whole SIP capturing flow, from the filtering traffic and  packing into HEP, to the routing HEP and storing it into the database. The existing sip_trace and sip_capture modules were re-designed and the new proto_hep module added to sync the implementation around the HEP protocol.

The new approach is more flexible as the sip trace module comes with a simpler logic in how to filter and select the traffic (message, transaction, dialog level). Introducing the concept of traceID gives more flexibility when comes  to decide where to send the filtered traffic (to HEP, to DB, to SIP). Any combination of filters and destination is now possible, allowing the implementation of any complex tracing and capturing scenario.

The performance of the whole capturing process was also increased by using asynchronous operations when comes to sending/receiving HEP packets or to writing to DB - this means no more blocking under heavy load, lower changes to get your OpenSIPS overloaded. Also the DB operations were improved by using multi-row inserts, to reduce the DB overhead.

OpenSIPS 2.2 comes with a new radical concept - HEPv3 proxying. The HEP implementation in OpenSIPS is now more powerful - the script gives the possibility to access the HEP information, to change the HEP headers and to proxy further any incoming HEP traffic. The ability to act as HEP proxy/switch is the answer to heavy-load and complex capturing scenarios. 

Considering all these improvements, OpenSIPS now puts on the table new ways for building advanced capturing architecture. If until now the capturing node could only store messages in the database, not being able to do anything else since it was not possible to make a difference between sip and hep messages, with the new additions one can also choose to route the hep messages to different destinations based on different factors or store hep messages directly into the database, leaving the script available for different type of processing. 

All this work is a result of the collaboration between theSIPCapture[0] and OpenSIPS projects. How to improve the integration of these two pieces of software was the result of joined discussions and brainstorming, having the single goal of professional capturing system, from SIP traffic, all the way to the DB.

Overview of the changes:

* New proto_hep module [1] to concentrate all the HEP protocol related operations (async send and receive via TCP).

* sip_trace module[2] dropped all flags in favour of a single sip_trace() function where you can decide the tracing level (message, transaction, dialog) and where to trace (multiple trace-id’s[3] point directly to a DB, to a HEP destination or to a SIP destination)

in sip_capture module[4], the sip_capture function can now store messages in the database asynchronously which will save precious processing time.

* the sip_capture module now transformed into a fully hep-aware node capable of not only storing messages in the databases, but also acting as a hep proxy, forwarding messages to various hep destinations using the hep_relay[5] function. The routing is done the same way as the sip routing allowing using all the routing modules has right now. What is more, for the third version of the protocol it is very easy to modify the hep chunks from the script[6][7][8] before storing/forwarding the message.

* the sip_capture module can turn your capturing node into a hep proxy - we have also defined a new parameter called the hep_route through which one can define a special route through which all the hep messages should go[9]. The major advantage this route brings is that the payload of the message is not parsed, saving precious time. Capturing messages from this route is not allowed since you don’t have a parsed message. Also this parameter brings you the possibility to store hep messages directly into the database, without going through the script at all

For further documentation read the links below:

[0] http://www.sipscapture.org/

[1] http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/proto_hep

[2] http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/siptrace

[3]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/siptrace#id248959

[4] http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture

[5]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture#id294645

[6]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture#hep_set_id

[7]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture#id294455

[8]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture#id294587

[9]http://www.opensips.org/html/docs/modules/2.2.x/sipcapture#id293867

Regards,
Ionut Ionita
OpenSIPS Developer

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensips.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20160328/63874c7c/attachment-0001.htm>