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The SIP phone has most likely not been configured correctly.Īfter the phone is reconfigured correctly, it can successfully authenticate with the server: (If the IP phone was a softphone running on a PC, the connection problem could have been caused by a firewall on the PC preventing the SIP traffic from reaching the network, for example, but we can rule this out, since the SIP server and the phone are communicating.) Since the phone tried four times to log on to the SIP server before giving up, it’s likely that in this case we have an authentication problem. Wireshark shows that traffic is successfully reaching the SIP server from the IP phone, so the problem is not the connection between these two points. The screenshot below displays the SIP traffic generated from 192.168.1.150 as it tries to connect to a SIP server. You may also want to filter the display to show only traffic to and from the problem phone’s IP address. Filter this to show only SIP traffic by typing “sip” into the filter box at the top of the Wireshark window. Let’s begin by troubleshooting a user who’s having a connection issue with an IP phone.Īt first, you’ll probably see a bewildering amount of traffic traveling over the network in Wireshark. Let’s explore how you can begin to use Wireshark to troubleshoot SIP-related problems.ĭownload a copy of Wireshark for Linux, Windows, OS X, or UNIX and bookmark the user’s guide.įor SIP-based VoIP troubleshooting, you’re likely to be interested in two types of packets: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) packets–which, as the name suggests, do the work of setting up and tearing down a call–and Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) packets, which carry the voice data. The software lets you see every packet traveling over your network and can filter out irrelevant packets to concentrate on the ones of interest. A simple way to do that is to use a free, open source traffic sniffing and analysis tool called Wireshark. To troubleshoot your SIP-based VoIP system, you first need to see exactly what’s going on with the VoIP traffic traveling over your network. When this happens, you need to troubleshoot to resolve the problem. If your organization uses a SIP-based VoIP solution, then you’ve probably had things go wrong: users can’t connect to the system, or the call quality is poor.
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