SIPp is a free and open source tool for load and performance testing of SIP-based networks and services. It can generate SIP traffic in various call scenarios defined in XML files and collect statistics on call success rates and response times. The document provides an overview of SIPp's features and capabilities, how to create SIPp scenarios using keywords to inject values, and examples of using SIPp to test registration and call setup.

1. SIPp Introduction
Load and Performance Testing
Simon Flannery
Ericsson Australia

2. Agenda
 SIPp Basics
 Running SIPp
– Statistics and Screens
– Command Line Options
 Creating Scenarios
 Authentication
 Examples

3. Getting Started
 Low-level knowledge of the SIP protocol and SIP
signalling inside IMS
 Scenarios files are written using XML
 Download from http://sipp.sourceforge.net/
 "SIPp is a free Open Source test tool and traffic
generator for the SIP protocol "
- sipp.sourceforge.net
 Used for performance testing and traffic
generation for IMT (and can be used for mIMS,
but not PoC) Integration & Verification

4. SIPp Features
 Support for both IPv4 and IPv6
 RTP media support (PCAP)
 Call rate distributions
– Fixed
– Uniform
– Exponential
 Support Authentication
 High Performance and Reliable
 Allows Complex Sceneries
 Can be controlled remotely (or externally)
 Reports Statistics

5. Running SIPp
 SIPp has an interactive and real-time command
line interface
 Quite safe and stable to be left alone, or run in
the background (try to always use latest build)
 Various statistics and reporting screens are
available
 Exit codes:
– 0 (zero) indicate that all calls were successful
– 1 indicates that at least one call failed
– 97 indicates an abnormal exit on internal command
– 99 indicating a normal exit without processing calls
– -1 used to indicate a fatal error

6. The Scenario Screen
 Default screen (accessed by pressing 1)

7. The Statistics Screen
 Accessed by pressing 2

8. Useful Command Line Options
 -sf,loads an alternate scenario file
 -inf, loads an external CSV file to inject values from
 -r, sets the call rate (calls per second)
 -rp, specify the rate period (ms) for the call rate (above)
– Example: -r 15 -rp 1000, 15 calls every second
 -l, maximum number of simultaneous calls
 -m, stop and exit when set number of calls are
processed
 -i, sets the local IP address
 -p, sets the local port number

9. Useful Command Line Options
 -auth_uri,forces the domain value of the URI for
authentication (for example, 401)
 -trace_screen,logs the final screens to file
(<scenario>_<pid>_screen.log)
 -trace_err, logs unexpected messages to file
(<scenario>_<pid>_errors.log)
 -trace_stat, logs statistics to file
(<scenario>_<pid>.csv)
 -fd, logs statistics at set interval (seconds)
 -nd, disable SIPp’s default behaviors
 Finally, we end all SIPp commands with the remote host
(and port), for example the P-CSCF

10. SIPp Supports Authentication
 Two authentication algorithms are supported:
– Digest / MD5 ("algorithm="MD5"")
– Digest / AKA
 When receiving:
– 401 (Unauthorized)
– 407 (Proxy Authentication Required)
 Simply add auth="true" in the <recv> command to take
the challenge into account
 The authorization header will then be re-injected in the next
message using [authentication] keyword

11. Creating your own Scenarios
 Authored using XML notation <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE scenario SYSTEM "sipp.dtd">
 Unfortunately has spaghetti
<scenario name="UAC Basic Registration">
flow <label id="0" />
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true">
– Using labels and jumps <![CDATA[
(next attributes) REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:
 Useful elements: [local_port];branch=[branch]
From: [field0] <sip:
– <send> [field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
– <recv> Call-ID: [call_id]
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
– <pause>, speech time Contact: [field0] <sip:
[field0]@[local_ip]:
– <nop>, no operation [local_port]>;expires=691200
Max-Forwards: 70
– <label> Content-Length: 0
]]>
 Registration scenario walk </send>
through with authentication ...to be continued
 Always put optional responses
first

12. Creating your own Scenarios
<recv response="200" rtd="true" next="3" <recv response="400" rtd="true" next="2"
optional="true" /> optional="true" />
<recv response="403" rtd="true" next="2" <recv response="403" rtd="true" next="2"
optional="true" /> optional="true" />
<recv response="404" rtd="true" next="2" <recv response="404" rtd="true" next="2"
optional="true" /> optional="true" />
<recv response="401" rtd="true" next="1" <recv response="200" rtd="true" next="3"
auth="true" crlf="true" /> crlf="true" />
<label id="1" /> <label id="2" />
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true"> <nop>
er e
<![CDATA[ <action>
ends h
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0 <exec int_cmd="stop_call" /> enario
sc
ls and
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:
[local_port];branch=[branch]
</action> Call fai
</nop>
From: [field0] <sip:
[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number] ends
<label id="3" /> enario
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
s s f ul
<!-- Definition of the response time and sc
Call-ID: [call_id] repartition table ll(unit eis ms). re
a s uc c
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
C he -->
<ResponseTimeRepartition value="30, 50, 80,
Contact: [field0] <sip: 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700,
[field0]@[local_ip]: 1000, 1200, 1400, 1500" />
[local_port]>;expires=691200
[field2] <!-- Definition of the call length
Max-Forwards: 70 repartition table (unit is ms). -->
Content-Length: 0 <CallLengthRepartition value="30, 50, 80,
]]> 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700,
1000, 1200, 1400, 1500" />
</send>
</scenario>

13. Creating your own Scenarios
Keywords from the Command Line
sipp -sf register.xml -inf subscribers_00000_01249.csv -m 1250 -r 200 -rp 1 -l 50000
-t u1 -nd -trace_screen -trace_err -i 192.168.22.81 -p 6041 -auth_uri tcm.imt.se
192.168.22.58:5060
<scenario name="UAC Basic Registration">
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true">
<![CDATA[
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:[local_port];branch=[branch]
From: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
Call-ID: [call_id]
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:[local_port]>;expires=691200
Max-Forwards: 70
Content-Length: 0
]]>
</send>

14. Creating your own Scenarios
Keywords from SIPp
Magic cookie (z9hG4bK) +
"UDP" or "TCP"
call number +
message index
<scenario name="UAC Basic Registration">
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true"> Starts from "1" and
<![CDATA[
incremented by 1 for each call
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:[local_port];branch=[branch]
From: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
Call-ID: [call_id]
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:[local_port]>;expires=691200
Max-Forwards: 70
Content-Length: 0
]]>
</send>
Automatically
Identifies a call and is generated by
generates the CSeq
SIPp for each new call (mandatory)
number starting at 1

15. Useful SIPp Keywords
 [len], Computed length of the SIP body used
in "Content-Length" header
 [call_number], index of the call starting at 1
and is incremented by 1 for each call
 [authentication], is used to include the
authentication header
 [msg_index], provides the message number
in the scenario
 [cseq], provides (or generates) the CSeq value
of the last (or next) request received

16. Injecting External Values
Keywords and values from an external file
<scenario name="UAC Basic Registration">
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true">
<![CDATA[
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:[local_port];branch=[branch]
From: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
Call-ID: [call_id]
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:[local_port]>;expires=691200
Max-Forwards: 70
Content-Length: 0
]]>
</send>

17. Regular Expression Scenario
<scenario name="UAC Basic Registration"> <label id="1" />
<label id="0" /> <send retrans="500" start_rtd="true">
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true"> <![CDATA[
<![CDATA[
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0
REGISTER sip:[field1] SIP/2.0 Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]:
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]: [local_port];branch=[branch]
[local_port];branch=[branch] From: [field0] <sip:
From: [field0] <sip: [field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]
[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number] To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]>
To: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[field1]> Call-ID: [call_id]
Call-ID: [call_id] CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER
CSeq: [cseq] REGISTER Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]: [local_port]>;expires=[$1]
[local_port]>;expires=60 Max-Forwards: 70
Max-Forwards: 70 Content-Length: 0
Content-Length: 0
]]>
]]> </send>
</send>
<recv response="200" rtd="true" next="3"
<recv response="200" rtd="true" next="3" crlf="true" />
optional="true" />
<label id="3" />
<!-- Interval Too Brief --> <ResponseTimeRepartition value="30, 50, 80, 100,
<recv response="423" rtd="true" next="1" 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 1000, 1200,
crlf="true"> 1400, 1500" />
<action>
<ereg regexp="[0-9]+" search_in="hdr" <CallLengthRepartition value="30, 50, 80, 100,
header="Min-Expires:" check_it="true" 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 1000, 1200,
assign_to="1" /> 1400, 1500" />
</action> </scenario>
</recv>

19. Definition of a call
 Successful call:
– Navigates a scenario file from start to finish
– Does not encounter a “stop_call” (or other)
command
 Unsuccessful (failed) call:
– Encounters a “stop_call”, “stop_now”,
“stop_gracefully” or other?

20. Example Time
 The scenario:
– User 46706560000000 calls user 46706560003000,
– User 46706560000001 calls user 46706560003001,
– User 46706560000002 calls user 46706560003002 and so on…
 Again we will use CSV files to inject who should call who
 We assume everyone is provisioned and successfully
registered
 We will use two scenario files:
– A Caller scenario file (to send INVITEs, pauses and BYEs)
– A Callee scenario file (to answer the INVITEs and BYEs)

21. The Caller
 CSV Injection File
The Caller The Callee
[field0] [field1] [field2] [field3]

22. The Caller
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <recv response="100" rtd="true"
<!DOCTYPE scenario SYSTEM "sipp.dtd"> optional="true" />
<scenario name="UAC Basic Invite"> <recv response="180" rtd="true"
optional="true" />
<label id="0" />
<recv response="400" rtd="true" rrs="true"
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true"> next="3" optional="true" />
<![CDATA[ <recv response="401" rtd="true" rrs="true"
next="3" optional="true" />
INVITE sip:[field3]@[field1] SIP/2.0 <recv response="403" rtd="true" rrs="true"
Via: SIP/2.0/[transport] [local_ip]: next="3" optional="true" />
[local_port];branch=[branch] <recv response="404" rtd="true" rrs="true"
From: [field0] <sip: next="3" optional="true" />
[field0]@[field1]>;tag=[call_number]-INV-UAC <recv response="200" rtd="true" rrs="true"
To: [field3] <sip:[field3]@[field1]> next="1" />
Call-ID: [call_id] <label id="1" />
CSeq: [cseq] INVITE <send>
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]: <![CDATA[
[local_port]>
Max-Forwards: 70 ACK [next_url] SIP/2.0
Content-Type: application/sdp [last_Via:]
Content-Length: [len] [last_From:]
[last_To:]
v=0 [last_Call-ID:]
o=user1 53655765 2353687637 IN CSeq: [cseq] ACK
IP[local_ip_type] [local_ip] Max-Forwards: 70
s=SIPp-UAC Subject: Performance Test
c=IN IP[media_ip_type] [media_ip] Content-Length: 0
t=0 0 [routes]
m=audio [media_port] RTP/AVP 0
a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000 ]]>
</send>
]]>
</send> <pause milliseconds="60000" next="2" />

23. The Caller
Han
g
r
4xx erro
up
<label id="2" /> <label id="3" />
<send retrans="500" start_rtd="true"> <nop>
<![CDATA[ <action>
BYE [next_url] SIP/2.0 <exec int_cmd="stop_call" />
[last_Via:] </action>
[last_From:] </nop>
[last_To:]
[last_Call-ID:] <label id="4" />
CSeq: [cseq] BYE <!-- Definition of the response time repartition
Max-Forwards: 70 table (unit is ms). -->
Subject: Performance Test <ResponseTimeRepartition value="10, 20, 30, 40,
Content-Length: 0 50, 100, 150, 200" />
[routes]
<!-- Definition of the call length repartition
]]> table (unit is ms). -->
</send> <CallLengthRepartition value="10, 50, 100, 500,
1000, 5000, 10000" />
<recv response="400" rtd="true" next="3"
optional="true" /> </scenario>
<recv response="401" rtd="true" next="3"
optional="true" />
<recv response="403" rtd="true" next="3"
optional="true" />
<recv response="404" rtd="true" next="3"
optional="true" />
<recv response="408" rtd="true" next="3"
optional="true" />
<recv response="200" rtd="true" next="4"
crlf="true" />

24. The Caller Local port of the UE P-CSCF or ACME
Call rate
The
Scenario
Message
Counter
Actual
speech
time

25. The Callee
 CSV Injection File
The Callee
[field0] [field1] [field2] No field 3

26. The Callee
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <send retrans="500">
<!DOCTYPE scenario SYSTEM "sipp.dtd"> <![CDATA[
<scenario name="UAS Basic responder"> SIP/2.0 200 OK
[last_Via:]
<recv request="INVITE" rrs="true" crlf="true" /> [last_From:]
[last_To:];tag=[call_number]-INV-UAS
<send> [last_Call-ID:]
<![CDATA[ [last_CSeq:]
[last_Record-Route:]
SIP/2.0 180 Ringing Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:
[last_Via:] [local_port]>
[last_From:] Content-Type: application/sdp
[last_To:];tag=[call_number]-INV-UAS Content-Length: [len]
[last_Call-ID:]
[last_CSeq:] v=0
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]: o=user1 53655765 2353687637 IN
[local_port]> IP[local_ip_type] [local_ip]
[last_Record-Route:] s=SIPp-UAS
Content-Length: 0 c=IN IP[media_ip_type] [media_ip]
t=0 0
]]> m=audio [media_port] RTP/AVP 0
</send> a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000
<pause milliseconds="2000" /> ]]>
</send>
<recv request="ACK" optional="true"
crlf="true" />

27. The Callee
 The Callee only
<recv request="BYE" />
<send>
needs to reply to
<![CDATA[
SIP/2.0 200 OK
SIP messges from
[last_Via:]
[last_From:]
[last_To:]
[last_Call-ID:]
[last_CSeq:]
Contact: [field0] <sip:[field0]@[local_ip]:
the Caller
[local_port]>
Content-Length: 0
]]>
 The Callee has no
</send>
<!-- Keep call open in case the 200 is lost to
logic flow
 The Caller has all
be
able to retransmit it if we receive the BYE
again. -->
the logic flow
<pause milliseconds="4000" />
<ResponseTimeRepartition value="10, 20, 30, 40,
50, 100, 150, 200" />
– Remember all the labels and
<CallLengthRepartition value="10, 50, 100, 500,
1000, 5000, 10000" /> jumps (next)?
</scenario>

28. The Callee If running both the caller and callee
on the same computer ensure that
they use different ports
The
Scenario

29. References
 SIPp documentation
http://sipp.sourceforge.net/doc/reference.html
 SIPp in action
http://sipp.sourceforge.net/doc/images/sipp-01
 Using the Statistics output with Excel
http://sipp.sourceforge.net/doc/images/sipp-02