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Re: [Sip] SIP backward compatibility issue




Vijay K. Gurbani wrote:

2) I was also wondering about the theoretical possibility of backward compatibility? Any provisions in the protocol for an implementation to detect and manage this issue?

The SIP protocol number is still "SIP/2.0"; not "SIP/2.1". You could
glean some information from the presence or absence of the Via magic
cookie, but you should not depend on it for anything.
There is absolutely no need.

rfc3261 is sufficiently backwards compatible with rfc2543. There is no need to detect versions or anything. Any backwards compatibility functions are built into specific features of rfc3261 that needed to support backwards compatibility. If you just implement rfc3261 you will be backwards compatible.

There is no versioning of the protocol. Things like the via cookie are meant to deal with backwards compatibility for THAT SPECIFIC FEATURE. It is possible to encounter an implementation that supports the contact cookie, but is still a strict router. Using the contact cookie to imply support for all of 3261 is a mistake. The lr parameter deals with the record-routing changes, and the contact cookie, with the via header changes.


There was a
thread a while ago on why depending on the magic cookie for operations
is not a good idea -- I don't have a reference to it (if someone else
on the list does, feel free to post it).  One of the reason you cannot
depend on the magic cookie is that it only tells you something about
the upstream UA and nothing about the downstream server (assuming you
are a proxy).
The problem, as I outline above, is we are not trying to strictly version the protocol, but provide interoperability and backwards compatibility on a feature-by-feature basis. So, via cookie tells you nothing except that the via branch ID is sufficiently unique to be used as a transaction ID.



3) Is it feasible for applications to have dual SIP Stacks? (Both 2543 and 3261)?

Yes; although, once again, the utility of support PGP which was probably
absent in most rfc2543 implementations is dubious at best.
There were none that anyone mentioned.

To me, "dual-stack" is non-sensical. rfc3261 provides backwards compatibility where needed.



4) Does it make sense now to still deal with 2543?

Sure.  There is deployed gear that is rfc2543 compliant.  3Com's
Ethernet SIP phones for example are still used in many installations
(they work great) and are rfc2543 compliant only.
As above, it is my opinion that rfc3261 sufficiently deals with rfc2543 for any feature you are going to find in use from rfc2543.

-Jonathan R.

--
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D. 72 Eagle Rock Ave.
Chief Scientist First Floor
dynamicsoft East Hanover, NJ 07936
jdrosen@dynamicsoft.com FAX: (973) 952-5050
http://www.jdrosen.net PHONE: (973) 952-5000
http://www.dynamicsoft.com

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