OpenSIPS capabilities

OpenSIPS was originally intended to be a Class 4 SIP switch, but during its evolution along the years, OpenSIPS exceeded the original goal and started to provide Class 5 features. It is not able to offer a complete set of Class 5 features because of being limited to the SIP signaling-related features (that is, call forwarding, call transfer, call pickup, and so on). This limitation comes from the fact that OpenSIPS does not handle media, so it cannot offer media-related features. You can find the list of capabilities offered by OpenSIPS as follows:

As you can see, these capabilities are grouped by classes, depending on their nature.

Tip

Remember that OpenSIPS has no built-in media capabilities, but it can control external media engines.

An overview of the OpenSIPS project

The OpenSIPS project is an open source project with a dynamic international community, releasing its code under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).

OpenSIPS is a daemon-like application that runs on all Unix-like platforms—the BSD family, Linux, Solaris, OS X, and others. Nevertheless, the development is primarily done under Linux environments.

OpenSIPS is written in the C language with several additional helper tools written in Shell, Perl, or Python (tools to install and create DB schemas, CLI tools, and others). OpenSIPS development is completely active and there is a major release every 6 to 12 months and a minor release every 1 to 3 months. Some basic things to note here are as follows:

• The OpenSIPS project is primarily hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/OpenSIPS
• The code is versioned under Git: https://github.com/OpenSIPS/opensips
• A tracker is available for bug reports, feature requests, patch submission, or any other generic issues: https://github.com/OpenSIPS/opensips/issues
• The OpenSIPS project is governed by the OpenSIPS Software Foundation (OSF) but relies on a vast and international community in order to function.

The goal of OSF is to provide an open framework to encourage contributions that help the OpenSIPS project to flourish. The OSF activities are mainly focused on building a proper image for the project, organizing OpenSIPS-related events, and other activities related to managing and marketing the project. The OSF is not involved at all in any decisions or activities related to the code development part.

The community is the one leading and powering the project development and progress—in terms of research, code development, testing and reporting, fixing, and knowledge transfer to newcomers.

The monthly public meetings hosted on the OpenSIPS IRC channel involve the entire community in the current status of the project (transparency in terms of development) and in the decision-making for future plans:

#opensips on FreeNode IRC server

Such meetings allow the community to stay connected to the OpenSIPS project and synchronize their own plans with the development path of OpenSIPS. This makes OpenSIPS a reliable tool (in terms of code and delivery) to be used in all areas, including the most demanding grounds such as the telecom industry.

One step further, the OpenSIPS Summits are events meant to coagulate the OpenSIPS community by providing its participants with a concentrated cocktail of knowledge and understanding of the project—updates on the project, real case studies, examples of usage scenarios, tutorials, and open discussions. The OpenSIPS Summits take place two or three times per year in various locations across the world and are announced in advance via the project news channels:

http://www.opensips.org/Community/Summits

For coagulating purposes, the OpenSIPS project has a strong presence on various socializing portals such as LinkedIn or Facebook—this in an easy way to be up to date with the latest news or activities of the project:

• https://www.linkedin.com/groups/164063
• https://www.facebook.com/opensips

OpenSIPS knowledge transfer and support

For the OpenSIPS users, the project offers multiple ways of knowledge transfer—the Open Access to Knowledge is a mandatory complement of the open source code in an open source project. The project offers various and complete online documentations; each OpenSIPS version has its own version of documents. The documents are updated with each release. For easy browsing, the documents are structured based on the OpenSIPS versions.

The documentation section is located at http://opensips.org/Documentation/Manuals.

The most important subsections are as follows:

• The generic OpenSIPS manual: Information about functions, modules, and interfaces in OpenSIPS at http://www.opensips.org/Documentation/Manual-2-1
• Advanced tutorials: Complete and comprehensive examples of using certain OpenSIPS functionalities at http://www.opensips.org/Documentation/Tutorials
• Troubleshooting: How to deal with the most common problems at http://www.opensips.org/Documentation/Troubleshooting
• Migration: How to migrate your OpenSIPS installations at http://www.opensips.org/Documentation/Migration

Besides manuals, tutorials, and other written documentation, the OpenSIPS project provides you with audio/video webinars. Each webinar covers a certain topic with detailed explanations and working script examples at http://www.opensips.org/Documentation/Webinars.

Complementary to the documentation, the OpenSIPS project provides help and support to its community. There are various available channels that the users can use in order to get support from the OpenSIPS team and the rest of the community:

http://www.opensips.org/Support/Contact

The most popular channel is the mailing list, where anyone can ask and answer OpenSIPS-related questions. For similar purposes, the project has its own IRC channel that can be used for real-time discussions.

For more demanding users, the project offers training and certification programs. Starting with a fast-track self-training, the project also offers intensive boot camp training with instructors and ends with a certification exam to prove your OpenSIPS knowledge and skills at http://www.opensips.org/Support/EBootcamp and http://www.opensips.org/Support/Certification.