OpenSIPS in front of VICIdial: choose registration and dialog ownership

Choose one owner for each registration relationship

Draw each registration relationship separately: phone-to-registrar, and any provider registration used by the trunk. If a trunk uses IP/digest authentication without REGISTER, record “not used” for that relationship. Do not require a Registered state for a non-registering trunk.

For each relationship that does register, name one responsible component and its credential, contact-refresh and failure-handling owner. Adding a proxy does not make duplicate registrations intentional.

You should seeEvery relationship has an explicit owner or “not used”, rather than one ambiguous global REGISTER checkbox.

Draw the ownership map before configuration

Use role names in the public worksheet and keep actual addresses/credentials in protected configuration records. Record the inbound/outbound next hops, transaction handling, chosen dialog-routing mechanism and the media relay/direct path separately.

OpenSIPS signaling proxying does not itself prove that RTP traverses a relay. If a media relay is required, give it an explicit owner, health check and failure test.

OpenSIPS version: 3.6.x (record exact build)Phone registration owner: selected registrar or not usedProvider registration owner: selected component or not usedInbound next hop: reviewed Asterisk roleOutbound next hop: reviewed provider roleDialog route: ordinary rr OR topology_hiding (choose one per path)Transaction handling: reviewed initial/ACK/CANCEL/retransmission policyMedia: direct OR named relay, with separate health checkRollback: prior next hops and registration relationships

Download the ownership and lifecycle worksheet →

Choose the OpenSIPS 3.6 dialog-routing mechanism

In an ordinary Record-Route design, rr adds the proxy to the route set and loose_route() processes Route-bearing sequential requests. Authentication, transaction handling and non-dialog requests still need a reviewed routing script.

For a topology-hiding path, topology_hiding() strips/restores Via/Record-Route/Route and rewrites Contact. The 3.6 documentation says later requests on that path lack the ordinary Route headers and require topology_hiding_match() to match and repair the request. Do not make a successful loose_route() check the only gate for those requests.

Use the installed module’s full documentation and dependencies when implementing either design. The comparison below is not a complete opensips.cfg and must not be pasted as one.

asterisk -rx 'pjsip show transports'ss -lnup | grep asterisk

Test transactions, dialogs and registrations separately

Use controlled endpoints in both directions and correlate the selected synthetic transaction/dialog across the two hops. A successful registration or OPTIONS response is not a completed call test.

A rejected INVITE and a pre-answer CANCEL must complete their transaction paths without a lingering test call. An established dialog needs the correct BYE and cleanup. A valid persistent registration normally remains until expiry, refresh or an explicit registration change; call rejection or hangup does not require deleting it.

• Run the cases in both intended directions and record actual results.
• Preserve only sanitized call IDs/timings and the first failed boundary for handoff.
• Do not mark an unperformed transfer, refresh or media case as passed.

Reverse the route without leaving two owners

Stop expansion on incorrect next hops, identity rewriting, missing sequential requests or failed media. End only the controlled test calls, restore the captured prior next-hop and registration-owner settings, and verify the selected state on both components.

After reversal, repeat the relevant direct-path acceptance cases. Preserve the synthetic history and failure evidence. Avoid deleting unrelated registrations or trying to clear all dialogs to make a test look clean.

You should seeThe rollback result names the state restored and the cases actually repeated.

• The prior route and each registration relationship have their documented owner.
• No synthetic dialog is left on the withdrawn test route.
• The prior path passes the selected answer, reject/cancel and hangup cases.