How to diagnose VoIP-traffic using Wireshark

When debugging (diagnosing) an IP telephony service, it is very difficult to analyze VoIP traffic. Is there a more convenient and efficient way to debug VoIP using the Wireshark traffic analyzer?

The Wireshark program implements a convenient mechanism for diagnosing (analyzing) VoIP calls, in particular, you can get a graphical diagram of calls and see how data was exchanged. Wireshark allows you to analyze the SIP protocol and its RTP traffic.

Suppose that during the execution of a VoIP call using Wireshark, network packets were captured and this dump should be analyzed.

 

Walktrough Steps:

1. Select a SIP or RTP packet from the list (in our example, analyze the RTP traffic). To filter packets, you can enter a value in the Filter field.   sip or rtp to display only a certain type of traffic.


2. Go to the Statistics menu (or Telephony , depending on the version of the program) > VoIP Calls .
The VoIP Calls window opens with a list of VoIP calls.

 

The list of VoIP calls shows the following information for each call:  

    • Start Time: The time the call started. 
    • Stop Time: The end time of the call.  
    • Initial Speaker: The IP address of the packet source that initiated the call.
    • From: For SIP calls, the INVITE request is displayed in the "From" field.  
    • To: For SIP calls, the INVITE request is displayed in the "To" field.
    • Protocol: Protocol.  
    • Packets: The number of packets participating in the call.  
    • State: Call status.
    • Comment: Additional comments.

3. Select a VoIP call and then click the Graph button (or Flow , depending on the version of the program). The Graph Analysis window will appear with a graphical diagram of the VoIP call data exchange.

 

In this diagram, it is much more convenient to analyze VoIP-traffic for diagnostics (debugging), but it will require knowledge of the principles of the SIP data transmission protocol (Session Initiation Protocol): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol.

 

KB-00495

Articles in this section

Was this article helpful?
12 out of 19 found this helpful
Share