February 13, 2023Categories: Release Notes

Sippy 2022 Release

Hello Everyone,

Sippy Software Inc. is happy to announce our newest release will be available for on February 14th, 2023. Updates to your production systems can now be scheduled with our support team if you have a valid support agreement and are on the latest version of our prior release. If you do not have a valid support agreement please contact [email protected] to purchase a support package for your system.

Major Changes:

Account Trunk Enhancements

In prior versions we only had support for a main trunk connection and a backup trunk connection. We have made some major changes to how we manage trunk connections and it is now possible to support multiple trunk connections instead of just having a main and backup connections.

New Web Framework

To support some of the work needed for the multiple trunks we have also adopted a new web framework that will be used to improve usability of this feature as well as give us a starting point to improve the overall web user experience. We plan on extending this new framework to additional pages in our upcoming releases.

Improved Video Calling support

With the updated RTP Proxy included in our release it also comes with some improved video calling support. This is a useful feature to explore opportunities for doing video calls through your softswitch. A practical application of this feature for example would be home security cameras. You could set up a SIP based security camera to call the home/business owner and send the video call through as it picks up movement on the camera.

Cloud Backups

During our development cycle for Sippy 2022 we created a new solution that will allow users to create a safe, secure, and offsite backup solution. Your regularly scheduled backups will be automatically uploaded to an Amazon S3 bucket protected from any hardware problems that could happen at your Local Data Center. This solution is cheaper than a full standby system but effective enough to quickly rebuild your Softswitch with some of your business critical data. If you are interested in subscribing to this service contact our [email protected] for pricing and additional details.

GoLang version of RTP Cluster

In support of our efforts to work on a clustered version of our software we have worked on some changes to rewrite RTP Cluster into golang. RTP cluster is used to monitor and manage load between different RTP Proxy instances setup on different nodes.

SRTP Support

In Sippy 2021 we added SIP TCP/TLS giving the infrastructure needed to extend SRTP functionality to the softswitch. This feature is also one of the last few improvements needed to extend the product to support Microsoft Teams integration in the future.

Firewall Improvements

A number of improvements were done to our firewall system to better manage SIP TLS/TCP connections. We have made some important improvements for incoming SIP TLS/TCP connections for the firewall as well as added some improved support for TFTP and notifications. You can also now bypass a set of firewall rules for UDP traffic and speeding up the processing of RTP data.

DID Ranges - A FreightSwitch Feature

We have added initial support for DID Ranges for Freightswitch that will allow Switch operator to manage larger ranges of DID numbers. Since DID Ranges can easily contain tens or hundreds of thousands of numbers adding support for blocks of numbers make alot of sense to manage in a more effective way. We’ll be working on some additional changes for API and web interface changes at some point for Soft Switch in the future.

New Features and Improvements:

SS-5226 - Updated ports tree

Many of our packages have been updated as part of this release cycle. For a full list contact Support.

SS-5195 - Update to FreeBSD 13.1

Our Latest Release will update the Operating System to FreeBSD 13.1

SS-5278 - PostgreSQL update to 14

Our latest release will update the database version to PostgreSQL 14.

SS-5322 - Update OpenSIPS 3.1 to the latest LTS version 3.1.13

The latest bugfixes and improvements are now availble after moving from OpenSIPS version 3.1.6 (introduced in Sippy 2021) to the current Long Term Stable Release OpenSIPS version 3.16.

SS-5306 - Add a default value for netmask in IP Firewall tool

A default value of 255.255.255.255 will now be pre populated in the netmask field of the IP Firewall tool to make the addition of new records a bit easier.

SS-5280 - Actualize list of ntp servers

Some of the ntp servers configured were not working as identified on a spot check. Only one server was found to still be working as expected. We have updated the ntp.conf file to include some additional servers in the (unlikley) event that the last one becomes unavailable.

SS-5241 - Updated RTP Proxy

There are some changes around performance and extracting audio done in the latest 2.3 alpha package of RTP Proxy. Some additional changes for support for video calls are also noted.

SS-5251 - Improved Video Calling support

With the updated RTP Proxy included in our release it also comes with some improved video calling support. This can be a useful feature to explore video calls or for SIP based Security Cameras.

SS-5205 - Refactor OpenSIPS config for better structure and clarity

Some improvements were done on the backend side to improve how we interact and manipulate configuration parameters in OpenSIPS.

SS-5184 - Add per environment xmlapi control for hiding password settings

A per-environment setting has been added to control visibility into hiding or displaying vendor connection passwords.

SS-4998 - Add new firewall_type for tftp to manage acccess to service via web firewall tool

You can now manage tftp connections using the web firewall tool. If these are set to default values there is also a notification in the web user interface for you to review and update those.

SS-5120 - Change subject in Send by Email for DID and Vendor CDRs

It will now be a bit easier to tell the difference between DID CDR emails and Vendor CDRs. We have adjusted the both subject headers to tell them apart.

SS-3214 - Call direction information can be retrieved from the B2BUA

We can now get call direction information about active calls from the b2bua.

SS-5437 - Media Port Change

In compliance with some new Turkish Regulations we have made a patch to ensure the media port remains consistent between when the call is first announced to when it is connected. This patch is available for all our production versions of our software upon request and is built in for Sippy 2022.

SS-5332 - Create a notification for web pages for legacy browsers

The changes for our web interface also means we no longer support Internet Explorer 11 and legacy versions of other browsers. We have added a notification when users are using legacy browsers informing them to update to the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

SS-5315 - Maximum call-id field length for related CDR tables

We have extended the length of characters that can be used for call_id from 128 to 256 characters.

SS-4935 - Add a DB setting for Thrift

Thrift files can now be enabled via xmlapi. This is particularly useful for our AWS Cloud installations. Please contact our support team for help if you need to export this data out.

SS-4812 - Configurable Default Values for Follow Me Timeouts are now added to system wide configuration parameters

We made some changes to allow for a configurable default value for Follow Me timeouts. This should make it easier to specify this setting when you need it.

SS-1000 - Compress Data export files

Data exported (for example rates) is now compressed thanks to apache. In our tests this means a 104 MB rate file is compressed down to a 34 MB file saving time in download. Compression can be disabled if CPU performance is an issue as downloads are performed however this should have a minimal impact overall.

SS-5146 - Update from Python 3.6 to Python 3.9

We’ve updated the python package to Python 3.9.

SS-5146 - Update PHP to 8.1

The version of PHP installed has been updated to 8.1

API changes

SS-5046 - Privacy support in Test Dial Plan

The Test Dial plan has now been updated to recieve two new parameters in relation to privacy. pai_hdr and rpid_hdr can now be used as part of these api methods to reflect the username portion from SIP URI fom P-Asserted-Identity and Remote-Party-ID respectively

SS-5314 - getDIDInfo() and getDIDList() XMLAPI does not return incoming_cli

We have corrected an issue where getDIDInfo() and getDIDList() was not returning incoming_cli.

Security Improvements:

SS-5463 - Remove IPs of former Kyiv office from firewall and hosts.allow

We have updated our whitelisted IP addresses and removed the IP addresses from our former Kyiv office. Contact our Support team for a list of whitelisted IP addresses.

Stability Improvements:

SS-5305 - Backup with TAR format writes to root partition and fails

An issue was identified and fixed that prevented backup using the TAR format would fail to be generated as they were attempted to be written to the wrong directory. This has been fixed in all our production releases.

SS-4387 - Validation for ports in network services

We have added changes that will validate the port number in the environment properties. This should help switch operators from using port numbers that are already in use by some other service. This could lead to problems in call processing if not corrected.

SS-1279 - Looking Glass Error

A minor fix corrects a long standing problem doing ping and traceroute via the looking glass page. Previously this would return an error and this has now been fixed.

SS-5397 - IVR Prompt upload issue

An issue was identified that prevented new .sln files from being uploaded for new IVR prompts. This issue went undetected after our python3 migration in the last release cycle and has been fixed in Sippy Softswitch 2021 and the new release.

SS-5388 - DID cache reload

DID cache seemed to be reloading every 10 seconds. A fix was put into place that will now reload the cache when changes to the DIDs are made. This change has been applied to all our production versions.

SS-5377 - Bye from Vendor is not forwarded to Caller in TLS Scenario

For TLS calls when Sippy attempts to forward a BYE recieved from the Vendor to Caller to the destination of the Contact header Recieved in the INVITE a new TLS session is established to another port/IP address. This causes the BYE to be dropped with 477 error on OpenSIPS. This issue has been corrected. Thanks to Neil from Brightstar with the ample help in troubleshooting some of the problems from our initial TLS implementation.

SS-5358 - Fix warning for intermediate SSL Certificate of Starfield Technologies Inc.

Adrian from our friends at Cloud Earth pointed out some problems with our notifications flagging their SSL certificate as invalid. This was caused by an intermediate SSL in a chain. A patch has been created and applied for our production branches.

SS-5349 - ssp_maild problems caused by switch from TLS to SSL

Our QA team noted a problem with sending Emails when switching from TLS to SSL. This caused problems connecting to a SMTP server.

SS-5316 - Invoice Generation takes too long

Talal Khalid of Telcast Networks reported some delays in generating invoices. We have looked into this and added new DB indexes speeding up the invoice generation time quite substantially. This change has been merged into all our production releases.

SS-5300 - Issue on environments on when using an external script for exchange rates

An issue was fixed that prevented custom scripts to collect exchange rate data was failing in environments. This fix was applied to all our production releases.

SS-5096 - Double quotes are not properly escaped on Accounts page

A minor issue was fixed when an account name contains double quotes.

SS-5299 - Defend the motherland from Russian Invaders

We have tasked some of Sippy’s Finest teammates to help defend Ukraine to military service. We’d like to thank them specifically for their efforts and hope for their safe return at the end of this conflict. Stay safe Andriy P, Sergei S, and Semyon E.

Pre-Upgrade Checks:

Before you upgrade your system we will be ensuring your switch meets the pre-upgrade requirements.

• Checks for OpenSIPS version 3.1
• Checks for PostgreSQL 10
• Checks for FreeBSD 12.2

Deprecated Functionality

• Internet explorer and some older browser versions will no longer be supported in the web interface. This is to accomidate some of the new web framework we have implemented for some of the New UI elements.