1224 Structure of the Protocol

 

   SIP is structured as a layered protocol, which means that its

   behavior is described in terms of a set of fairly independent

   processing stages with only a loose coupling between each stage.  The

   protocol behavior is described as layers for the purpose of

   presentation, allowing the description of functions common across

   elements in a single section.  It does not dictate an implementation

   in any way.  When we say that an element "contains" a layer, we mean

   it is compliant to the set of rules defined by that layer.

 

   Not every element specified by the protocol contains every layer.

   Furthermore, the elements specified by SIP are logical elements, not

   physical ones.  A physical realization can choose to act as different

   logical elements, perhaps even on a transaction-by-transaction basis.

 

   The lowest layer of SIP is its syntax and encoding.  Its encoding is

   specified using an augmented Backus-Naur Form grammar (BNF).  The

   complete BNF is specified in Section 25; an overview of a SIP

   message's structure can be found in Section 7.

The second layer is the transport layer.  It defines how a client

   sends requests and receives responses and how a server receives

   requests and sends responses over the network.  All SIP elements

   contain a transport layer.  The transport layer is described in

   Section 18.

 

   The third layer is the transaction layer.  Transactions are a

   fundamental component of SIP.  A transaction is a request sent by a

   client transaction (using the transport layer) to a server

   transaction, along with all responses to that request sent from the

   server transaction back to the client.  The transaction layer handles

   application-layer retransmissions, matching of responses to requests,

   and application-layer timeouts.  Any task that a user agent client

   (UAC) accomplishes takes place using a series of transactions.

   Discussion of transactions can be found in Section 17.  User agents

   contain a transaction layer, as do stateful proxies.  Stateless

   proxies do not contain a transaction layer.  The transaction layer

   has a client component (referred to as a client transaction) and a

   server component (referred to as a server transaction), each of which

   are represented by a finite state machine that is constructed to

   process a particular request.