SIP Witch - GNU Telephony - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
Skip to main text
JOIN THE FSF
GNU
Operating System
Supported by the
Free Software Foundation
Site navigation
Skip
ABOUT GNU
PHILOSOPHY
LICENSES
EDUCATION
SOFTWARE
DISTROS
DOCS
MALWARE
HELP GNU
AUDIO & VIDEO
GNU ART
FUN
GNU'S WHO?
SOFTWARE DIRECTORY
HARDWARE
GNU SIP Witch
GnuComm
Bayonne
SIP Witch
[u]Common C++
ccScript
ccAudio2
ccRTP
ZRTP
ZRTP4J
Events & Articles
Contents
Description
Development
Downloading
Documentation
Support and Other Resources
Related
Contact Information
Description
GNU SIP Witch is a secure peer-to-peer VoIP server that uses the SIP
protocol. Calls can be made peer-to-peer behind NAT firewalls, and
without needing a service provider. GNU SIP Witch does not perform codec
operations and thereby enables SIP endpoints to directly peer negotiate
call setting and process peer to peer media streaming even when multiple
SIP Witch call nodes at multiple locations are involved. This means GNU SIP
Witch operates without introducing additional media latency or offering a
central point for media intercept or capture. GNU SIP Witch can be used to
build secure and intercept-free telephone systems that can operate over
the public Internet.
GNU SIP Witch is designed to support network scaling of telephony services,
rather than the heavily compute-bound solutions we find in use today. This
means a call node has a local authentication/registration database, and this
will be mirrored, so that any active call node in a cluster will be able to
accept and service a call. This allows for the possibility of live failover
support in the future as well.
GNU SIP Witch is not a SIP “router,” and does not try to
address the same things as a project like Iptel “Ser.” GNU SIP
Witch is being designed to create on-premise SIP telephone systems,
telecenter servers, and Internet-hosted SIP telephone systems. One important
feature will include use of URI routing to support direct peer-to-peer calls
between service domains over the public internet without needing mediation
of an intermediary “service provider,” so that people can publish
and call
sip:
URI's unconstrained. GNU SIP Witch is about
freedom to communicate and the removal of artifical barriers and constraints,
whether imposed by monopoly service providers or by governments (see the
Free Call project
).
GNU SIP Witch can also be used to construct embedded telephony services as
part of
GNU Telephony Open
Embedded
GNU SIP Witch depends on GNU uCommon, which optionally offers a
complete runtime C++ library environment for developing deeply embedded
targets without requiring the use of the ANSI C++ standard library, RTTI,
exception handling, or STL templates. GNU SIP Witch will build with all
versions of GCC from 2.95 through 4.4, and with many other C++ compilers
as well, as on most platforms including GNU/Linux, xBSD systems,
MacOS X, and Microsoft Windows.
Development
[2017] The latest version is SIP Witch 1.9.15.
[2011] Current goals include improving usability in the desktop mediation
role, and as a local SIP telephone server.
Downloading
GNU SIP Witch may be found at
ftp.gnu.org
or, preferably,
one of its
mirrors
via the generic URL
. GNU SIP Witch requires
GNU Common C++/uCommon
the GNU
oSIP library
, and
the
eXosip
extension library
for GNU oSIP. GNU SIP Witch may optionally use
libgcrypt for alternate authentication digest algorithms, as well as either
openSSL or GNU TLS for TLS support over SIP. GNU SIP Witch is licensed
under the GNU General Public License Version 3 or later.
Development sources are available through the
Sipwitch project
on
Savannah.
For other packages that you may need to set up your installation, please
refer to the
GNU Telephony
page.
Documentation
Doxygen
Reference manual
for sipwitch-1.9.15,
libosip2-5.0.0 and libeXosip2-4.0.0;
Sipwitch(1)
Sipcontrol(1)
at
mankier.com;
Sippasswd(1)
at
mankier.com;
Sipquery(1)
at
mankier.com;
Sipw(8)
at mankier.com;
Sipwitch.cgi(8)
at
mankier.com;
How to read
installed documentation
GNU SIP Witch configuration
How to Deploy SIP Witch On
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Desktop Telephony Stack
, a slide presentation on how GNU SIP Witch
might be used as a desktop SIP mediation stack in conjunction with Empathy
and Telepathy VoIP support;
Communication Privacy For Free Societies
, a slide presentation on how
to create wiretap-immune peer-to-peer communication services for direct
public use in GNU Telephony.
Support and Other Resources
To simplify management and bug tracking for the different packages I
currently maintain, I have consolidated management of GNU SIP Witch, related
GNU Common C++ packages, and GNU Telephony projects including
GNU Bayonne
. These
are being managed through the
GNU Telephone subsystem
on
Savannah.
The SIP Witch mailing list is

. It
has a
web
interface
for subscribing, modifying subscription options and searching
the list archives. Feel free to send any bug reports, patches, and questions
to this list.
Related
GNU SIP Witch uses
libeXosip2
and
GNU oSIP
Antisipate
is a cross-platform, easy-to-use, secure VoIP client that uses
ZRTP and that will auto-configure with SIP Witch.
Version 0.0.2
is archived at the Wayback Machine.
Friendica
plugin offers
realtime secure voice and video
with GNU
SIP Witch and ZRTP-enabled clients.
GNU SIP Witch has been used in
Ubuntu GNU/Linux
and
Fedora GNU/Linux
with the intended role of being a desktop SIP media
service and means to create bottom-up
secure voice-calling networks
in
conjunction with secure peer-to-peer VoIP clients such as those based on the
ZRTP protocol.
Contact Information
The current maintainer for this package is

The existing page was completed with additional info retrieved from the
Wayback Machine archive of the
GNU Telephony website
(licensed under the
Free Documentation License 1.3
).
“The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide
mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all
software users.”
JOIN
DONATE
SHOP
Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to

There are also
other ways to contact
the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
to

Please see the
Translations
README
for information on coordinating and submitting translations
of this article.
Copyright © 1998, 2001-2007, 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This page is licensed under a
Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Copyright Infringement Notification
Updated:
$Date: 2018/01/19 21:58:32 $