j.sip.TransactionAlreadyExistsException - sip

I am running a load test using SiPp server for around 1k calls, Out of that 10 to 15 calls are failing due to TransactionAlreadyExistsException. I have verified that sip CallId is also unique for each call. How to handle this error? Thanks

Transactions are about the Via branch id, not the call id. Make sure the Via branch id is unique. Make sure you are not using some kind of timestamp as a branch id for example because when you do it too fast the timestamp between attempts may come the same.

Related

Is it possible to obtain the ServicePath when querying entities in Orion?

the question I'd like to ask was raised some time ago (FIWARE Orion: How to retrieve the servicePath of an entity?) but as far as I've seen, there is no final answer.
In short, I'd like to retrieve the service path of entities when I exec a GET query to /v2/entitites which returns multiple results.
In our FIWARE instance, we strongly rely on the servicePath element to differentiate between entities with the same id. It is not a good design choice but, unfortunately, we cannot change it as many applications use that id convention at the moment.
There was an attempt three years ago to add a virtual field 'servicePath' to the query result (https://github.com/telefonicaid/fiware-orion/pull/2880) but the pull request was discarded because it didn't include test coverage for that feature and the final NGSIv2 spec didn't include that field.
Is there any plan to implement such feature in the future? I guess the answer is no, what brings me to the next question: is there any other way to do it which does not involve creating subscriptions (we found that the initial notification of a subscription does give you that info, but the notification is limited to 1000 results, what is too low for the number of entities we want to retrieve, and it does not allow pagination either)?
Thanks in advance for your responses.
A possible workaround is to use an attribute (provided by the context producer application) to keep the service path. Somehow, this is the same idea of the builtin attribute proposed in PR #2880.

Avoid duplicate POSTs with REST

I have been using POST in a REST API to create objects. Every once in a while, the server will create the object, but the client will be disconnected before it receives the 201 Created response. The client only sees a failed POST request, and tries again later, and the server happily creates a duplicate object...
Others must have had this problem, right? But I google around, and everyone just seems to ignore it.
I have 2 solutions:
A) Use PUT instead, and create the (GU)ID on the client.
B) Add a GUID to all objects created on the client, and have the server enforce their UNIQUE-ness.
A doesn't match existing frameworks very well, and B feels like a hack. How does other people solve this, in the real world?
Edit:
With Backbone.js, you can set a GUID as the id when you create an object on the client. When it is saved, Backbone will do a PUT request. Make your REST backend handle PUT to non-existing id's, and you're set.
Another solution that's been proposed for this is POST Once Exactly (POE), in which the server generates single-use POST URIs that, when used more than once, will cause the server to return a 405 response.
The downsides are that 1) the POE draft was allowed to expire without any further progress on standardization, and thus 2) implementing it requires changes to clients to make use of the new POE headers, and extra work by servers to implement the POE semantics.
By googling you can find a few APIs that are using it though.
Another idea I had for solving this problem is that of a conditional POST, which I described and asked for feedback on here.
There seems to be no consensus on the best way to prevent duplicate resource creation in cases where the unique URI generation is unable to be PUT on the client and hence POST is needed.
I always use B -- detection of dups due to whatever problem belongs on the server side.
Detection of duplicates is a kludge, and can get very complicated. Genuine distinct but similar requests can arrive at the same time, perhaps because a network connection is restored. And repeat requests can arrive hours or days apart if a network connection drops out.
All of the discussion of identifiers in the other anwsers is with the goal of giving an error in response to duplicate requests, but this will normally just incite a client to get or generate a new id and try again.
A simple and robust pattern to solve this problem is as follows: Server applications should store all responses to unsafe requests, then, if they see a duplicate request, they can repeat the previous response and do nothing else. Do this for all unsafe requests and you will solve a bunch of thorny problems. Repeat DELETE requests will get the original confirmation, not a 404 error. Repeat POSTS do not create duplicates. Repeated updates do not overwrite subsequent changes etc. etc.
"Duplicate" is determined by an application-level id (that serves just to identify the action, not the underlying resource). This can be either a client-generated GUID or a server-generated sequence number. In this second case, a request-response should be dedicated just to exchanging the id. I like this solution because the dedicated step makes clients think they're getting something precious that they need to look after. If they can generate their own identifiers, they're more likely to put this line inside the loop and every bloody request will have a new id.
Using this scheme, all POSTs are empty, and POST is used only for retrieving an action identifier. All PUTs and DELETEs are fully idempotent: successive requests get the same (stored and replayed) response and cause nothing further to happen. The nicest thing about this pattern is its Kung-Fu (Panda) quality. It takes a weakness: the propensity for clients to repeat a request any time they get an unexpected response, and turns it into a force :-)
I have a little google doc here if any-one cares.
You could try a two step approach. You request an object to be created, which returns a token. Then in a second request, ask for a status using the token. Until the status is requested using the token, you leave it in a "staged" state.
If the client disconnects after the first request, they won't have the token and the object stays "staged" indefinitely or until you remove it with another process.
If the first request succeeds, you have a valid token and you can grab the created object as many times as you want without it recreating anything.
There's no reason why the token can't be the ID of the object in the data store. You can create the object during the first request. The second request really just updates the "staged" field.
Server-issued Identifiers
If you are dealing with the case where it is the server that issues the identifiers, create the object in a temporary, staged state. (This is an inherently non-idempotent operation, so it should be done with POST.) The client then has to do a further operation on it to transfer it from the staged state into the active/preserved state (which might be a PUT of a property of the resource, or a suitable POST to the resource).
Each client ought to be able to GET a list of their resources in the staged state somehow (maybe mixed with other resources) and ought to be able to DELETE resources they've created if they're still just staged. You can also periodically delete staged resources that have been inactive for some time.
You do not need to reveal one client's staged resources to any other client; they need exist globally only after the confirmatory step.
Client-issued Identifiers
The alternative is for the client to issue the identifiers. This is mainly useful where you are modeling something like a filestore, as the names of files are typically significant to user code. In this case, you can use PUT to do the creation of the resource as you can do it all idempotently.
The down-side of this is that clients are able to create IDs, and so you have no control at all over what IDs they use.
There is another variation of this problem. Having a client generate a unique id indicates that we are asking a customer to solve this problem for us. Consider an environment where we have a publicly exposed APIs and have 100s of clients integrating with these APIs. Practically, we have no control over the client code and the correctness of his implementation of uniqueness. Hence, it would probably be better to have intelligence in understanding if a request is a duplicate. One simple approach here would be to calculate and store check-sum of every request based on attributes from a user input, define some time threshold (x mins) and compare every new request from the same client against the ones received in past x mins. If the checksum matches, it could be a duplicate request and add some challenge mechanism for a client to resolve this.
If a client is making two different requests with same parameters within x mins, it might be worth to ensure that this is intentional even if it's coming with a unique request id.
This approach may not be suitable for every use case, however, I think this will be useful for cases where the business impact of executing the second call is high and can potentially cost a customer. Consider a situation of payment processing engine where an intermediate layer ends up in retrying a failed requests OR a customer double clicked resulting in submitting two requests by client layer.
Design
Automatic (without the need to maintain a manual black list)
Memory optimized
Disk optimized
Algorithm [solution 1]
REST arrives with UUID
Web server checks if UUID is in Memory cache black list table (if yes, answer 409)
Server writes the request to DB (if was not filtered by ETS)
DB checks if the UUID is repeated before writing
If yes, answer 409 for the server, and blacklist to Memory Cache and Disk
If not repeated write to DB and answer 200
Algorithm [solution 2]
REST arrives with UUID
Save the UUID in the Memory Cache table (expire for 30 days)
Web server checks if UUID is in Memory Cache black list table [return HTTP 409]
Server writes the request to DB [return HTTP 200]
In solution 2, the threshold to create the Memory Cache blacklist is created ONLY in memory, so DB will never be checked for duplicates. The definition of 'duplication' is "any request that comes into a period of time". We also replicate the Memory Cache table on the disk, so we fill it before starting up the server.
In solution 1, there will be never a duplicate, because we always check in the disk ONLY once before writing, and if it's duplicated, the next roundtrips will be treated by the Memory Cache. This solution is better for Big Query, because requests there are not imdepotents, but it's also less optmized.
HTTP response code for POST when resource already exists

NSMutableURLRequest on succession of another NSMutableURLRequest's success

Basically, I want to implement SYNC functionality; where, if internet connection is not available, data gets stored on local sqlite database. Whenever, internet connection is available, SYNC gets into the action.
Now, Say for example; 5 records are stored locally, and then internet connection is available. I want the server to be updated. So, What I do currently is:
Post first record to the server.
Wait for the success of first request.
Post local NSNotification to routine, that the first record has been updated on server & now second request can go.
The routine fires the second post request on server and so on...
Question: Is this approach right and efficient enough to implement SYNC functionality; OR anything I should change into it ??
NOTE: Records to be SYNC will have no limit in numbers.
Well it depends on the requirements on the data that you save. If it is just for backup then you should be fine.
If the 5 records are somehow dependent on each other and you need to access this data from another device/application you should take care on the server side that either all 5 records are written or none. Otherwise you will have an inconsistent state if only 3 get written.
If other users are also reading / writing those data concurrently on the server then you need to implement some kind of lock on all records before writing and also decide how to handle conflicts when someone attempts to overwrite somebody else changes.

Call-ID and Branch tags in SIP protocol

I am developing a SIP client. I understand SIP requests and SIP responses but, in SIP messages, how are the call id and branch tags generated? RFC3261 does not specify this.
The Call-ID header value can be anything you want but does need to be unique in order to avoid requests getting classified as duplicates.
THe branch parameter on a Via header needs to start with the magic cookie value of z9hG4bK and must also be unique to avoid the request getting classified as a duplicate. For SIP Proxy's wanting to do loop detection there is also the guideline in the RFC in section 16.6 point 8 which details factors to take when constructing the branch parameter value.
Your wording is difficult to understand. I'm going to assume you want to know how a UAC should generate a Call-ID or how a UAC or proxy server should generate a branch parameter.
The only requirement for Call-ID is that it should be unique. It is often in the form of a unique token + "#" + a host name like email's Message-ID, but it doesn't have to be. It can be just a unique token. The unique token can be anything that is reasonably certain to be unique. In order to avoid divulging private information you can just make it pseudorandom or a cryptographic hash of private unique information (time, process ID, etc...)
Similarily, the branch parameter is just a unique token, but note that it has to start with z9hG4bK as specified in the RFC.
Why re-invent the wheel?
There are open source SIP projects and their implementation may inspire you.
You didn't mention what programming language you use. So I assume you can read C code.
Get the source code of kamailio server. The implementation of Call-ID is in kamailio-4.0.x/modules/tm/callid.c. I believe you are smart and can find out about branch tags yourself :o)

How to implement robust pagination with a RESTful API when the resultset can change?

I'm implementing a RESTful API which exposes Orders as a resource and supports pagination through the resultset:
GET /orders?start=1&end=30
where the orders to paginate are sorted by ordered_at timestamp, descending. This is basically approach #1 from the SO question Pagination in a REST web application.
If the user requests the second page of orders (GET /orders?start=31&end=60), the server simply re-queries the orders table, sorts by ordered_at DESC again and returns the records in positions 31 to 60.
The problem I have is: what happens if the resultset changes (e.g. a new order is added) while the user is viewing the records? In the case of a new order being added, the user would see the old order #30 in first position on the second page of results (because the same order is now #31). Worse, in the case of a deletion, the user sees the old order #32 in first position on the second page (#31) and wouldn't see the old order #31 (now #30) at all.
I can't see a solution to this without somehow making the RESTful server stateful (urg) or building some pagination intelligence into each client... What are some established techniques for dealing with this?
For completeness: my back-end is implemented in Scala/Spray/Squeryl/Postgres; I'm building two front-end clients, one in backbone.js and the other in Python Django.
The way I'd do it, is to make the indices from old to new. So they never change. And then when querying without any start parameter, return the newest page. Also the response should contain an index indicating what elements are contained, so you can calculate the indices you need to request for the next older page. While this is not exactly what you want, it seems like the easiest and cleanest solution to me.
Initial request: GET /orders?count=30 returns:
{
"start"=1039;
"count"=30;
...//data
}
From this the consumer calculates that he wants to request:
Next requests: GET /orders?start=1009&count=30 which then returns:
{
"start"=1009;
"count"=30;
...//data
}
Instead of raw indices you could also return a link to the next page:
{
"next"="/orders?start=1009&count=30";
}
This approach breaks if items get inserted or deleted in the middle. In that case you should use some auto incrementing persistent value instead of an index.
The sad truth is that all the sites I see have pagination "broken" in that sense, so there must not be an easy way to achieve that.
A quick workaround could be reversing the ordering, so the position of the items is absolute and unchanging with new additions. From your front page you can give the latest indices to ensure consistent navigation from up there.
Pros: same url gives the same results
Cons: there's no evident way to get the latest elements... Maybe you could use negative indices and redirect the result page to the absolute indices.
With a RESTFUL API, Application state should be in the client. Here the application state should some sort of time stamp or version number telling when you started looking at the data. On the server side, you will need some form of audit trail, which is properly server data, as it does not depend on whether there have been clients and what they have done. At the very least, it should know when the data last changed. No contradiction with REST here.
You could add a version parameter to your get. When the client first requires a page, it normally does not send a version. The server replies contains one. For instance, if there are links in the reply to next/other pages, those links contains &version=... The client should send the version when requiring another page.
When the server recieves some request with a version, it should at least know whether the data have changed since the client started looking and, dependending of what sort of audit trail you have, how they have changed. If they have not, it answer normally, transmitting the same version number. If they have, it may at least tell the client. And depending how much it knows on how the data have changed, it may taylor the reply accordingly.
Just as an example, suppose you get a request with start, end, version, and that you know that since version was up to date, 3 rows coming before start have been deleted. You might send a redirect with start-3, end-3, new version.
WebSockets can do this. You can use something like pusher.com to catch realtime changes to your database and pass the changes to the client. You can then bind different pusher events to work with models and collections.
Just Going to throw it out there. Please feel free to tell me if it's completely wrong and why so.
This approach is trying to use a left_off variable to sort through without using offsets.
Consider you need to make your result Ordered by timestamp order_at DESC.
So when I ask for first result set
it's
SELECT * FROM Orders ORDER BY order_at DESC LIMIT 25;
right?
This is the case when you ask for the first page (in terms of URL probably the request that doesn't have any
yoursomething.com/orders?limit=25&left_off=$timestamp
Then When receiving your data set. just grab the timestamp of last viewed item. 2015-12-21 13:00:49
Now to Request next 25 items go to: yoursomething.com/orders?limit=25&left_off=2015-12-21 13:00:49 (to lastly viewed timestamp)
In Sql you would just make the same query and say where timestamp is equal or less than $left_off
SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM Orders ORDER BY order_at DESC) as a
WHERE a.order_at < '2015-12-21 13:00:49' LIMIT 25;
You should get a next 25 items from the last seen item.
For those who sees this answer. Please comment if this approach is relevant or even possible in the first place. Thank you.