Add sipnab Metrics to Prometheus

Your SIP proxy's statistics say what the proxy did: calls routed, transactions, memory. sipnab's say what the calls themselves looked like on the wire:

• how many completed and failed,
• post-dial delay,
• the quality of their audio.

In the same Prometheus, the two sit side by side on one dashboard.

This guide adds sipnab to the Prometheus and Grafana from Add Prometheus and Grafana to your voice stack. It also imports the dashboard that ships with sipnab. Every series sipnab publishes, and what it means, is in Prometheus metrics.

The proxy is one of these:

• OpenSIPS, from its packages or built from source;
• Kamailio, as that guide's With Kamailio section sets it up.

sipnab reads the calls off the wire, so every step is the same for each.

Tested on

Every block on this page ran as written, in order, on 2026-09-28, with sipnab 0.5.194 from its release package. It ran on clean x86_64 virtual machines with 2 cores and 3 GB of memory:

• Debian 13 (kernel 6.12.63)
• Ubuntu 24.04.5 (kernel 6.8.0)

On each, it ran with OpenSIPS, from source and from the packages, with Kamailio, and with both on one machine.

On Debian 13, causing each fault under When something does not work produced what it describes.

The examples use 192.0.2.10 as the machine's address.

Install sipnab

# Run all of these, in order.
V=$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/NormB/sipnab/releases/latest \
  | python3 -c 'import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["tag_name"].lstrip("v"))')
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/NormB/sipnab/releases/download/v$V/sipnab_${V}_amd64.deb
curl -fsSL https://github.com/NormB/sipnab/releases/download/v$V/SHA256SUMS.txt \
  | grep " sipnab_${V}_amd64.deb$" | sha256sum -c -
sudo apt-get install -y ./sipnab_${V}_amd64.deb
sipnab --version

Run sipnab with its metrics on a free port

sipnab's package runs it under systemd as the sipnab user, with its metrics on 127.0.0.1:9090. That is Prometheus's own port. So move sipnab's to 127.0.0.1:9091 in a drop-in.

The call counts need only the SIP, which sipnab captures by default. The media series (MOS, jitter, loss) need the audio too:

• sipnab 0.5.192 and earlier capture it only when a capture filter names its ports, as the rtpengine guide does.
• Later versions capture it by default.

# Run all of these, in order.
sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/sipnab.service.d
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/sipnab.service.d/metrics.conf >/dev/null <<'EOF'
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sipnab -N -d any --no-cli-print --syslog --metrics 127.0.0.1:9091
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable sipnab
sudo systemctl restart sipnab
systemctl is-active sipnab
until curl -fs -o /dev/null 127.0.0.1:9091/metrics; do sleep 1; done
curl -s 127.0.0.1:9091/metrics | awk '/^sipnab_/ && n++ < 3'

The empty ExecStart= line clears the package's command before the next line sets this one. Another guide's drop-in may also set ExecStart. Then systemd uses only the last one it reads. So put all the flags in one drop-in.

Scrape sipnab

Add sipnab to Prometheus's targets. Restart Prometheus so that it reads the change. The until line waits for Prometheus to scrape sipnab once:

# Run all of these, in order.
cd /opt/monitoring
cat >> prometheus.yml <<'EOF'
  - job_name: sipnab
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["127.0.0.1:9091"]
EOF
docker compose restart prometheus
targets() { curl -s localhost:9090/api/v1/targets | python3 -c 'import sys,json; [print(t["labels"]["job"], t["health"]) for t in json.load(sys.stdin)["data"]["activeTargets"]]'; }
until targets 2>/dev/null | grep -q '^sipnab up$'; do sleep 2; done
targets

It prints the proxy's target, opensips up or kamailio up, and sipnab up.

Import sipnab's dashboard

The dashboard ships in sipnab's repository as contrib/grafana/sipnab-dashboard.json. It asks, on import, which Prometheus data source to use. Import it through Grafana's API. Answer with the data source the Prometheus guide provisioned:

# Run all of these, in order.
cd /opt/monitoring
V=$(sipnab --version | head -1 | awk '{print $2}')
curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NormB/sipnab/v$V/contrib/grafana/sipnab-dashboard.json" -o sipnab-dashboard.json
python3 -c 'import json; d=json.load(open("sipnab-dashboard.json")); print(json.dumps({"dashboard": d, "overwrite": True, "inputs": [{"name": "DS_PROMETHEUS", "type": "datasource", "pluginId": "prometheus", "value": "prometheus"}]}))' > import.json
curl -fs -u "admin:$(sed -n 's/^GF_PASS=//p' .env)" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d @import.json localhost:3000/api/dashboards/import | python3 -c 'import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["importedUrl"])'
rm import.json

The last line prints the dashboard's path. Open it under http://192.0.2.10:3000: the dashboard is sipnab Overview.

Place a call and watch sipnab count it

Place a test call as in the Place a test call and watch the counter step of the Prometheus guide. Then ask Prometheus how many calls sipnab saw complete:

# Run all of these, in order.
cd ~/sipp
sipp -sn uas -i 127.0.0.1 -p 5070 -m 1 -bg
sipp -sf uac_rr.xml 192.0.2.10:5060 -i 192.0.2.10 -p 5080 -m 1 -d 1000 -timeout 20s
sleep 8
curl -s localhost:9090/api/v1/query --data-urlencode 'query=sum(sipnab_dialogs_total{state="completed"})' \
  | python3 -c 'import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["data"]["result"][0]["value"][1])'

It prints 1: sipnab saw the call from its INVITE to its BYE. The proxy counted the same call in its own series:

• OpenSIPS's opensips_processed_dialogs,
• or Kamailio's kamailio_core_rcv_requests_invite.

With OpenSIPS and Kamailio on one machine

With Kamailio on 5062, as OpenSIPS and Kamailio on one machine sets it up, sipnab's default capture of ports 5060-5061 misses Kamailio's calls. Add --portrange 5060-5062 to the drop-in in the Run sipnab with its metrics on a free port step:

# Run all of these, in order.
sudo sed -i 's|--metrics 127.0.0.1:9091$|--metrics 127.0.0.1:9091 --portrange 5060-5062|' /etc/systemd/system/sipnab.service.d/metrics.conf
grep '^ExecStart=/' /etc/systemd/system/sipnab.service.d/metrics.conf
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart sipnab

The Scrape sipnab step then prints three targets, opensips, kamailio and sipnab, all up. A call through either proxy adds one to sipnab's count.

When something does not work

• systemctl is-active sipnab does not say active. Read journalctl -u sipnab.
  • Failed to bind metrics server on 127.0.0.1:9090: Address already in use means something else, here Prometheus, holds the port. systemd then keeps restarting sipnab.
  • Check the drop-in's --metrics port.
• The sipnab target is down. Check curl 127.0.0.1:9091/metrics on the machine. Then check the target in /opt/monitoring/prometheus.yml.