Network Management

How to Verify the Status of a Gateway SIP Trunk in VNQM via CLI

These steps are intended to help you see why the status of trunks are shown as up/down or unknown in VNQM

First published date

3/24/2026 3:34 PM

Last published date

3/24/2026 3:34 PM

Overview

SolarWinds VNQM monitors gateway SIP trunk status by issuing CLI commands to the Cisco gateway via SSH/Telnet. This article covers the two CLI commands VNQM uses under the hood, how to run them manually to verify trunk status, and how to interpret the results.

Note: CLI credentials with enable mode must be configured and passing in VNQM for SIP trunk polling to function. You can verify this under Settings > All Settings > VoIP & Network Quality (VNQM) Settings > Manage Gateways > Edit CLI Credentials > Test.

Product section

VoIP & Network Quality Manager

Resolution

CLI Commands for SIP Trunk Status Verification

There are two CLI commands used to verify SIP trunk status on a Cisco voice gateway. You can run these directly on the gateway via SSH/PuTTY to confirm what VNQM should be polling.

Command 1: `show sip service`

This command checks whether the SIP service itself is running on the gateway.

Router# show sip service

Expected outputs and meanings:

Output	Meaning
`SIP Service is up`	SIP service is running normally
`SIP service is shut globally`	Shut down via the `shutdown` command under `voice service voip`
`SIP service is shut`	Stopped via `call service stop` under `voice service voip > sip` submode
`SIP service is forced shut globally`	Shut down via `shutdown forced` under `voice service voip`
`SIP service is forced shut`	Stopped via `call service stop forced` under `voice service voip > sip` submode

If the SIP service is down, there are four possible reasons: Service stopped, Forced stopped, Shutdown, or Forced Shutdown.

Command 2: `show dial-peer voice summary`

This is the primary command for verifying individual SIP trunk (dial-peer) status. VNQM uses this to detect trunk keepalive status.

Router# show dial-peer voice summary

Example output:

dial-peer hunt 0
                                 AD  PRE PASS                OUT
TAG    TYPE  MIN  OPER PREFIX    DEST-PATTERN      FER  THRU  SESS-TARGET         STAT  PORT  KEEPALIVE
1      voip  up   up            1000               0    syst  ipv4:x.x.x.10      active
2      voip  up   up            2000               0    syst  ipv4:x.x.x.11      busyout
3      voip  up   up            3000               0    syst  ipv4:x.x.x.12

Key columns to check:

Column	What to Look For
TAG	The dial-peer number (maps to a SIP trunk in VNQM)
TYPE	Should be `voip` for SIP trunks
OPER	Operational status — `up` or `down`
KEEPALIVE	`active` = trunk is up; `busyout` = trunk is down; blank = keepalive not configured

Important: The KEEPALIVE column only appears if the SIP Options keepalive mechanism is configured on the dial-peer. If this column is blank, the gateway has not been configured for SIP OOD (Out-of-Dialog) Options PING keepalives.

Keepalive Status Meanings

active — SIP trunk at the service provider side is up. Valid responses to Options PINGs are being received.
busyout — SIP trunk is down. SIP PING timeouts have occurred and calls to this dial-peer will be rejected immediately for rerouting.

Disclaimer: Please note, any content posted herein is provided as a suggestion or recommendation to you for your internal use. This is not part of the SolarWinds software or documentation that you purchased from SolarWinds, and the information set forth herein may come from third parties. Your organization should internally review and assess to what extent, if any, such custom scripts or recommendations will be incorporated into your environment. You elect to use third-party content at your own risk, and you will be solely responsible for the incorporation of the same if any.