Media Gateway Controller Protocol (MGCP) session helper (mgcp)

The Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) is a text-based application layer protocol used for VoIP call setup and control. MGCP uses a master-slave call control architecture in which the media gateway controller uses a call agent to maintain call control intelligence, while the media gateways perform the instructions of the call agent.

To accept MGCP sessions you must add a security policy with service set to ALL or to the MGCP predefined service (which listens on UDP port numbers 2427 and 2727). The h323 session helper also listens on UDP port numbers 2427 and 2727.

The MGCP session helper does the following:

• VoIP signaling payload inspection. The payload of the incoming VoIP signaling packet is inspected and malformed packets are blocked.
• Signaling packet body inspection. The payload of the incoming MGCP signaling packet is inspected according to RFC 3435. Malformed packets are blocked.
• Stateful processing of MGCP sessions. State machines are invoked to process the parsed information. Any out-of-state or out-of-transaction packet is identified and properly handled.
• MGCP Network Address Translation (NAT). Embedded IP addresses and ports in packet bodies is properly translated based on current routing information and network topology, and is replaced with the translated IP address and port number, if necessary.
• Manages pinholes for VoIP traffic. To keep the VoIP network secure, the IP address and port information used for media or signaling is identified by the session helper, and pinholes are dynamically created and closed during call setup.