Homer — SIP Capture & Call-Flow Analysis
Homer is a SIP capture and search system (HEP / sipcapture). OmniWeb embeds the Homer web UI directly, so you can search captured SIP traffic and reconstruct a call's signalling ladder without leaving the portal or logging in separately.
What it is
Homer collects SIP messages from the IMS (via the HEP protocol) and stores them searchable by call-id, from/to number, time, and more. Its web UI lets you find a call and draw its full flow diagram — every SIP message between the endpoints and the CSCFs, with timings and any failure/hangup cause. OmniWeb does not reimplement any of this; it embeds the Homer app in an iframe under SIP Capture (nested under Session Trace in the sidebar).
Single sign-on
You do not log into Homer separately. OmniWeb proxies the Homer app at /homer/ and injects the auth-proxy headers on the way through, so the embedded UI is already authenticated — no Homer login prompt. It is reached through the same authenticated OmniWeb gateway as Grafana and Loki, so one OmniWeb login governs it too.
The SIP Capture entry only appears in the sidebar when Homer is configured and reachable for the deployment — OmniWeb probes it and hides the entry if it is not present, so you never click into a dead page.
Homer vs Session Trace
OmniWeb has two complementary ways to look at signalling, and it helps to know which to reach for:
| Homer (SIP Capture) | Session Trace | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | SIP only, in depth | The whole network — Diameter, GTP-C, PFCP, SIP, MAP |
| Question it answers | "What did this call's SIP flow do — every message, timing, and hangup cause?" | "What happened to this subscriber across every element?" |
| Best for | Diagnosing a VoIP/VoLTE call, a failed registration, a specific hangup | Following one IMSI/MSISDN end to end through the core |
Reach for Homer when you have a call to dissect; reach for Session Trace when you are following a subscriber across the whole stack. Homer is also linked from the Logs & Subscriber Tracing guide.
Related
- Logs & Subscriber Tracing — cross-network Session Trace and where Homer fits.
- Grafana Dashboards & Statistics — the other embedded monitoring tool, reached the same authenticated way.