SIP method cancel

The CANCEL request, as the name implies, is used to cancel a previous request sent by a client. Specifically, it asks the UAS to cease processing the request and to generate an error response to that request. CANCEL has no effect on a request to which a UAS has already given a final response.

Because of this, it is most useful to CANCEL requests to which it can take a server long time to respond. For this reason, CANCEL is best for INVITE requests, which can take a long time to generate a response. In that usage, a UAS that receives a CANCEL request for an INVITE, but has not yet sent a final response, would “stop ringing”, and then respond to the INVITE with a specific error response (a 487).