The following describes how to install and configure an M-CORD physical POD.
M-CORD by default uses the NG40 software emulator including the RAN, an MME, and a traffic generator. For this reason, it does not require any additional hardware, other than the ones listed for a “traditional” CORD POD.
Warning: The NG40 vTester requires a compute node with Intel XEON CPU with Westmere microarchitecture or better (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_CPU_microarchitectures).
As mentioned above, ng4T provides a limited version of its NG40 software, which requires a free license in order to work. The specific NG40 installation steps described in the next paragraph assume the Operator has obtained the license and saved it into a specific location on the development server.
In order to download a free M-CORD trial license, go to the NG40 M-CORD website (https://mcord.ng40.com/) and register. You will be asked for your company name and your company email. After successful authentication of your email and acknowledgment of the free M-CORD NG40 License, you can download the license file called "ng40-license".
To install the local node you should follow the steps described in the main physical POD installation (https://guide.opencord.org/install_physical.html).
As soon as you have the CORD repository on your development machine, transfer the downloaded M-CORD NG40 license file, to
$CORD_ROOT/orchestration/xos_services/venb/xos/synchronizer/files/ng40-license
When it’s time to write your pod configuration, use the physical-example.yml file as a template (https://github.com/opencord/cord/blob/master/podconfig/physical-example.yml). Either modify it or make a copy of it in the same directory. Fill in the configuration with your own head node data.
As cord_scenario, use cord.
As cord_profile, use mcord-ng40.
Warning: After you’ve finished the basic installation, configure the fabric and your computes, as described at https://guide.opencord.org/appendix_basic_config.html.
The EPC is the only component that needs to be manually configured, after the fabric gets properly setup. An EPC instance can be created in two ways. Create an EPC instance using the XOS-UI Open in your browser the XOS UI : http://<your head node>/xos
vEPCVirtual Evolved Packet Core ServiceInstancesAddblueprint to MCORD 4.1Owner id to vepcSite id to MySiteSavecurl -u xosadmin@opencord.org:<password> -X POST http://<ip address of pod>/xosapi/v1/vepc/vepcserviceinstances -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"blueprint":"build", "site_id": 1}'
To verify if the installation was successful, ssh into the head node and follow these steps:
Verify that the service synchronizers are running. Use the docker ps command on head node, you should be able to see the following M-CORD synchronizers:
Check that the ServiceInstances are running on the head node. Run these commands on the head node:
source /opt/cord_profile/admin-openrc.sh nova list --all-tenants
You should see three VMs like this:
+--------------------------------------+-----------------+--------+------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | ID | Name | Status | Task State | Power State | Networks | +--------------------------------------+-----------------+--------+------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 9d5d1d45-2ad8-48d5-84c5-b1dd02458f81 | mysite_venb-3 | ACTIVE | - | Running | s1u_network=111.0.0.2; sgi_network=115.0.0.2; management=172.27.0.4; s11_network=112.0.0.3 | | 797ec8e8-d456-405f-a656-194f5748902a | mysite_vspgwc-2 | ACTIVE | - | Running | management=172.27.0.2; spgw_network=117.0.0.2; s11_network=112.0.0.2 | | 050393a3-ec25-4548-b02a-2d7b02b16943 | mysite_vspgwu-1 | ACTIVE | - | Running | s1u_network=111.0.0.3; sgi_network=115.0.0.3; management=172.27.0.3; spgw_network=117.0.0.3 | +--------------------------------------+-----------------+--------+------------+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Note: It may take a few minutes to provision the instances. If you don’t see them immediately, try again after some time.
Check that the service synchronizers have run successfully:
Note: It may take a few minutes to run the synchronizers. If you don’t see a check mark immediately, try again after some time.
You’re now ready to generate some traffic and test M-CORD. To proceed, do the following.
~/verify_quick.shYou should see the following output:
**** Load Profile Settings ****
$pps = 1000
$bps = 500000000
……
Signaling Table
AttUE ActCTXT BrReq BrAct RelRq RelAc ActS1
ng40_ran_1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1
User Plane Downlink Table
AS_PktTx AS_EthTx S1uEthRx S1uPktRx
ng40_ran_1 132 132 144 133
User Plane Uplink Table
S1uPktTx S1uEthTx AS_EthRx AS_PktRx
ng40_ran_1 49 50 48 48
Watchtime: 9 Timeout: 1800
Both the downlink and uplink should show packets counters increasing. The downlink shows packets flowing from the AS (Application Server) to the UE. The uplink shows packets going from the UE to the AS.
The result for all commands should look like:
Verdict(tc_attach_www) = VERDICT_PASS **** Packet Loss **** DL Loss= AS_PktTx-S1uPktRx= 0(pkts); 0.00(%) UL Loss= S1uPktTx-AS_PktRx= 0(pkts); 0.00(%)
The verdict is configured to check the control plane only. For the user plane verification you see the absolute number and percentage of lost packets.
There are multiple test commands available (You can get the parameter description with the flags -h or -?):
Usage: ./verify_attach.sh [<UEs> [<rate>]]
UEs: Number of UEs 1..10, default 1
rate: Attach rate 1..10, default 1
Send only attach and detach. Used to verify basic control plane functionality.
Usage: ./verify_attach_data.sh [<UEs> [<rate>]]
UEs: Number of UEs 1..10, default 1
rate: Attach rate 1..10, default 1
Send attach, detach and a few user plane packets. Used to verify basic user plane functionality. Downlink traffic will be sent without waiting for uplink traffic to arrive at the Application Server.
Usage: ./verify_quick.sh [<UEs> [<rate> [<pps>]]]
UEs: Number of UEs 1..10, default 2
rate: Attach rate 1..10, default 1
pps: Packets per Second 1000..60000, default 1000
Send attach, detach and 1000 pps user plane. Userplane ramp up and down ~20 seconds and total userplane transfer time ~70 seconds. 500.000.000 bps (maximum bit rate to calculate packet size from pps setting, MTU 1450). Used for control plane and userplane verification with low load for a short time. Downlink traffic will only be send when uplink traffic arrives at the Application Server.
Usage: ./verify_short.sh [<UEs> [<rate> [<pps>]]]
UEs: Number of UEs 1..10, default 10
rate: Attach rate 1..10, default 5
pps: Packets per Second 1000..60000, default 60000
Send attach, detach and 60000 pps user plane. Userplane ramp up and down ~20 seconds and total userplane transfer time ~70 seconds. 500.000.000 bps (maximum bit rate to calculate packet size from pps setting, MTU 1450). Used for control plane and userplane verification with medium load for a short time. Downlink traffic will only be send when uplink traffic arrives at the Application Server.
Usage: ./verify_long.sh [<UEs> [<rate> [<pps>]]]
UEs: Number of UEs 1..10, default 10
rate: Attach rate 1..10, default 5
pps: Packets per Second 1000..60000, default 60000
Send attach, detach and 60000 pps user plane. Userplane ramp up and down ~200 seconds and total userplane transfer time ~700 seconds. 500.000.000 bps (maximum bit rate to calculate packet size from pps setting, MTU 1450). Used for control plane and userplane verification with medium load for a longer time. Downlink traffic will only be send when uplink traffic arrives at the Application Server.
If you forgot to request an NG40 license at the beginning of the installation, or if you would like to extend it, you can input your updated license once the NG40 VM is up, following the steps below: SSH into the NG40 VNF VM with username and password ng40/ng40. To understand how to access your VNFs, look here. Add the license file with named ng40-license to the folder: ~/install/ Run the command ~/install/ng40init.