5G Deployment Guide

Deployment Overview

SD-Core is released with Helm chart and container images. We recommend using Kubernetes and Helm to deploy SD-Core. SD-Core images are hosted on docker hub.

Hardware resource requirement

CPU & Memory Requirements for 5G components

SD-Core Component

Required CPU

Required Memory in Gi

AMF

2 CPU Cores

4Gi

SMF

2 CPU Cores

4Gi

NRF

2 CPU Cores

1Gi

NSSF

2 CPU Cores

1Gi

AUSF

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

PCF

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

UDR

2 CPU Cores

1Gi

UDM

2 CPU Cores

1Gi

Config5G(webconsole)

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

SimApp

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

MongoDB

2 CPU Cores

4Gi

UPF-Adapter

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

SCTP Load Balancer

1 CPU Cores

1Gi

Note

SD-Core deployment is tested on Intel/AMD hardware. There is WIP to run SD-Core on ARM architecture.

Deployment Options

Development Environments

Please refer (see Aether In a Box - 4G) to setup 5G development environment.

Production Environments - 5G

To install SD-Core into your Kubernetes cluster, follow instructions

Step1 - Clone SD-Core 5G Helm chart

git clone https://github.com/omec-project/sdcore-helm-charts.git
cd sdcore-helm-charts/sdcore-helm-charts/
helm dep update #Update Helm dependencies

Step2 - Prepare your Helm value for 5G

You can modify existing values.yaml directly, but we recommend composing another value file myvalues.yaml using values.yaml as an example. We are highlighting a few things we need to modify here. More explanation of the supported Helm values can be found in the Configuration section below.

Step3 - Install 5G using SD-Core umbrella helm chart

The following command will deploy the SD-Core helm chart with release name sdcore-5g in the sdcore-5g namespace.

helm install -n sdcore-5g --create-namespace -f myvalues.yaml sdcore-5g  ~/cord/sdcore-helm-charts/sdcore-helm-charts

To verify the installation:

helm -n sdcore-5g ls
xxxx@node:~$ helm -n sdcore-5g ls
NAME        NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART           APP VERSION
sdcore-5g   sdcore-5g       1               2022-03-05 16:25:32.338495035 -0700 MST deployed        sd-core-0.10.9
xxxx@node:~$

xxxx@node:~$ kubectl get pods -n sdcore-5g
NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
amf-6cddb6ff5-g5kwp           1/1     Running   0          8d
ausf-64fb5c5df5-g9xps         1/1     Running   0          8d
gnbsim-0                      1/1     Running   0          8d
mongodb-0                     1/1     Running   0          8d
mongodb-1                     1/1     Running   0          8d
mongodb-arbiter-0             1/1     Running   0          8d
nrf-69794885b-pgl8f           1/1     Running   0          8d
nssf-fc9c48c89-dxqn7          1/1     Running   0          8d
pcf-5c7d7767c9-wv6dl          1/1     Running   0          8d
simapp-669b99db9d-lbbm4       1/1     Running   0          8d
smf-b87fc6f8f-4jdqr           1/1     Running   0          8d
smf-b87fc6f8f-xt2n2           1/1     Running   0          8d
udm-f948b57dc-n5b4h           1/1     Running   0          8d
udr-698445bd87-8ptpm          1/1     Running   0          8d
upf-0                         5/5     Running   0          8d
upf-adapter-c4844b7fb-wqbvw   1/1     Running   0          8d
webui-8cfb9659c-hqfp9         1/1     Running   0          8d
xxxx@node:~$

To uninstall:

helm -n sdcore-5g uninstall sdcore-5g
kubectl delete namespace sdcore-5g # also remove the sdcore-5g if needed

Cloud Native Configuration - 5G

Following configuration need to be enabled in 5G helm values override file. It is important to understand usage of following flags

  • SCTP Load Balancer : Enable this flag to introduce SCTP Load Balancer between gNBs and multiple AMF instances to load balance sctp connections across multiple AMF instances.

  • DB Store : Enable this flag to preserve AMF context or SMF PDU session into Database. This is required for any AMF/SMF instance to load session/context of any other instance which being fault recovered.

  • UPF-Adapter : Enable this flag to introduce UPF-Adapter between multiple SMF instances and UPF. This required for the case where UPF does not support multiple SMF association with same pfcp node-id.

  • NRF Keep-Alive : Enable this flag for NRF to maintain multiple NF profiles and trigger periodic profile updates from the registered NFs.

  • UE IP-Address alloc via UPF : Enable this config to get UE IP-Address allocated via UPF rather than locally by SMF.

  • Static UE IP-Address alloc : Enable this config to reserve static UE IP-Address for any specific UE.

  • Custom IMSI support : Employ this config to have custom IMSI(starts with leading zeroes) for development environment with real UE.

Enable AMF Sctp Load Balancer

Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

sctplb:
  deploy: true

Enable AMF DB Store

Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

amf:
  cfgFiles:
    amfcfg.conf:
      configuration:
        enableDBStore: true

Enable SMF DB Store

Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

smf:
  cfgFiles:
    smfcfg.conf:
      configuration:
        enableDBStore: true

Enable UPF-Adapter

Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

upfadapter:
  deploy: true

Enable NRF Keep-Alive

Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

nrf:
  cfgFiles:
    nrfcfg.conf:
      configuration:
        mongoDBStreamEnable: false
        nfProfileExpiryEnable: true
        nfKeepAliveTime: 60

Enable UE IP-Address allocation by UPF

This is optional feature to allocate UE IP-Address via UPF rather than locally via SMF. Edit sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

cpiface:
  dnn: "internet"
  hostname: "upf"
  enable_ue_ip_alloc: true
  ue_ip_pool: "172.250.0.0/16"

Enable Static UE IP-Address allocation

This config shall help in reserving Static UE IP-Address for any given UE. The config should mention details about DNN, UE’s IMSI and preferred IP-Address from that DNN pool.

smf:
  cfgFiles:
    smfcfg.conf:
      configuration:
        staticIpInfo:
        - dnn: internet
          imsiIpInfo:
            supi-123456789012341: "172.250.237.10"
            supi-123456789012342: "172.250.237.11"

Enable Custom IMSI with real UE 5G deployment

Following configuration is required to have custom test IMSI with real UE 5G deployment.

Existing MCC/MNC = 208/93 New MCC/MNC = 001/22

Patch following files

  • Mandatory

Patch aether-in-a-box/sd-core-5g-values.yaml as following

       # below block configures the subscribers and their security details.
        # you can have any number of subscriber ranges
        subscribers:
-       - ueId-start: "208930100007487"
-        ueId-end: "208930100007500"
-        plmnId: "20893"
+       - ueId-start: "001220100007487"
+        ueId-end: "001220100007500"
+        plmnId: "00122"
         opc: "981d464c7c52eb6e5036234984ad0bcf"
         op: ""
         key: "5122250214c33e723a5dd523fc145fc0"
         sequenceNumber: "16f3b3f70fc2"
-       - ueId-start: "208930100007501"
-        ueId-end: "208930100007599"
-        plmnId: "20893"
+       - ueId-start: "001220100007501"
+        ueId-end: "001220100007599"
+        plmnId: "00122"
         opc: "981d464c7c52eb6e5036234984ad0bcf"
         op: ""
         key: "5122250214c33e723a5dd523fc145fc0"

  • only if ROC is employed

Patch aether-in-a-box/roc-5g-models.json as following

          "imsi-definition": {
-           "mcc": "208",
-           "mnc": "93",
+           "mcc": "001",
+           "mnc": "22",
 {
              "sim-id": "aiab-sim-1",
              "display-name": "UE 1 Sim",
-             "imsi": "208930100007487"
+             "imsi": "001220100007487"
            },