OpenBSC development

[Labs]

On 09-Jan-12 09:16, Sylvain Munaut wrote:

> The "micro cell" was implied ... of course not every one wants a macro
> cell to play with.
> Also "cheap" is like<  1kEUR new and probably<  500 EUR used.
>

500 EUR for a used micro-cell is not much considering what is inside and 
what you can do with it. The problem is who is selling you one?

You can get a Layer 3 switch for a lot more so the price is ok

> Well, here's a chance to learn. And do yourself a favor and pick up
> any mini-itx x86 board and run it on that ...
>

My main issue is that where I have the BTS, I cannot go with my own 
server/laptop and I need to use the servers/workstations in there.

> If you had any experience with cisco, it would be pretty intuitive ...
> also there is autocompletion
>

I have experience with Cisco and Juniper hardware and CLI but for some 
basic things I prefer to have a web console.

> Just because _you_ don't like it doesn't mean we'll all change our way
> of doing things to accommodate you. I personally like the current
> config method and it allows to do everything you listed above (with
> different command names) and so I don't see any benefit of spending a
> significant amount of time rewriting code that works ....
>

I didn't say that I don't like it but the VTY commands are not so 
intuitive. For example tell me how I can check what "CellID" I have 
configured for BTS "X" from the VTY?

There is no option from what I can see in the wiki to list configured 
parameters on BSC?!

I didn't yet installed OpenBSC so I am telling this after reading the 
wiki. Sorry if there is such option but not documented.

> OpenBSC has exactly 1 text file ... and why on earth would we want to
> change that to a binary db format, or worse an XML ...
> The text file is easily readable and editable by hand and matches the
> VTY commands (so once you know one, you know the other)
>

When I refer to config this means also the config for management 
interfaces of server, users, firewall settings (if any configured).

> The OpenBSC config contains ... the OpenBSC config. All other
> parameters (IP or E1 card driver settings ...) are outside of scope of
> this project. This is meant to be a software BSC, not an "appliance".
>

OpenBSC config should also contain the config for IP or E1 cards because 
otherwise you software BSC will not work without it. I would say that is 
a mandatory dependency. This is just my way of thinking...

> If you want to make it "appliance" like with all the OS and
> surrounding drivers and some kind of unified config for everything and
> such, feel free to start a new project for that, but this is
> independent of the core BSC software. If you don't have the time or
> skill for that, you can always hire someone to do it for you.
>

I am not planning to make any appliance for it. I was just thinking for 
a way to make a fast recovery of a deployment/test lab. It will take a 
couple of days to make all the settings again if something goes wrong 
with hardware, right?

>
> Cheers,
>

Thanks's for sharing some light and excuse me if some things are wrong.
This is how I am seeing things from outside and after reading the 
project pages.

>      Sylvain
>

Regards,
R.