March 2020 - OpenBSC - lists.osmocom.org

On the use of 'decmatch' in TTCN-3
by Harald Welte 31 Aug '26

31 Aug '26

Hi, I know that TTCN-3 is still new to a lot of you, but we are writing tons of integration testing against the various osmocom programs in it. It is quite amazing technology, and I would like to ask you to bear with me reading this mail :) Pau was stating the question earlier today on not finding an example on how to use decmatch. Indeed, it took me some months to find that gem in the TTCN-3 world. It solves the problem that you often have during test of layered protocol stacks: you have separate encoders/decoders for each protocol layer, and now you want to match on some of the *inner* payload. So normally, you have some kind of header definition + a binary (octetstring) payload. This happens in RSL with the L3_INFO IE, and just the same on BSSAP/DTAP where again the L3 message (for example call control) is encapsulated inside one information element. Now you have multiple options of addressing the problem: a) hand-written calls to the decoder function b) write na 'emulation' for the entire protocol layer c) use decmatch. a) would look like this (pseudo-code): var octetstring l3oct; var RSL_Message rsl RSL.receive(tr_RSL_DATA_REQ(g_chan_nr, ?, ?)) -> value rsl { var PDU_ML3_MS_NW l3 := dec_PDU_ML3_MS_NW(rsl.payload); if (match(l3, some_template)) { ... do something } ... } Which uses the built-in pattern-matching on the RSL port to match any message that matches the tr_RSL_DATA_REQ template, and stores the resulting RSL message in a variable. It then uses an explicit call to the decoder function of the L3 message, and then uses regular conditional expressions for further matching on that inner L3 payload. This is more or less how you would write in C, python or any other quite imperative programming languages. It's very verbose, time consuming and un-abstract/elegant. TTCN-3 has many declarative aspects to it. Code like the above is a waste of your time :) b) would mean that you implement some test component that handles the RSL messages on its bottom side test port, and the L3 messages on its top side test port. That is a possible way, and if you need a lot of state/logic of RSL, it maeks sense. But what if you really simply want to have a match? Then it would be a lot of effort and a large detour. c) decmatch to the rescue! You can write RSL.receive(tr_RSL_DATA_REQ(g_chan_nr, ?, decmatch tr_RRM_RR_STATUS)) which means: * do a receive on the RSL test port, and match on an incoming RSL message that matches the tr_RSL_DATA_REQ template, with channel number specified, link_id any (?), *and* if the octetstring payload, if decoded, matches the template tr_RRM_RR_STATUS ! This is *extremely* powerful and expressive. It allows you to condense complex, parametric template matching over multiple proocol layers. It would in the end match RSL DATA REQUEST, only if they contained a [valid] encoded RR STATUS. See https://gerrit.osmocom.org/6229 for the actual test case I used for the above examples. Please also note that I never had to even write the function name of the decoder (dec_PDU_ML3_MS_NW), but TTCN-3 *automatically* figures out which decoder function it must call in order to decode from the binary octetstring. Happy (TTCN-3) hacking + Osmocom bugfixing, Harald -- - Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/ ============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)

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GSM Silent call
by samir 04 May '26

04 May '26

Hi, I have read that silent-calls in GSM can be used to make a call to a target MS and listen to it without having the target knowing it. Is this theoretically possible ? If yes, can it be done in OpenBSC ?

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SMS: UCS-2 concatenation with UTF16 emoticons
by Keith 26 Apr '26

26 Apr '26

Hi all, I noticed that SMS with emoticons on the boundary of the concatenated segments are not displaying correctly on the destination handset. * - imagine the disaster when that kiss-blowing smiley face thing at the end of your SMS turns out as a diamond with a ? for the recpipient! OMG, the potential butterfly effect is too much to think about... :)) So... This is my analysis: We have 140 bytes for the message, less the 6 bytes for the user header data in the case of concatenated SMS , leaving 134 bytes. It's well know that this means 67 characters per segment for an SMS using UCS-2 encoding. But, it we fill the message with emoticons that are using 4 bytes per 'character', then we have space for 134/4 = 33 and a half. Ooops. Still, the destination handset should reassemble the message and stick the two "halves" of the emoticon together, right? - except I'm not observing this. To rule out us doing something wrong in osmo, I wonder might somebody else (who has an unlimited SMS package) from a commercial provider try sending some crafted SM from one emoji-enabled phone to another, something like this: 😱abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123😱56789 That's likely going to get mangled by mailing list or your mua, so it is: [4 byte emoji]abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123[4 byte emoji]56789 You could also try various messages filled with emojis. Of course, if you bring up your osmo network with SMPP-mirror you can watch the trace in wireshark, you'll see when the last emoji gets chopped in two. You could try the same message on osmo and your commerical network. If it's actually a problem of the phones, you should get [4 byte emoji]abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123[two diamonds with ?]56789 Thanks! Keith.

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ip.access nano 3G S8 Configuration
by John Thewlis - Meath Broadband 20 Apr '26

20 Apr '26

We are trying to setup this AP as part of the 3.5G Osmocom project. We have the software stack operational and are now preparing the nano for testing. When we try to login via telnet at port 8090 we are getting a constant refusal to connect:- root@osm/openbsc/openbsc/src/ipaccess# telnet 192.168.192.30 8090 Trying 192.168.192.30... telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused The device seems to be locked as indicated by the leds on the front panel. We have tried resetting the nano to see if this would help but to no avail. Any ideas as to how to access the device for initial configuration?. Thanks John

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Need nano3G (S8 - Model 237A)
by Akib Sayyed 16 Apr '26

16 Apr '26

Dear List I am extremely sorry for off the topic question. I am willing to buy nano3G Nodeb. Is anyone in list have spare which can be sold. Please let me know. -- Akib Sayyed Matrix-Shell akibsayyed(a)gmail.com akibsayyed(a)matrixshell.com Mob:- +91-966-514-2243 <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Splitting out M3UA and MTP3 out of Open BSC into a separate library
by Arran Cudbard-Bell 15 Apr '26

15 Apr '26

Hi, Developing a module for FreeRADIUS to support EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA authentication against a HLR. The HLR we were targeting only supported a SCTP/M3UA/SCCP/TCAP/MAP stack, so we couldn't use SUA. Ripping the M3UA/MTP3 code out of OpenBSC worked surprisingly well. We ended up running the event loop in a separate thread to work around the threading issues. Unfortunately the HLR implements the ANSI variant of everything, whereas OpenBSC and supporting libraries seem to have been written to be compatible with the ITU standards. ...but the differences are fairly minor at MTP3 and SCCP layers, and i've started work on a patchset for libosmo-sccp. https://gerrit.osmocom.org/#/c/73/ Anyway, trying to gauge interest in splitting those layers out of Open BSC into a separate library, would be happy to take on M2UA as well for consistency. It would almost certainly get more projects using the code. There's very little out there even in Perl land for working with SS7. Thanks, -Arran Arran Cudbard-Bell <a.cudbardb(a)freeradius.org> FreeRADIUS Development Team FD31 3077 42EC 7FCD 32FE 5EE2 56CF 27F9 30A8 CAA2

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[PATCH 4/4] core/conv: Add optimized Viterbi decoding
by Vadim Yanitskiy 15 Apr '26

15 Apr '26

Hi Tom and all, After a quick look at the 4th patch, related to your optimized Viterbi decoder, I have noticed that currently the convolutional code definitions from the 'src/gsm/gsm0503_conv.c' are out of the 'tests/conv' test coverage... So, I would like to extend the test coverage. All I need are the test vectors, which I'll add to existing ones. Some of them I already found in your 4th patch, but some pending I need to write myself. Right now I have a simple question... Let's look at one example: { .name = "GSM RACH (non-recursive, flushed, not punctured)", .code = &gsm_conv_rach, .in_len = 14, .out_len = 36, // ??? .has_vec = 0, .vec_in = { }, .vec_out = { }, } As I noticed, the 'in_len' may be taken from the code definition: const struct osmo_conv_code gsm0503_rach = { .N = 2, .K = 5, .len = 14, // The 'in_len' is here! .next_output = xcch_output, .next_state = xcch_state, }; But I don't know how to calculate the 'out_len'... Could you please give me some hint? I already started to work on your 4th patch: https://gerrit.osmocom.org/1542 https://gerrit.osmocom.org/1543 With best regards, Vadim Yanitskiy.

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Video Recordings of OsmoCon 2017
by Harald Welte 09 Feb '26

09 Feb '26

Hi all, the Osmocom Conference 2017 last week was an overwhelming success. We received lots of positive feedback from all sides. Thanks to all the speakers, to the attendees as well as to the anonymous sponsor of the travel grant funds. It is my great pleasure that due to the great support by C3VOC (The CCC Video Operation Center), we have full recordings of all talks given at OsmoCon 2017. You can find the videos on the C3VOC site at https://media.ccc.de/search/?q=osmocon They are also linked individually from the OsmoCon 2017 homepage at https://osmocom.org/projects/osmo-dev-con/wiki/OsmoCon2017 I hope the video recordings will be of help for everyone who could not make it to the event in person. We will also be collecting the slides and put them up on the wiki during the next few days. Please don't hesitate to raise any feedback and/or questions. Technical feedback/questions regarding Osmocom software / projects should be addressed to the appropriate mailing lists, such as openbsc(a)lists.osmocom.org. Feedback to the organizers should be sent to osmocon2017(a)sysmocom.de. Looking forward to the next OsmoCon, which we'll expect to be spanning ore than just a single day. Regards, Harald -- - Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/ ============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)

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GPRS - local and foreign TLLIs
by Luca Melette 04 Feb '26

04 Feb '26

Hello everybody, after setting up a nanoBTS with OpenBSC/SGSN/GGSN, I had some troubles trying to connect my smartphone to the GPRS cell. Investigating the BTS-to-SGSN traffic, I saw that the frames sent by the SGSN were all marked with the same N(U) value (at LLC layer), the value was 0. With some debug, I found that the there was a mismatch in the TLLI storage, used to keep the status of attached terminals. The mentioned code is contained in gprs_llc.c, involving LL Entity functions and gprs_llc_tx_ui(). /* look-up or create the LL Entity for this (TLLI, SAPI) tuple */ lle = lle_by_tlli_sapi(msgb_tlli(msg), sapi); if (!lle) { struct gprs_llc_llme *llme; LOGP(DLLC, LOGL_ERROR, "LLC TX: unknown TLLI 0x%08x, " "creating LLME on the fly\n", msgb_tlli(msg)); llme = llme_alloc(msgb_tlli(msg)); lle = &llme->lle[sapi]; } The TX function uses the previously received TLLI to lookup for the LLE. The lle_by_tlli_sapi() performs the search, but preliminary it applies a foreign2local TLLI conversion to ensure to have a local one. Since no valid entry for the searched TLLI is found, a new one is created. And the problem is here. The new entry has the foreign TLLI. Next time the lookup fails again, and a new entry is created. This way, the counter N(U) is always reset, and the mobile do not recognize the message sequence and no attach is possible. My question is about foreign and local TLLIs. I patched the lookup, avoiding the conversion, so that the LLE is found and everything works fine... but... What is the sense of the conversion? Should the TLLI be always stored as a local one? Can this problem be solved with another foreign2local while allocating new entries? Actually, my problem has been solved with that workaround. But I'm curious to know what is the right way. Hope somebody can answer :) Thanks. Cheers, LM

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OsmoNITB timeslots configuration and UmTRX
by Родион Гадыршин 27 Jan '26

27 Jan '26

Hello, list. I have umtrx v2.1 and I have already built GSM and GPRS components. Now I want to know which way of configuring timeslots in osmobsc.cfn is the best. I want GPRS, calls and SMS work. My current configuration is: timeslot 0 phys_chan_config CCCH+SDCCH4 hopping enabled 0 timeslot 1 phys_chan_config SDCCH8 hopping enabled 0 timeslot 2 phys_chan_config TCH/F hopping enabled 0 timeslot 3 phys_chan_config TCH/F hopping enabled 0 timeslot 4 phys_chan_config PDCH hopping enabled 0 timeslot 5 phys_chan_config PDCH hopping enabled 0 timeslot 6 phys_chan_config PDCH hopping enabled 0 timeslot 7 phys_chan_config PDCH hopping enabled 0 Is there a better way to configure? Maybe better use TCH/F_TCH/H_PDCH, but I have heard, that TCH/F is currently not working in dynamic configurations - only TCH/H does. And there is no only TCH/H_PDCH mode. So, could you please give me an advice?

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