3 Oct
2016
3 Oct
'16
11:39 p.m.
Hi
I’m Bjørn, I work for Telenor Digital. We’re running a live experimental network (called
“loltel” :-) that is technically operating as a full stack MVNO (mobile virtual network
operator), renting network access from Telenor Norway. It’s mostly but not exclusively
based on open source components. When we started up about two years ago we considered
using OpenGGSN, but couldn’t figure out how to get it into an operational state and we
couldn’t find anyone to help us, so we chose a commercial vendor instead.
But today we’re again thinking of using OpenGGSN for an experiment, possibly in our live
network. Are there anyone on this list with experiences either with running it in a live
network, or with thoughts about how to do it / what would be necessary to get the job
done? We’d love to have a discussion with you.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best wishes
Bjørn
--
Bjørn Remseth --- Senior Software Engineer
(+47) 47900184 | rmz(a)comoyo.com <mailto:ane@comoyo.com> | www.comoyo.com
<http://www.comoyo.com/>
4 Oct
4 Oct
8:07 a.m.
On 03 Oct 2016, at 23:39, Bjørn Remseth
<rmz(a)telenordigital.com> wrote:
Hi
Hi!
But today we’re again thinking of using OpenGGSN for
an experiment, possibly in our live network. Are there anyone on this list with
experiences either with running it in a live network, or with thoughts about how to do it
/ what would be necessary to get the job done? We’d love to have a discussion with you.
OpenGGSN has no billing and no true subscriber management. I think people that have
deployed it in real networks have some (small) extra patches to make it work with specific
networks and so far no one contributed them back (which makes a good case for the
AGPLv3).
In terms of moving forward it might be good to see what is missing from it and then see
how/if to add it. E.g. I have written a nice architecture of a scalable GGSN using ZeroMQ
between the different parts of the system. But then there is only one way forward. Deploy
(for a subset of subscribers) and then see which SGSNs fail.
cheers
holger
8:38 a.m.
On 4 Oct 2016, at 08:07, Holger Freyther
<holger(a)freyther.de> wrote:
But today
we’re again thinking of using OpenGGSN for an experiment, possibly in our live network.
Are there anyone on this list with experiences either with running it in a live network,
or with thoughts about how to do it / what would be necessary to get the job done? We’d
love to have a discussion with you.
OpenGGSN has no billing and no true subscriber management. I think people that have deployed it in real networks
have some (small) extra patches to make it work with specific networks and so far no one
contributed them back (which makes a good case for the AGPLv3).
Do you have any indication about what the changes they had to do in order to be able to
pass traffic?
In terms of moving forward it might be good to see
what is missing from it and then see how/if to add it. E.g. I have written a nice
architecture of a scalable GGSN using ZeroMQ between the different parts of the system.
Interesting. A few questions:
* What kind of traffic do you envisage running over the ØMQ?
* Why do you think ØMQ is a good technology choice?
* What do you think of instead of a more traditional command/control structure with a
set of control plane nodes talking to a bunch of packet forwarding nodes over an RPC
mechanism (such as grpc.io <http://grpc.io/>)?
* Or perhaps there is no contradiction here?
But then there is only one way forward. Deploy (for a
subset of subscribers) and then see which SGSNs fail.
Ok, so one thing that could be useful would be to populate a fleet of phones with our
sims, put the phones in various networks we can roam into that use different SGSNs, then
make the phones (automatically, on regular intervals) connect back to a dedicated APN that
routes traffic back to an OpenGGSN instance and then bring out the popcorn to see what
goes wrong, fix the GGSN so that it’s no longer wrong then rinse&repeat. Are you
thinking somewhat along these lines?
(Rmz)
--
Bjørn Remseth --- Senior Software Engineer
(+47) 47900184 | rmz(a)comoyo.com <mailto:ane@comoyo.com> | www.comoyo.com
<http://www.comoyo.com/>
9:11 a.m.
On 04 Oct 2016, at 08:38, Bjørn Remseth
<rmz(a)telenordigital.com> wrote:
In the sense that it does not talk to any policy control functions and has no external
billing interfaces? It’s only functioning as a packet forwarding mechanism, right?
right. it will happily create a PDP context for anyone that asks.
I think people
that have deployed it in real networks have some (small) extra patches to make it work
with specific networks and so far no one contributed them back (which makes a good case
for the AGPLv3).
Do you have any indication about what the changes they had to do in order to be able to
pass traffic? In terms of
moving forward it might be good to see what is missing from it and then see how/if to add
it. E.g. I have written a nice architecture of a scalable GGSN using ZeroMQ between the
different parts of the system.
Interesting. A few questions:
* What kind of traffic do you envisage running over the ØMQ?
* Why do you think ØMQ is a good technology choice?
* What do you think of instead of a more traditional command/control structure with
a set of control plane nodes talking to a bunch of packet forwarding nodes over an RPC
mechanism (such as grpc.io)?
* Or perhaps there is no contradiction here? But then there
is only one way forward. Deploy (for a subset of subscribers) and then see which SGSNs
fail.
Ok, so one thing that could be useful would be to populate a fleet of phones with our
sims, put the phones in various networks we can roam into that use different SGSNs, then
make the phones (automatically, on regular intervals) connect back to a dedicated APN that
routes traffic back to an OpenGGSN instance and then bring out the popcorn to see what
goes wrong, fix the GGSN so that it’s no longer wrong then rinse&repeat. Are you
thinking somewhat along these lines? 
5 Oct
5 Oct
3:34 a.m.
On Mon, Oct 03, 2016 at 11:39:46PM +0200, Bjørn Remseth wrote:
we considered using OpenGGSN, but couldn’t figure out
how to get it into an
operational state
I see you have a far more advanced discussion going already, but in case you
were asking for a simple ggsn config to allow GPRS internet access on your
local network, I could send you config files from my local test setup...
~Neels
--
- Neels Hofmeyr <nhofmeyr(a)sysmocom.de> http://www.sysmocom.de/
=======================================================================
* sysmocom - systems for mobile communications GmbH
* Alt-Moabit 93
* 10559 Berlin, Germany
* Sitz / Registered office: Berlin, HRB 134158 B
* Geschäftsführer / Managing Directors: Harald Welte
6 Oct
6 Oct
6:43 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 3:34 AM, Neels Hofmeyr <nhofmeyr(a)sysmocom.de> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 03, 2016 at 11:39:46PM +0200, Bjørn
Remseth wrote:
That would be wonderful. It would also be useful during testing.
(Rmz)
--
Bjørn Remseth. Software Engineer at Telenor Digital. rmz@ <rmz(a)comoyo.com>
telenordigital.com
we considered using OpenGGSN, but couldn’t
figure out how to get it
into an
operational state
I see you have a far more advanced discussion going already, but in case
you
were asking for a simple ggsn config to allow GPRS internet access on your
local network, I could send you config files from my local test setup...
9:58 p.m.
On Thu, Oct 06, 2016 at 06:43:12PM +0200, Bjørn Remseth wrote:
That would be wonderful. It would also be useful during testing.
I see we do have instructions for GPRS at
https://osmocom.org/projects/cellular-infrastructure/wiki/OpenBSC_GPRS
though I believe some of the information may be outdated.
I have attached to that wiki page a tar with the complete set of config files I
use for my GPRS testing:
https://osmocom.org/attachments/download/2409/gprs_example_config.tar
Be sure to look at the enclosed README file.
A common pitfall: your phone must have an APN configured, anyone will do (e.g.
in your smartphone config just enter name 'test' and APN 'test').
~Neels
--
- Neels Hofmeyr <nhofmeyr(a)sysmocom.de> http://www.sysmocom.de/
=======================================================================
* sysmocom - systems for mobile communications GmbH
* Alt-Moabit 93
* 10559 Berlin, Germany
* Sitz / Registered office: Berlin, HRB 134158 B
* Geschäftsführer / Managing Directors: Harald Welte
we considered using OpenGGSN, but couldn’t figure out
how to get it
into an operational state
I see you have a far more advanced discussion going already, but in case
you
were asking for a simple ggsn config to allow GPRS internet access on your
local network, I could send you config files from my local test setup...
2767
days inactive
2770
days old
osmocom-net-gprs@lists.osmocom.org
6 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Bjørn Remseth -
Holger Freyther -
Neels Hofmeyr