OpenBSC development

This is merely a historical archive of years 2008-2021, before the migration to mailman3.

A maintained and still updated list archive can be found at https://lists.osmocom.org/hyperkitty/list/OpenBSC@lists.osmocom.org/.

Labs rp.labs at gmx.ch
Mon Jan 9 07:32:26 UTC 2012


On 01/08/2012 02:33 PM, Holger Hans Peter Freyther wrote:

 >welcome! From my point of view the barrier is not lack of packages or
 >documentation but more the lack of affordable hardware.

What do you mean affordable hardware? I guess it's not about servers 
running OpenBSC but BTS hardware which is hard to find.

My idea is that if you want cheap hardware go and ask an operator which 
is replacing the old BTS equipments with new one from other vendors.

In Germany I know at least 2 operators which are swapping right now with 
other vendor all network so you will have on the market thousands of BTS 
equipments, mostly Siemens. The problem is power and space because you 
will not find micro-cells. They mostly have big ones.

 >Thank to Jan we have packages.osmocom.org with Debian/Ubuntu packages, 
 >our
 >libraries are also on the way into debian repositories (again thanks 
 >to Jan's
 >effort). We do not have nightly builds though, I don't know Debian's 
 >policy of
 >automatically signing nightly builds though.

I already checked the link but the package repository doesn't keep up 
with updates from git repository. Most of them were built in the summer 
last year, that's why I wanted a nightly built to have the latest bug 
fixes and features.

 >>
 >> * Did somebody try to build OpenBSC on SPARC architecture? I have 
 >>some Sun
 >> servers that I would like to use for this project. Same thing like 
 >>before,
 >> some pre-compiled packages would be nice for SPARC.

 >Not tham I am aware of.

That's bad because I wanted to run OpenBSC on SPARC and my programming 
skills are almost zero and some help with compiling was nice. :=)

 >I have started generating XML (to be used by docbook or converted to 
 >Trac Wiki
 >Syntax) from our VTY (Virtual TeleType) interface. The XML generated 
 >from the
 >application can be merged (via XSLT) with additional documentation and 
 >then be
 >included in any kind of documentation.

Normally I prefer the VTY on any kind of hardware configuration but the 
VTY for OpenBSC is not so intuitive and helpful that's why I asked for a 
web interface to help setup the BSC, BTS and transmission parts.

I guess you were referring to osmo-nitb.
http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/osmo-nitb_VTY

My idea was to change the way it is now and split the commands in:
"list or show or get" - for checking already set parameters
"display" - for checking live parameters, like transport layer errors, 
line up, down, BTS up, down
"set,add" - for adding new configuration parameters
"modify" - for changing a parameter value

This will be the main commands and after you can define the parameters 
and also split them in some classes like BTS transport layer 
configuration, IP or E1 configuration for BSC, Cell and frequency 
parameters, etc.

In this way it will be much easier to know what you will configure.
There is more to discuss on this topic...

 >I don't understand this part, our config files are plain text and can >be
 >copied around nicely. I assume you refer to something else. We also 
 >have the
 >beginning of a Machine-Interface (gdb terminology) but no conclusion 
 >of how to
 >combine that with the vty.

I was talking about all config parameters to be in one DB and not in 
text files. Also it can be an XML file with all configuration and not 
many text files.

 From VTY just run let's say "backup live-config" command and you will 
have an XML with all configuration that you can move on other hardware.

XML should contain everything like E1 or IP settings, BTS and cell 
parameters, etc.

 >To summarize, you are more than welcome to help us on the 
 >documentation part,
 >bring more structure to the wiki, create a docbook for OpenBSC, 
 >include the
 >VTY commands and config options in a reference kind of manual.

I will gladly help but I will need first to make some time. I am very 
busy with jobs and kids but I will try in the next weeks to set up a lab 
at home for OpenBSC and after we can discuss more based on real facts.

Thank you,
R.




More information about the OpenBSC mailing list