Osmocom.org Servers: scheduled Osmocom outage on *2020-07-21 7:30am CEST*
There will be another scheduled outage of most public Osmocom services (redmine, jenkins, gerrit) on 2020-07-21 7:30am CEST with an expected maximum duration of 45 minutes.
Added by laforge 9 months ago
There will be another scheduled outage of most public Osmocom services (redmine, jenkins, gerrit) on 2020-07-21 7:30am CEST with an expected maximum duration of 45 minutes.
Added by laforge 9 months ago
There is an urgent need to migrate our most important public infrastructure to a new server, and I will be doing that on Sunday, July 19 2020, starting about 9am CEST.
The migration involves redmine (main osmocom.org website), jenkins, gerrit, git, and cgit.
In theory, the migration should be quick. I would expect (significantly) less than one hour of downtime. However, we all know Murphys law.
Services not affected are mail (including mailman lists), ftp, dns. So in case of doubt, we can still use mailing lists to communicate.
In case anyone urgently needs osmocom source code on Sunday morning during the downtime: There are public mirrors available on github.
Regards, laforge
Added by neels 12 months ago
The D-GSM implementation developed under a Mozilla MOSS grant is now complete and merged to the OsmoHLR master branch. It is hence featured in OsmoHLR's Nightly Builds, and will be included in the next OsmoHLR release (upcoming OsmoHLR v1.21).
Distributed GSM is a unique feature set tailored to non-centralized collaboration of communal mobile network sites, as explained in this news post from a few months ago: Distributed GSM / Multicast MS Lookup. Compared to traditional (centralized, highly available) core networks, the most novel aspects of D-GSM are that it allows mobile network sites to roam its subscribers and connect calls without any central entity, and that it minimizes disruption that may be caused by unstable links between sites.
Find full documentation in the OsmoHLR User Manual: there is a new section called "Distributed GSM / Multicast MS Lookup", explaining how to configure and run D-GSM in all detail. Find the latest manuals here.
Please go ahead and give D-GSM a spin, and let us know of any feedback!
Added by pespin over 1 year ago
The Osmocom project has released new version 202001 of the CNI (Cellular Network Infrastructure) software, including OsmoTRX, OsmoBTS, OsmoPCU, OsmoBSC, OsmoMGW, OsmoMSC, OsmoHLR, OsmoSGSN, OsmoGGSN, OsmoSTP, OsmoSIPConnector, and others.
Those new tagged/released versions contain five months of work since the previous versions released during August 2019. The primary focus was on bug-fixing and stabilization as well as some major new features, such as inter-MSC-handover support in osmo-msc.
You can find pre-compiled binary packages of our latest release for a variety of Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux versions at Latest_Builds.
Added by laforge over 1 year ago
Osmocom founder LaF0rge has presented a talk titled SIM Card Technology from A to Z at the 36th annual Chaos Communication Congress
The talk tries to be an in-depth technical introduction into various aspects of SIM cards, ranging from relevant standards, electrical aspects, protocols, command set, operating systems all the way up to SIM toolkit, proactive SIM and also slightly touch eSIM.
If you're interested, you can find the following related resources:Added by laforge over 1 year ago
The Osmocom Retro-Networking / BBS-Revival project has successfully been operating at the 36th annual Chaos Communication Congress where it was known as the Retronetworking / BBS-Revival Assembly.
At this assembly, we operated our Dialup_Network_In_A_Box setup, providing both analog telephone lines as well as ISDN BRI (S0) interfaces for dial-up. We could verify that the physical layer (telephony) was working as expected, and had a variety of demonstrations:Many people were interested in the setup - both those remembering the good old BBS days, as well as those who didn't witness it back then. Clearly, the modem connect sounds from the USR Sportster (set to highest volume) were drawing most attention. ISDN is boring in comparison ;)
We also had several visitors who would either bring their own computer + modem (for example Aminga 500 or x86 PC with Windows 2000) and connect to the system. Equally, several others have borrowed some modems from our pool to connect with their own machines. One supporter even brought their own DOS BBS, ran it in a VM on Linux and set up actual modem dial-in to that BBS on the venue itself.
All in all, it was a successful first event for the project to participate. As the core setup is running now, future events will likely have more emphasis on the software side of things, i.e. showcasing a variety of different protocols and systems, such as FTN networks, QWK readers, Zerberus/ZConnect/CrossPoint, etc.
If you're interested in working on any of this, your contribution is more than welcome. Feel free to reach out at the bbs-revival mailing list
Added by neels over 1 year ago
When building communal mobile telephony networks, traditional core network infrastructure poses a fundamental challenge: it is built on a centralised paradigm and requires highly available network links at all times. Osmocom is currently implementing Distributed GSM (D-GSM), a concept that is a far better match for a decentralised cooperation of independent communal mobile networks, who don't have the luxury of ultra-reliable networking infrastructure.
When several communities, who have each built their own independent mobile network infrastructure, would like to join their services to allow calling, messaging and roaming across sites, the usual answer would be a centralised gateway entity to locate subscribers, and, naturally, a central authority governing all participating communities. That is a challenge, not only socially and administratively, but is also quite impractical when the network links between communities tend to be unstable or expensive.
For example, when a phone has just moved to a different coverage area, but weather conditions impair the hypothetical wireless link to a central subscriber database, the phone becomes unreachable, even for callers in the local vicinity where connecting a voice call would not have posed any problem.
A solution that comes to mind is a series of mirrors of that central database, one for each site. However, that requires database synchronisation, which can lead to a considerable delay. After a subscriber has moved to a different coverage area, practice shows that it can take something like half an hour until a site notices that a given subscriber has lost reception to its network, and until it has synchronised that fact with other sites. For that duration, callers are unable to get the accurate current position of the person they are trying to reach. Imagine a subscriber located just between two coverage areas, often switching back and forth between them at random -- service would be disrupted probably for most of the day.
To solve these challenges, we are implementing D-GSM as part of the Osmocom CNI stack. D-GSM is a close cooperation with/for Rhizomatica [1], an organization of community owned operators providing mobile telephony service in numerous rural communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. We are aiming to overcome common practical problems that their current mobile networks are experiencing, improving availability and stability. The results of this work are naturally contributed to the Osmocom project and are freely available for anyone to use, under terms of the GNU AGPL. The implementation of D-GSM is mostly funded by the Mozilla MOSS grant [2], and carried out by sysmocom-employed [3] Osmocom contributors. Thank you for making this possible!
The solution we are implementing is inspired by the actual social and physical structure that we aim to service: each village in Oaxaca has their own fully independent core network stack, and each community is fully in charge of their own infrastructure. There is no central authority governing across communities, by deliberate choice. Because the infrastructure is operated in remote rural areas, often from a pole on a hill crest running on solar panels, and with directional wifi over large distances, network links between villages can be unstable.
D-GSM is a relatively simple, low impact addition to an Osmocom CNI, which is designed to match Rhizomatica's situation:
The key technology that enables D-GSM in Osmocom is called mslookup, which is built on multicast DNS -- quite similar to the concept of service discovery in zeroconf networking [4].
Whenever calling or messaging a particular phone number (MSISDN), a multicast request is dispatched to all connected sites. Each site where that subscriber has recently been attached replies with the age of the local record, and the youngest aged response wins.
Figure 1: mslookup for connecting subscribers: Alice is visiting village C; a phone call gets routed directly to her current location independently from her resident village infrastructure
Furthermore, when a subscriber visits a site where its IMSI is not known, mslookup can find the IMSI's home HLR location, and OsmoHLR can provide roaming service by transparently proxying to the remote site's HLR.
Figure 2: mslookup for roaming: Alice visits village B; she can attach to the local mobile network, which proxies HLR administration to her home village.
By nature of multicast lookups, D-GSM is highly resilient against single sites or links becoming temporarily unavailable. Service between still reachable sites simply continues; Service to a disconnected site resumes as soon as it becomes reachable again. Even adding a new site to the communal network is basically done by setting up a network link with multicast routing, and by choosing distinct naming for the local GSUP services.
OsmoHLR is the workhorse for our D-GSM implementation. In fact, no other Osmocom CNI program's code base besides OsmoHLR itself needs to be touched for implementing D-GSM:
A D-GSM enabled OsmoHLR will soon be available on the osmo-hlr.git master branch -- the implementation is currently undergoing peer review to be merged to the master branch.
The elements that request cross-site service for voice and SMS (currently) are:
both of which are available as example implementations in osmo-hlr.git/contrib/dgsm [6] / [6].
This list is likely to be enhanced with further example integrations, like more FLOSS PBX integrations, or SMS-over-GSUP transport instead of SMPP. That's up to the Osmocom community to implement and contribute. If you need more information, take a look at OsmoHLR's user manual [7] / [7].
All of the above technology is fully functional in our lab setup right now: we are routing Location Updating requests, calls, and SMS to the right site, entirely without the need for centralised administrative infrastructure.
A further aim of D-GSM is providing roaming service even though the link to the respective home HLR is unstable or altogether down. The solution is adding a persistent local cache to the HLR proxy, which we are going to implement next.
D-GSM is, technologically, a relatively trivial enhancement of the Osmocom CNI. Yet it brings an entirely new paradigm to mobile core network infrastructure: It allows independent mobile core network stacks to provide voice, SMS and roaming services cooperatively, without the need for centralised infrastructure or administration authority, and is resilient against unstable network links between sites. It elegantly provides ad-hoc service for subscribers, who are free to move across all coverage areas, and it allows sites to dynamically join or leave the cooperative network without the need for configuration changes nor administrative decisions at other sites.
It also has been and is great fun to implement a versatile enhancement that, for a change, completely surpasses 3GPP specifications, and has the potential to change the fundamental shape of communal mobile coverage. We're looking forward to see D-GSM in action in Oaxaca, soon.
Added by laforge over 1 year ago
This is a (late) update about the September/October 2019 activities regarding improvement of OsmoPCU and OsmoSGSN functionality and reliability.
Work has been done, among others, on #4111, #3828, #4228, #3827, #4247, #4102, #3995, #3969, #4029, #1977, #4024, #2406, #4204, #2857, #3922, #4048, #4173, #3727, #43, #4058, #2408, #2955
Unfortunately, OsmoPCU is still one of the least loved projects in the Osmocom universe. Not many people contribute to it, and there are very few commercial users wanting to contribute either financially or by helping with closing some more of the open issues :/
Added by laforge over 1 year ago
OsmoSTP has received a variety of new features over the last few weeks.
This includes:We also discovered a number of drive-by bugs which were encountered while working on the implementation of the above, see #4247, #4236, #4238, #4234, #4239, #4233, #4235, #4232 - most of which are already fixed.
We furthermore have created a TTCN-3 test suite for OsmoSTP covering those parts that the existing nplab m3ua and sua test suites don't cover. Test results of all STP related test suites can be seen (as usual) in our jenkins:Related developments have been funded by a commercial user of OsmoSTP and implemented by pespin and laforge at sysmocom. We rely on funding for maintenance, feature development and bug fixing.
Added by laforge over 1 year ago
We had recently received the prototype v2 of the m.2/NGFF WWAN modem breakout board and are happy to report that it immediately worked for both USB 3.0 super-speed as well as for PCIe. All debug results and reworks from v1 have been incorporated in this v2.
Design validation has completed, which means a first manufacturing batch is in up in the pipelnie, and we expect boards to become available from the sysmocom webshop in some 4-6 weeks (maybe a bit later due to christmas holidays).
As usual, as the project is an Open Source Hardware, and anyone can go ahead and build their own boards, see http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-small-hardware/tree/ngff-breakout for the design files.
fun fact: The part most difficult to source is the M2x3 wide-flat-head screw that holds the M.2 card in place.
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