Open Source Mobile Communications

The deadline of the Call for Participation (CfP) to the OsmoCon2018 has been extended by two weeks.

This means you still have time until May 30, 2018 to submit your proposal and meet us in October 2018 to talk about your experience, or to share your ideas about Open Source Mobile Communications.

You can find our CfP at https://pretalx.sysmocom.de/osmocon2018/cfp

The Osmocom project has released new version of the CNI (Cellular Network Infrastructure) software, including OsmoBTS, OsmoBSC, OsmoMGW, OsmoMSC, OsmoHLR, OsmoSGSN, OsmoGGSN.

Those new tagged/released versions contain half a year of work since the previous versions released in early November 2017. The primary focus was on bug-fixing and stabilization. Many bugs were introduced during the split of the NITB into individual network elements during 2017, and even more bugs exposed by our ever-growing test coverage, particularly in the Osmocom TTCN-3 test suites.

All-in-all, the post-NITB stack has gained a lot in terms of spec compliance, robustness, stability and features during this period.

You can find pew-compiled binary packages of our latest release for a variety of Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux versions at
Latest_Builds.

The developer performing the release related work was Pau Espin. Thanks!

List of tagged versions and link to related ChangeLog¶

Project	Version	Changelog
libosmocore	0.11.0	http://git.osmocom.org/libosmocore/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.11.0
libosmo-abis	0.5.0	http://git.osmocom.org/libosmo-abis/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.5.0
libosmo-netif	0.2.0	http://git.osmocom.org/libosmo-netif/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.2.0
OsmoTRX	0.4.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-trx/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.4.0
OsmoBTS	0.8.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-bts/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.8.0
OsmoBSC	1.2.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-bsc/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.2.0
OsmoMSC	1.2.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-msc/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.2.0
OsmoHLR	0.2.1	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-hlr/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.2.1
osmo-mgw	1.3.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-mgw/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.3.0
osmo-sip-connector	1.1.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-sip-connector/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.1.0
OsmoSTP	0.9.0	http://git.osmocom.org/libosmo-sccp/plain/debian/changelog?h=0.9.0
OsmoSGSN	1.3.0	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-sgsn/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.3.0
OsmoGGSN	1.2.1	http://git.osmocom.org/osmo-ggsn/plain/debian/changelog?h=1.2.1

Noteworthy Changes¶

Misc¶

• GnuTLS fall-back for obtaining randomness
• support for three-digit MNC throguhout the code-base
• add talloc introspection via VTY
• tighter CRTL input parsing
• stricter VTY config file parsing
• allow to print only basename of source code file in logging
• print log level with color-keying of the level name

OsmoTRX¶

• OsmoTRX has now a VTY interface and uses Osmocom-style logging + config file
• use GNU autotest, like other osmocom projects
• re-introduce support for USRP1 devices
• build multiple binaries rather than selecting UHD / USRP1 at compile time
• EFR decoding fixes
• fix dynamic detection/use of CPU optimization (SSE3 vs SSSE3)
• various parsing/encoding fixes for trx-control interface
• add example config file for USRP B200

OsmoBTS¶

• higher accuracy reporting of time of arrival
• fix LAPDm UA memory leak
• put useful information into RTCP SDES packets
• fix AMR DTX FSM related crash
• many fixes related to measurement processing + reporting
• more robust RSL message parsing + error reporting
• implement DELETE INDICATION on AGCH overflow
• fix crashes in IPA DLCX processing
• fix operation without System Information Type 1

OsmoBSC¶

• support all types of Cell Identifier Lists in BSSMAP PAGING
• fix intra-BSC hand-over (used to work in NITB)
• fix various error paths in hand-over logic
• introduce new "handover 2" algorithm from Andreas Eversberg
• introduce load-based hand-over to balance channel load between overlapping BTSs
• implement SI2ter + SI2bis rest octets
• switch to osmo-mgw for handling media/user plane (instead of old osmo-bsc_mgcp)
• introduce osmo_fsm for subscriber_connection
• reduce several GSM timers to more reasonable default values (T3113, T3109, T3101, ...)
• permit codec list with both TCH/F and TCH/H channels
• permit network supporting more than one A5 cipher
• fix missing L2 pseudo-length in SI5/SI6 messages
• introduce Access Control Class (ACC) ramping to deal with overload situations on network power-up
• switch to "late assignment" by default (we used to do early / very early assignment)
• many fixes related to 3GPP spec / protocol compliance

OsmoMSC¶

• fix various use-after-free in GSUP and CC
• fix GSM-MILENAGE in presence of 2G keys
• cancel all paging on IMSI DETACH
• many fixes related to 3GPP spec / protocol compliance
• permit network supporting more than one A5 cipher
• properly pass bearer capabilities between MNCC and CC
• switch to osmo-mgw for handling media/user plane (instead of old osmo-bsc_mgcp)
• use dynamic MGCP endpoint allocation using wildcard
• migrate away from openssl to new libosmocore rand abstraction
• fixes related to SMS validity time
• delete expired SMS automatically
• fix transmission of MM INFO messages
• fix SMS to non-local subscriber

OsmoHLR¶

• fix various crashes
• fix response to PURGE_MS
• notify GSUP clients (MSC, SGSN) when HLR subscriber information changes

OsmoMGW (and libosmo-mgcp-client)¶

• Introduce osmo_fsm client API
• various fixes of SDP parser
• significantly improved compliance with MGCP spec
• wildcarded endpoint allocation in CRCX

osmo-sip-connector¶

• integrate libsofia-sip logging with libosmocore logging
• add systemd service file

OsmoSTP (and libosmo-sigtran)¶

• fix various memory leaks
• introduce IPA/SCCPlite support (allows translation of SCCPlite to M3UA/SUA)

OsmoSGSN¶

• fix some crashes
• migrate away from openssl to new libosmocore rand abstraction
• fix display of GTP addresses in VTY

OsmoGGSN (and libgtp)¶

• re-introduce support for kernel GTP acceleration (was temporarily removed when migrating from OpenGGSN)
• fix byte-order of IPCP IPv4 DNS server addresses
• add support for IPv4v6 End User Addresses
• Validate packet src addr from MS
• various sgsnemu fixes

This Sunday (May 13), we're planning to do some of the pending migration of osmocom.org services from our old server to a new machine.

This will cause some downtime. Hopefully it will be minimal, but for sure there will be unexpected events that will mean some of the osmocom.org services will be unavailable at some point during Sunday :/

In terms of priorities, gerrit is high up on the list, so this is the primary focus. If that goes well, redmine is the next on the list.

In case you're interested in the gory details, #3076 is the overview ticket.

All of the video recordings made at the recent 2018 Osmocom Developer Conference (OsmoDevCon2018) have meanwhile been released.

You can find the recordings at https://media.ccc.de/b/conferences/osmocon/osmodevcon18 with a back-up at this youtube playlist

Please excuse the bad audio quality in the Welcome to OsmoDevCon 2018 talk. We didn't pay attention to the clipping and only resolved it towards the end of that talk. All other videos have proper audio quality.

The Ettus USRP1 hardware was the first SDR device that could be used to implement a GSM base station. At Osmocom we never removed the related support from OsmoTRX, but it was getting rather hard to use with USRP1 due to two reasons:

1. libusrp had been removed from gnuradio after gnuradio 3.4.2 in FIXME
2. OsmoTRX could only be built with either UHD (for USRP2/B2x0/... devices) or with libusrp/USRP1 support

In recent weeks, we have improved the situation by the following measures:

1. Alexander Huemer took the last released libusrp from gnuradio-3.4.2 and released it at http://git.osmocom.org/libusrp/
2. Pau Espin packaged this libusrp for Debian, it is now part of our nightly and latest Binary_Packages
3. Pau Espin re-structured OsmoTRX to build two binaries from one build: osmo-trx-uhd and osmo-trx-usrp
   • updated osmo-trx binary packages are available for all supported distributions from our nightly package feeds, see https://build.opensuse.org/project/monitor/network:osmocom:nightly for the build status

As Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) has been released two days ago, Osmocom has enabled Binary_Packages builds for this new distribution in both nightly and latest. As a result, you can now use our binary package feeds on this most recent incarnation of Ubuntu just like on the other supported distributions.

This was relatively easy due to the openSUSE Build Service (OBS) immediately adding support for Ubuntu 18.04. so all we had to o is enable it, and fix up some minor failures. Thanks to OBS for making supporting new distributions very easy!

On April 22nd, Osmocom developer Steve Markgraf has released a new Osmocom project called osmo-fl2k during OsmoDevCon2018.

osmo-fl2k allows you to use the DAC contained in Fresco Logic FL2000 USB 3.0 VGA adapters as a SDR transmitter. Rather than rendering video signals to a screen attached to the VGA output, the DAC is used to generate RF signals in base band, possibly relying on the harmonics to achieve signals at much higher frequencies than possible at 165 MS/s in base-band.

The project thus follows the spirit of the earlier rtl-sdr project, which re-uses USB DVB receiver dongles with the RTL2832U chip as SDR receivers. Like-wise, osmo-fl2k creatively re-uses USB 3.0 VGA adaptors as SDR transmitters. The two projects are thus complementary.

Today, OsmoDevCon2018, the annual Osmocom developer meeting concluded. It featured four days of exciting talks and discussions about open source mobile communications, by developers for developers.

The final schedule containing all 41 individual presentations/discussions/workshops of the four days can be found at https://pretalx.sysmocom.de/osmodevcon2018/schedule/

Thanks to c3voc (the CCC Video team), we have audio+video recordings. Almost all presentations (up to speaker discretion) will be released soon. We will publish another news item once the videos are released.

We'd like to extend our thanks to

• the 20 speakers (at 25 attendees, that's 80%!)
• the sponsor sysmocom for organization, covering all lunch + dinner catering as well as some travel funding
• Lime Microsystems for donating 15 LimeSDR-mini to OsmoDevCon 2018 attendees
• c3voc for their video recording
• IN-Berlin for venue hosting (Sat-Mon)
• CCC Berlin for venue hosting (Fri)

Video recordings of the talks will become available step by step at https://media.ccc.de/b/conferences/osmocon/osmodevcon18

OsmoCon 2018¶

OsmoCon (Osmocom Conference) 2018 is the technical conference for Osmocom users, operators and developers!

We are happy to announce the date of OsmoCon 2018. It has been scheduled on October 18 + 19, 2018 and will happen in Berlin, Germany.

For the second time, the Osmocom Conference brings together users, operators and developers of the Osmocom Open Source cellular infrastructure projects, such as OsmoBTS, OsmoBSC, OsmoSGSN, OpenGGSN and others.

Join us for two days of presentations and discussions with the main developers behind Open Source Mobile Communications, as well as commercial and non-profit users of the Osmocom cellular infrastructure software.

You can find some initial information in our wiki at OsmoCon 2018, which will be updated as more information becomes available.

Call for Participation¶

We're also at the same time announcing the Call for Participation and call on everyone with experiences to share around the Osmocom member projects to submit talks, workshops, discussions or other proposals.

We are particularly looking for contributions about:

• updates on features/functionality/status of individual Osmocom projects
• success stories on how Osmocom projects are deployed in practice
• migration from OsmoNITB to the post-NITB architecture
• tutorials / workshops on how to setup / analyze Osmocom projects
• statistics, reporting, operations aspects of Osmocom projects
• third-party open source utilities to be used with Osmocom projects

OsmoDevCon has successfully introduced the (obviously free/open source software) pretalx conference planning system for the schedule planning of the upcoming OsmoDevCon2018 conference.

• Main event page
• CfP Page
• Preliminary completely unfinished schedule

All participants of OsmoDevCon submitting a talk have been receiving e-mails asking to confirm their respective talks/workshops using a confirmation link to the pretalx website.

We are planning to use pretalx for other upcoming events and would like to extend our thanks to the pretalx developers!