free5GC Slincing

This repository is a docker compose version of free5GC for stage 3, implementing network slicing at the core level. It's inspired by free5gc-docker-compose

To configure your own settings, please navigate to the config] folder and docker-compose.yaml files."

Prerequisites

• Free5GC Release 3.3.0
• I use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Kernel 5.15.0
• GTP5G kernel module: needed to run the UPF

git clone https://github.com/free5gc/gtp5g.git && cd gtp5g
make clean && make
sudo make install

• Docker Engine: needed to run the Free5GC

Run the following command to uninstall all conflicting packages:

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done

Set up Docker's Apt repository.

# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo \
  "deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  "$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

Install

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Verify docker installation

sudo docker run hello-world

Start free5gc

Because we need to create tunnel interface, we need to use privileged container with root permission.

# Clone the project
git clone https://github.com/HeitorAnglada/free5gc-compose.git
cd free5gc-compose

clone free5gc sources

Note:

Dangling images may be created during the build process. It is advised to remove them from time to time to free up disk space.

docker rmi $(docker images -f "dangling=true" -q)

Run free5GC

You can create free5GC containers based on local images or docker hub images:

# use images from docker hub
docker compose up # add -d to run in background mode

Destroy the established container resource after testing:

# Remove established containers (remote images)
docker compose rm

Troubleshooting

You can see logs for each service using docker logs command. For example, to access the logs of the SMF you can use:

docker logs smf

Please refer to the wiki for more troubleshooting information.

Integration with external gNB/UE simulators

The integration with the UERANSIM eNB/UE simulator is documented here.

You can also refer to this issue to find out how you can configure the UPF to forward traffic between the UERANSIM to the DN (eg. internet) in a docker environment.

This issue provides detailed steps that might be useful.

Scenario

We will test a core slicing scenario consisting of a gNB with two UEs in different slices connected to it. Each UE connects to the internet through a different UPF.

Step 1

• Subscribe the User Equipments (UEs) to the graphical user interface of free5GC. To access the interface, simply open your web browser and navigate to port 5000, specifying either 'localhost' or the desired IP address.

• Login: admin

  Pass: free5gc

• In the panel that opens in a new subscription, you should add a UE with the IMSI and the slice data (SD and SSD) below:

Step 2

After run the Docker Compose, execute the following command to start the two UEs.:

# Start the first UE
docker exec ueransim-ue bash -c "./nr-ue -c ./config/uecfg.yaml &"

#Start the second UE
docker exec ueransim-ue bash -c "./nr-ue -c ./config/uecfg2.yaml &"

Step 3

Execute the tcpdump command on the UPFs to monitor the traffic passing through each of them.

# Run tcpdump on UPF
docker exec upf bash -c "tcpdump"

# Run tcpdump on UPF-2
docker exec upf-2 bash -c "tcpdump"

Step 4

Generate traffic from the UEs by executing a ping to the Google server.

# Ping on the interface of the first UE (uesimtun0)
docker exec ueransim-ue bash -c "ping google.com -I uesimtun0"

# Ping on the interface of the second UE (uesimtun1)
docker exec ueransim-ue bash -c "ping google.com -I uesimtun1"

Conclusion

When we run the ping from UE 1's interface, we observe this traffic passing through UPF-1. However, when we run the ping from UE 2's interface, we see the traffic passing through UPF-2.

Reference

• https://github.com/open5gs/nextepc/tree/master/docker
• https://github.com/abousselmi/docker-free5gc