Aether OnRamp

Aether OnRamp provides a low-overhead way to bring up a Kubernetes cluster, deploy a 5G version of SD-Core on that cluster, and then connect that Core to either an emulated 5G RAN or a network of physical gNBs. (OnRamp also supports a 4G configuration that connects physical eNBs.)

To download Aether OnRamp (and all the submodules it depends on), type:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/opennetworkinglab/aether-onramp.git

Taking a quick look at your aether-onramp directory, you will find the following.

1. The deps directory contains Ansible deployment specifications for all the Aether subsystems. Each of these subdirectories (e.g., deps/5gc) is self-contained, but the Makefile in the main OnRamp directory imports the per-subsystem Makefiles, meaning all the steps required to install Aether can be (and typically should be) managed from this main directory.

2. File vars/main.yml defines all the Ansible variables you will potentially need to modify to specify your deployment scenario. This file is the union of all the per-component var/main.yml files you find in the corresponding deps directory. This top-level variable file overrides the per-component files, so you will not need to modify the latter. The vars directory contains several variants of main.yml, each tailored for a different deployment scenario, with the default main.yml supporting the Quick Start deployment described below.

3. File hosts.ini specifies the set of servers (physical or virtual) that Ansible targets with various playbooks. The default version included with OnRamp is simplified to run everything on a single server (the one you've cloned the repo onto). Example multi-node inventories are commented out.

Aether OnRamp assumes Ansible is installed. (See the Aether Guide for instructions on doing this, along with additional guidance if this is your first attempt to install OnRamp.) Then, once you edit hosts.ini to match your local details, type the following to verify the setup:

$ make aether-pingall

Quick Start

Edit vars/main.yml to reflect your local scenario. For the Quick Start deployment, this means setting variable data_iface to your server's network interface. Note there are two lines that define this variable, one in the core section and one in the gnbsim section. You also need to set the IP address of the AMF (in the core section) to your servers's IP address.

You are now ready to install a one-node Kubernetes cluster. Type:

$ make aether-k8s-install

Once Kubernetes is running (which you can verify with kubectl), you are ready to intall the 5G version of SD-Core. Type:

$ make aether-5gc-install

Once the Core is running (which you can verify by using kubectl to check the omec name space), you are ready to emulate a RAN workload. Type:

$ make aether-gnbsim-install
$ make aether-gnbsim-run

The second command can be executed multiple times, where the results of each run are saved in a file within the Docker container running the test. You can access that file by typing:

$ docker exec -it gnbsim-1 cat summary.log

Finally, you can bring up the Aether Management Platform (AMP) to view dashboards showing different aspects of Aether's runtime behavior. Type:

$ make aether-amp-install

You can access the dashboards for Aether's Runtime Control system and Aether's Monitoring system at the following URLs:

http://<server_ip>:31194
http://<server_ip>:30950

You will probably want to rerun make aether-gnbsim-run to generate trafffic for the monitoring system to display.

When you are ready to tear down your Quick Start deployment of Aether, execute the following commands:

$ make aether-gnbsim-uninstall
$ make aether-amp-uninstall
$ make aether-5gc-uninstall
$ make aether-k8s-uninstall

Or alternatively:

$ make aether-uninstall

Beyond Quick Start

Being able to support more complex configurations of Aether is whole point of OnRamp. See the OnRamp documentation available as part of the Aether Guide for details.

You might also check the vars directory of this repo, where file main.yml specifies global variables used to configure how Aether is deployed. By default, it is configured for the Quick Start deployment. The other files define other common configurations, any one of which you can copy to main.yml, and then edit to account for your local details. These alternative configurations are identified in the README.