Scope
FlexRAN is a vRAN reference implementation for virtualized cloud-enabled radio access networks. FlexRAN is not an open-source project. It is provided here as an example of a 5G application running on INF.
This document provides details on how to build FlexRAN software for INF, generate a containerized version of the prebuilt FlexRAN binaries, and deploy on INF solution.
Note:
The steps in this guide are based on FlexRAN 22.03. The instructions are subject to change in future releases of FlexRAN.
And only CentOS based INF image is verified.
Intended Audience
The intended audience for this document are software engineers and system architects who want to design and develop 5G systems using the O-RAN Specifications based on FlexRAN and INF platform.
AIO Simplex Installation
S1 Prepare USB stick with INF CentOS based Installation ISO
S1.1 Get INF CentOS based Installation ISO from following location:
S1.2 - Burn the image to a USB stick:
Be sure to use the correct USB device name when copying the image.
dd if=inf-image-centos-all-x86-64.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=1M
S2 Follow the installation guide
In addition to the Hardware Requirements for INF (INF is a downstream project of StarlingX, and the requirements are the same as StarlingX), you will need the following hardware for FlexRAN applications.
Minimum Requirement | All-in-one Controller Node |
---|---|
Minimum processor class | Single-CPU Intel Xeon Cascade Lake (14 nm) or IceLake (10 nm) |
Minimum memory | 64 GB single socket |
Minimum network ports | OAM: 1x1GE, If only test timer mode, no other NIC required. |
BIOS settings |
|
Accelerator Card | Mt. Bryce ACC100 (Intel eASIC chip which can be mounted on third party card) |
The FlexRAN application on INF has been tested on Intel Reference Hardware platform: Coyote Pass (housing ICX-SP).
Note
Some third-party platforms like SuperMicro / HPE / Dell / Quanta / and others can also be used depending on customer platform requirements, certain optimizations for low-latency and power savings mode by the platform vendors.
S2.1 Please follow this installation guide:
- Install Kubernetes Platform on All-in-one Simplex:
- When install controller-0 from the image, please select ‘All-in-one (lowlatency) Controller Configuration’
S2.2 In addition to required StarlingX configuration, you must set up the Ceph backend for Kubernetes PVC, isolcpus and hugepages:
source /etc/platform/openrc NODE=controller-0 OAM_IF=<OAM-PORT> # if you use flat oam network system host-if-modify ${NODE} $OAM_IF -c platform system interface-network-assign ${NODE} $OAM_IF oam # if you use vlan oam network VLANID=<VLAN-ID> system host-if-modify -n pltif -c platform $NODE $OAM_IF system host-if-add ${NODE} -V $VLANID -c platform oam0 vlan pltif system interface-network-assign ${NODE} oam0 oam system host-label-assign $NODE sriovdp=enabled system host-label-assign $NODE kube-topology-mgr-policy=restricted # Ceph backend for k8s pvc system storage-backend-add ceph --confirmed system host-disk-list ${NODE} | awk '/\/dev\/sdb/{print $2}' | xargs -i system host-stor-add ${NODE} {} # isolate cpus depends on number of the physical core system host-cpu-modify -f application-isolated -p0 28 controller-0 # allocate/enable hugepages for DPDK usage system host-memory-modify $NODE -1G 10 0 system host-unlock $NODE
S2.3 After the system has been unlocked and available for the first time, configure ACC100 / Mount Bryce:
source /etc/platform/openrc system host-lock $NODE # get the device name of the Mount Bryce, we assume it is # pci_0000_85_00_0 here. system host-device-list controller-0 # Modify the Mount Bryce device to enable it, specify the base driver # and vf driver, and configure it for 1 VFs # NOTE: If this is the initial install and have not unlocked, you will # get following error message. # Cannot configure device 73b13ddf-99be-44c8-8fbe-db85eb8d99ba until host # controller-0 is unlocked for the first time. system host-device-modify controller-0 pci_0000_85_00_0 -e true --driver igb_uio --vf-driver vfio -N 1 system host-unlock $NODE