Running the Nexran Xapp

Overview

The xapp is deployed in the near real time ric (3rd party APP). This deployed xapp then performs its functionality which in this case is RAN slicing.

Nexran Xapp diagram

Powder’s Nexran xapp implements ran slicing by sending instructions to RAN nodes, that performs custom resource allocation and we bind UE’s to those slices of allocated resources.

The xapp has a southbound interface to the RIC where it can send commands down to the nodes and a northbound interface where high level commands can be issued by the user.

Setup

First we need to clone down the srslte modified with e2 specifically for NEXRAN

cd oaic
git clone https://github.com/openaicellular/srslte-e2
cd srslte-e2

rm -rf build
mkdir build
export SRS=`realpath .`
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
    -DRIC_GENERATED_E2AP_BINDING_DIR=${SRS}/e2_bindings/E2AP-v01.01 \
    -DRIC_GENERATED_E2SM_KPM_BINDING_DIR=${SRS}/e2_bindings/E2SM-KPM \
    -DRIC_GENERATED_E2SM_GNB_NRT_BINDING_DIR=${SRS}/e2_bindings/E2SM-GNB-NRT
make -j`nproc`
make test
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo srslte_install_configs.sh user --force
cd ../../

We can now clone the repositories we will need to run build the xapp and onboard it as well as run multiple ues

Warning

Make sure you open a new terminal before you run these following commands. This prevents you from downloading anything under the root directory

Under the oaic directory, run the following commands

git clone https://github.com/openaicellular/nexran.git

Now we are going to build the xapp from the dockerfile

cd ~/oaic/nexran

sudo docker build . -t xApp-registry.local:5008/nexran:0.1.0

Paste the following in the nexran-onboard.url file. Substitue the <machine_ip_addr> with the IP address of your machine. You can find this out through ifconfig.

{"config-file.json_url":"http://<machine_ip_addr>:5010/config-file.json"}

Running the xapp

Terminal 1: Start the Core Network/Ues

sudo ip netns add ue1
sudo srsepc

Terminal 2: Set up Environment Variables and Base Station

export E2NODE_IP=`hostname  -I | cut -f1 -d' '`
export E2NODE_PORT=5006
export E2TERM_IP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-e2term-sctp-alpha -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`

sudo srsenb \
--enb.n_prb=50 --enb.name=enb1 --enb.enb_id=0x19B --rf.device_name=zmq \
--rf.device_args="fail_on_disconnect=true,tx_port=tcp://*:2000,rx_port=tcp://localhost:2001,id=enb,base_srate=23.04e6" \
--ric.agent.remote_ipv4_addr=${E2TERM_IP} --log.all_level=warn --ric.agent.log_level=debug --log.filename=stdout \
--ric.agent.local_ipv4_addr=${E2NODE_IP} --ric.agent.local_port=${E2NODE_PORT} \
--slicer.enable=1 --slicer.workshare=0

Terminal 3: Set up the first UE

sudo srsue \
  --rf.device_name=zmq --rf.device_args="tx_port=tcp://*:2001,rx_port=tcp://localhost:2000,id=ue,base_srate=23.04e6" \
--usim.algo=xor --usim.imsi=001010123456789 --usim.k=00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff --usim.imei=353490069873310 \
--log.all_level=warn --log.filename=stdout --gw.netns=ue1

Terminal 4: Iperf test on server side

sudo ip netns exec ue1 iperf -s -p 5010 -i 4 -t 36000

Terminal 5: Iperf test on client side

iperf -c 172.16.0.2 -p 5010 -i 4 -t 36000

Terminal 6

cd nexran
export KONG_PROXY=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt -l app.kubernetes.io/name=kong -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export E2MGR_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-e2mgr-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export APPMGR_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-appmgr-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export E2TERM_SCTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-e2term-sctp-alpha -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export ONBOARDER_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-xapp-onboarder-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export RTMGR_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-rtmgr-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`

Deploying the xApp

curl -L -X POST "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/onboard/api/v1/onboard/download" --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary "@nexran-onboard.url"
curl -L -X GET "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/onboard/api/v1/charts"
curl -L -X POST "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/appmgr/ric/v1/xapps" --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-raw '{"xappName": "nexran"}'

If you already have NEXRAN xApp deployed on your system, you need to restart the pod using the command below before running the rest of the commands

sudo kubectl -n ricxapp rollout restart deployment ricxapp-nexran

Add another terminal to print the NEXRAN logs

sudo kubectl logs -f -n ricxapp -l app=ricxapp-nexran

Warning

Before running the rest of the commands, detach one of the terminal with the iperf test running to observe the downlink traffic Also, detach the terminal with the NEXRAN logs

export NEXRAN_XAPP=`kubectl get svc -n ricxapp --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricxapp-nexran-rmr -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`

echo NEXRAN_XAPP=$NEXRAN_XAPP echo ; echo

Now run the test script with the following commands

chmod +x zmqoneue.sh
./zmqoneue.sh

Observe a slight change in the throughput in the detached terminal

Now run these commands to invert the fast and slow slices

curl -i -X PUT -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"allocation_policy":{"type":"proportional","share":1024}}' http://${NEXRAN_XAPP}:8000/v1/slices/slow ; echo ; echo ;
curl -i -X PUT -H "Content-type: application/json" -d '{"allocation_policy":{"type":"proportional","share":256}}' http://${NEXRAN_XAPP}:8000/v1/slices/fast ; echo ; echo

Observe large change in the throughput in the detached terminal