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OsmoGGSN - Open Source GGSN

This repository contains a C-language implementation of a GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node), a core network element of ETSI/3GPP cellular networks such as GPRS, EDGE, UMTS or HSPA.

OsmoGGSN is part of the Osmocom Open Source Mobile Communications projects and the successor to OpenGGSN (which was developed until 2004 by Mondru AB).

Homepage

The official homepage of the project is https://osmocom.org/projects/openggsn/wiki.

GIT Repository

You can clone from the official osmo-ggsn.git repository using

git clone https://gitea.osmocom.org/cellular-infrastructure/osmo-ggsn

There is a web interface at https://gitea.osmocom.org/cellular-infrastructure/osmo-ggsn

Documentation

The user manual and VTY reference are optionally built in PDF form as part of the build process. Pre-rendered versions are available here:

Forum

We welcome any pySim related discussions in the Cellular Network Infrastructure -> 2G/3G Core Network section of the osmocom discourse (web based Forum).

Mailing List

Discussions related to OsmoGGSN are happening on the osmocom-net-gprs@lists.osmocom.org mailing list, please see https://lists.osmocom.org/mailman/listinfo/osmocom-net-gprs for subscription options and the list archive.

Please observe the Osmocom Mailing List Rules when posting.

Issue Tracker

We use the issue tracker of the osmo-ggsn project on osmocom.org for tracking the state of bug reports and feature requests. Feel free to submit any issues you may find, or help us out by resolving existing issues.

Contributing

Our coding standards are described at https://osmocom.org/projects/cellular-infrastructure/wiki/Coding_standards

We use a Gerrit based patch submission/review process for managing contributions. Please see https://osmocom.org/projects/cellular-infrastructure/wiki/Gerrit for more details

The current patch queue for OsmoGGSN can be seen at https://gerrit.osmocom.org/#/q/project:osmo-ggsn+status:open

QuickStart

Requirements

Linux OsmoGGSN was originally developed and tested using Redhat 8.0 and 9.0 and is these days mostly developed on Debian GNU/Linux. It should run also on other Linux distributions as well as FreeBSD, but this is untested. Compilation on Solaris 2.8 has also been verified.

Tun The tun driver is required for proper operation of openggsn. For Linux kernels later than 2.4.7 the driver is typically included, but might need to be configured for automatic loading:

  1. Add the following line to /etc/modules.conf: alias char-major-10-200 tun
  2. depmod -a

Installation from binary

OsmoGGSN is built for common versions of Debian, Ubuntu and other distributions part of the Osmocom Nightly Builds and Osmocom Latest Builds. If you don't want to do development, it is suggested to simply use those binary packages, rather than building yourself from source.

Installation from source

./configure
make
make install

You need to be root in order to install the package, but not in order to compile.

Support

Please contact the Mailing List above for community-based support.

Features

OsmoGGSN is an open source implementation of GPRS Support Nodes (GSNs). It implements the GPRS tunneling protocol (GTP) version 0 and version 1.

OsmoGGSN provides 3 components:

  • libgtp, a shared library for the GTPv1C protocol
  • osmo-ggsn, the GGSN itself
  • sgsnemu, a SGSN emulator

gtplib This library contains all functionality relating to the GTP protocol. Use this library if you want to implement your own GSN. gtplib supports both GTPv0 (GSM 09.60) and GTPv1 (3GPP 29.060). At the moment no interface documentation is available for download.

osmo-ggsn The osmo-ggsn implements a Gateway GPRS Support Node. The GGSN is a small application which is provided in order to test and demonstrate the use of gtplib. It is fully compliant to the 3GPP standards, but lacks important functionality such as charging and management. Use this application as a starting point if you want to build your own GGSN with your own fancy VPN, management and charging functionality.

sgsnemu This application emulates a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN). sgsnemu enables you to test your 3GPP core network without the need to invest in a 3G radio access network. An important application of sgsnemu is the testing of roaming connectivity through a GPRS roaming exchange. sgsnemu will first attempt to use GTPv1. If unsuccessful it will fallback to GTPv0.

Required software

Tun

Both osmo-ggsn and sgsnemu uses the tun package. You need at least tun version 1.1. With Linux tun is normally included from kernel version 2.4.7. To configure automatic loading:

  1. Add the following line to /etc/modules.conf: alias char-major-10-200 tun
  2. depmod -a

Alternatively you can execute modprobe tun on the commandline.

Gengetopt

Gengetopt is required if you want to change the options defined in the cmdline.ggo source file. You need at least gengetopt version 2.8. If you are just going to compile the programs you don't need gengetopt.

To use gengetopt for the sgsnemu do the following:

cd sgsnemu
gengetopt < cmdline.ggo --conf-parser

For more information about gengetopt see http://www.gnu.org/software/gengetopt/gengetopt.html

Compilation and Installation

Please refer to the project homepage

Running osmo-ggsn

Use osmo-ggsn -h for a list of available options. All options available on the command line can also be given in a configuration file. See doc/examples/osmo-ggsn.cfg for the format of this file.

Start osmo-ggsn as root using the command:

osmo-ggsn -c doc/examples/osmo-ggsn.cfg

First, a tun network interface will be created for each configured apn.

After tun has been successfully established the ggsn will wait for GTP create PDP context requests on the configured gtp bind-ip address. Currently all requests are accepted, and no password, username validation is performed.

When receiving a create PDP context request for a given APN, a dynamic IP address will be allocated from the address pool defined in the config file section for that apn. The request is confirmed by sending a create PDP context response message to the peer (SGSN).

Now IP packets will be forwarded between the tun network interface and the established GTP tunnel. In order to allow users to access the external network routing needs to be set up. If private addresses are used you need to configure network address translation. See the Linux Networking HOWTO for details.

Remember to enable routing:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

If you're using systemd and did make install or installed from a bianry package, you can start osmo-ggsn by using the included systemd service/unit file:

systemctl start osmo-ggsn

Running sgsnemu

Use sgsnemu -h for a list of available options. All options available on the command line can also be given in a configuration file. See doc/examples/sgsnemu.conf for the format of this file.

If you want to test a GRX roaming connection you will need to do the following:

  1. Install sgsnemu on a Linux Box. See under installation above.
  2. Connect your Linux box with sgsnemu installed to the GPRS core network. You also need a free IP address that can be used by sgsnemu.
  3. You need to configure networking in terms of interface address, subnet mask and default route. See the Linux Networking HOWTO for details.
  4. Launch sgsnemu with something like:

sgsnemu --listen 10.0.0.50 --remote 10.0.0.40 --dns 10.20.38.51 --timelimit 10 --contexts 0

sgsnemu will print something like the following on the screen:

  Using DNS server:      10.20.38.51 (10.20.38.51)
  Local IP address is:   10.0.0.50 (10.0.0.50)
  Remote IP address is:  10.0.0.40 (10.0.0.40)
  IMSI is:               240011234567890 (0x98765432110042)
  Using APN:             internet
  Using MSISDN:          46702123456

  Initialising GTP library
  OsmoGGSN[1823]: GTP: gtp_newgsn() started
  Done initialising GTP library

  Sending off echo request
  Waiting for response from ggsn........

  Received echo response. Cause value: 0

This is quite good. It means that you managed to send off an echo request to a remote GGSN, and it was friendly enough to answer you. If you did not get an echo response it means that something is wrong either with your setup OR with the GRX connection OR with your roaming partners connection.

If the above went well you might want to try to establish a PDP context to the remote GGSN. Note that you should be careful when establishing PDP contexts using sgsnemu as each established PDP context will result in a Charge Detail Record (CDR) being generated by the GGSN. You should use real IMSI and MSISDN from a valid test SIM card. Otherwise some poor customer might get charged for your testing. Also note that you are establishing a connection to the Gi network, so please be carefull not to route internet traffic onto the GPRS core network! Assuming you know what you are doing:

sgsnemu --listen 10.0.0.50 --remote 10.0.0.40 --dns 10.20.38.51 --timelimit 10 --contexts 1 --apn internet --imsi 240011234567890 --msisdn 46702123456 --createif --defaultroute

sgsnemu will print something like the following on the screen:

  Using DNS server:      10.20.38.51 (10.20.38.51)
  Local IP address is:   10.0.0.50 (10.0.0.50)
  Remote IP address is:  10.0.0.40 (10.0.0.40)
  IMSI is:               240011234567890 (0x98765432110042)
  Using APN:             internet
  Using MSISDN:          46702123456

  Initialising GTP library
  OsmoGGSN[1838]: GTP: gtp_newgsn() started
  Done initialising GTP library

  Sending off echo request
  Setting up PDP context #0
  Waiting for response from ggsn........

  Received echo response. Cause value: 0
  Received create PDP context response. Cause value: 128
  Setting up interface and routing
  /sbin/ifconfig tun0 192.168.0.1
  /sbin/route add -net 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.0.1

Now a context is established to the remote GGSN. The IP address of the context is 192.168.0.1. You should be able to ping a known address on the Gi network of the roaming partner. You should even be able to do web browsing through the PDP context.

Note however that you probably need to adjust your routing tables, so that you make sure that all GRX traffic is routed to the GPRS core network and everything else through the PDP context. The proper way to do this is to use policy routing. Also note that you are effectively connecting the same computer to both the Gn and Gi network, so please be carefull not to route internet traffic onto the GPRS core network and please protect yourself against hackers! For this reason it is advised to always use --contexts 0 when testing a live network.

After --timelimit seconds the PDP context is disconnected with the following messages from sgsnemu:

  Disconnecting PDP context #0
  Received delete PDP context response. Cause value: 128
  Deleting tun interface