OpenBTS tools & Installation Guide
A collection of tools to make working with the numerous software components as painless as possible. This repo has been modified to include some patches to the scripts (outdated dependecies, download links...). At this moment this changes has been tested for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.
If you see something is missing or you have any doubts do not hesistate to raise an issue!
Installation guide
Changed instructions for successful building of OpenBTS in Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS with USPR 2901 or Ettus B210
- Base Operating System
- Downloading
- Selecting a Branch or Tag
- Compiling and installing previous dependencies
- Building
- Installing
- Exploring
Base Operating System
Install Base Operating System
- download Ubuntu Server 32-bit 12.04.5 LTS from here (image) or from here (link)
- boot the .iso on a fresh machine (VMWare virtual machines are also often used)
- select "English" for language
- press F4
- select "Install a minimal system" from install type
- select "Install Ubuntu Server" from main menu
- select your language
- select your country
- use keyboard layout auto-detection or select the country and layout
- enter a hostname
- enter "openbts" for "full name for the new user"
- enter "openbts" for "username for your account"
- enter and confirm a password for the openbts account
- select "no" to "Encrypt your home directory?"
- select "Guided - Use Entire Disk" for "Partitioning method"
- select/confirm the disk you'd like to use
- select "yes" to "Write the changes to disks?"
- enter nothing for "HTTP Proxy" and select continue
- select "No automatic updates"
- toggle OpenSSH on in "Software selection"
- select "continue"
- select "yes" to "Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk"
- select "continue" to "Finish the installation"
Update Git
The OpenBTS project utilizes several new features in Git. To make sure your client is compatible (version >=1.8.2), perform the following.
$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common python-software-properties
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
(press enter to continue)
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install git
Now check that the version is higher than 1.8.2
$ git --version
git version 1.9.1
Once you have git installed with the rigth version, most of the remaining installation process is automated via scripts.
Downloading
Several software components are needed to actually create a usable mobile network. To efficiently manage them, Range Networks has prepared some scripts to automate the clone, pull, branch and build operations.
Tools
From the command line in your fresh development environment, execute the following to download the most recent set of tools:
$ git clone https://github.com/RangeNetworks/dev.git
Components
Now, to download all of the components simply run the clone.sh script.
$ cd dev
$ ./clone.sh
Selecting a Branch or Tag
Before building, you should choose which branch or tag you'd like to compile using switchto.sh.
$ ./switchto.sh 5.0
Now change the downloading link for libcoredump for the one below (attached the whole line):
./libcoredumper/build.sh: Line 28
sayAndDo wget https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/google-coredumper/coredumper-1.2.1.tar.gz
Compiling and installing previous dependencies
Compiling and installing some dependencies
cd liba53
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ..
Installing zmq Adding repos:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/zeromq
sudo apt-get update
Installing components:
sudo apt-get install libzmq3
sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev
sudo apt-get install python-zmq
Building
The build.sh script will automatically install any build dependencies (building them manually when required). After dependencies are taken care of, each component is compiled into an installable package.
This script takes the radio type as an argument. Since this guide is pretended to be used with NI-2901 or Ettus B210 (see mapping list here)
$ ./build.sh B210
If this reports some errors please let us know in the issue section and we will work out a solution together.
Compiled packages are now in a new directory named BUILDS/yyyy-mm-dd--hh-mm-ss/ with the lastest folder being named as the timestamp in which OpenBTS was built.
Installing
Use dpkg to install the fresh packages (this will complain about dependencies):
$ sudo dpkg -i BUILDS/timestamp/*.deb
To have Aptitude resolve the dependencies, execute the following:
$ sudo apt-get -f install
When prompted about overwriting existing configuration files, use your own judgment. It is recommended to overwrite all files to make sure things work out of the box. However, overwriting /etc/network/interfaces will set your system to a static IP instead of whatever you had configured previously.
Running
Each component has an Upstart service definition for Ubuntu. To start all the required services, execute the following:
$ sudo start sipauthserve
$ sudo start smqueue
$ sudo start openbts
$ sudo start asterisk
Conversely, to stop them:
$ sudo stop sipauthserve
$ sudo stop smqueue
$ sudo stop openbts
$ sudo stop asterisk
Exploring
OpenBTS Command Line Interface
$ cd /OpenBTS
$ ./OpenBTSCLI
OpenBTS> help (list all commands available)
OpenBTS> audit (check if your configuration is correct)
OpenBTS> config (list all parameters)
OpenBTS> config XYZ (list all parameters that contain XYZ)
OpenBTS> devconfig (change developer and factory parameters)
OpenBTS> trxconfig (view the factory radio calibration) [so far only on Range Networks equipment]
OpenBTS> chans (view the currently active channels)
OpenBTS> tmsis (view all IMSIs that have interacted with the system)
OpenBTS> trans (view all completed transactions like calls and sms)
OpenBTS> quit
Subscriber Registry Database
$ sudo sqlite3 /var/lib/asterisk/sqlite3dir/sqlite3.db
sqlite> .tables
DIALDATA_TABLE RRLP SIP_BUDDIES rates
sqlite> select * from sip_buddies;
sqlite> select * from dialdata_table;
sqlite> .quit