README.md

Helm Chart for OAI Session Management Function (SMF)

The helm-chart is tested on Minikube and Red Hat Openshift 4.10, 4.12 and 4.13. There are no special resource requirements for SMF.

NOTE: All the extra interfaces/multus interfaces created inside the pod are using macvlan mode. If your environment does not allow using macvlan then you need to change the multus definition.

Disclaimer

Starting version 2.0.0 of OAI 5G Core network functions their configuration will be in config.yaml and all infrastructure related information including image definition will be in values.yaml.

Introduction

OAI-SMF follows 3GPP release 16, more information about the feature set can be found on SMFs WiKi page. The source code be downloaded from GitLab

OAI Jenkins Platform publishes every develop and master branch image of OAI-SMF on docker-hub with tag develop and latest respectively. Apart from that you can find tags for every release VX.X.X. We only publish Ubuntu 18.04/20.04/22.04 images. We do not publish RedHat/UBI images. These images you have to build from the source code on your RedHat systems or Openshift Platform. You can follow this tutorial for that.

The helm chart of OAI-SMF creates multiples Kubernetes resources,

1. Service
2. Role Base Access Control (RBAC) (role and role bindings)
3. Deployment
4. Configmap (Contains the mounted configuration file for SMF)
5. Service account
6. Network-attachment-definition (Optional only when multus is used)

The directory structure

├── Chart.yaml
├── README.md
├── templates
│   ├── configmap.yaml
│   ├── deployment.yaml
│   ├── _helpers.tpl
│   ├── multus.yaml
│   ├── NOTES.txt
│   ├── rbac.yaml
│   ├── serviceaccount.yaml
│   └── service.yaml
├── config.yaml (Configuration of the network function)
└── values.yaml (Parent file contains all the configurable parameters)

Parameters

Values.yaml contains all the configurable parameters. Below table defines the configurable parameters.

Parameter	Allowed Values	Remark
kubernetesType	Vanilla/Openshift	Vanilla Kubernetes or Openshift
nfimage.repository	Image Name
nfimage.version	Image tag
nfimage.pullPolicy	IfNotPresent or Never or Always
imagePullSecrets.name	String	Good to use for docker hub
serviceAccount.create	true/false
serviceAccount.annotations	String
serviceAccount.name	String
podSecurityContext.runAsUser	Integer (0,65534)	Mandatory to use 0
podSecurityContext.runAsGroup	Integer (0,65534)	Mandatory to use 0
multus.create	true/false	default false
multus.n4Interface.create	true/false
multus.n4Interface.Ipadd	Ip-Address
multus.n4Interface.Netmask	Netmask
multus.n4Interface.Gateway	Ip-Address
multus.n4Interface.routes	Json	Routes if you want to add in your pod
multus.n4Interface.hostInterface	host interface	Host interface on which pod will run
multus.defaultGateway	Ip-Address	Default route inside pod

Advanced Debugging Parameters

Only needed if you are doing advanced debugging

Parameter	Allowed Values	Remark
start.smf	true/false	If true smf container will go in sleep mode
start.tcpdump	true/false	If true tcpdump container will go in sleepmode
includeTcpDumpContainer	true/false	If false no tcpdump container will be there
tcpdumpimage.repository	Image Name
tcpdumpimage.version	Image tag
tcpdumpimage.pullPolicy	IfNotPresent or Never or Always
persistent.sharedvolume	true/false	Save the pcaps in a shared volume with NRF
resources.define	true/false
resources.limits.tcpdump.cpu	string	Unit m for milicpu or cpu
resources.limits.tcpdump.memory	string	Unit Mi/Gi/MB/GB
resources.limits.nf.cpu	string	Unit m for milicpu or cpu
resources.limits.nf.memory	string	Unit Mi/Gi/MB/GB
resources.requests.tcpdump.cpu	string	Unit m for milicpu or cpu
resources.requests.tcpdump.memory	string	Unit Mi/Gi/MB/GB
resources.requests.nf.cpu	string	Unit m for milicpu or cpu
resources.requests.nf.memory	string	Unit Mi/Gi/MB/GB
readinessProbe	true/false	default true
livenessProbe	true/false	default false
terminationGracePeriodSeconds	5	In seconds (default 5)
nodeSelector	Node label
nodeName	Node Name

Installation

Better to use the parent charts from:

1. oai-5g-basic for basic deployment of OAI-5G Core
2. oai-5g-mini for mini deployment (AMF, SMF, NRF, UPF) of OAI-5G Core. In this type of deployment AMF plays the role of AUSF and UDR
3. oai-5g-advance for basic deployment with NSSF extra

Note

1. If you are using multus then make sure it is properly configured and if you don't have a gateway for your multus interface then avoid using gateway and defaultGateway parameter. Either comment them or leave them empty. Wrong gateway configuration can create issues with pod networking and pod will not be able to resolve service names.
2. If you are using tcpdump container to take pcaps automatically (start.tcpdump is true) you can enable persistent.sharedvolume and presistent volume in NRF. To store the pcaps of all the NFs in one location. It is to ease the automated collection of pcaps.