pfcpsim

pfcpsim is a simulator to interact with PFCP agents. Can be used to simulate a 4G SGW-C / 5G SMF.

Overview

pfcpsim is designed to work within a containerized environment. The docker image comes with both client (pfcpctl) and server (pfcpsim).

PFCPClient is embedded in a gRPC Server. Interaction between pfcpsim and pfcpctl is performed through RPCs, as shown in the following schema:

Getting Started

1. Create the container. Images are available on Dockerhub:

docker container run --rm -d --name pfcpsim pfcpsim:<image_tag> -p 12345 --interface <interface-name>

• -p (optional, default is 54321): to set a custom gRPC listening port
• --interface (optional, default is first non-loopback interface): to specify a specific interface from which retrieve local IP address

2. Use pfcpctl to configure server's remote peer address and N3 interface address:

docker exec pfcpsim pfcpctl -s localhost:12345 service configure --n3-addr <N3-interface-address> --remote-peer-addr <PFCP-server-address>

• -s/--server: (optional, default is 'localhost:54321') the gRPC server address.
• service: selects the service subparser.
• configure: selects the Configure RPC that allows to set the addresses of the N3 interface and the remote PFCP agent peer.
• --n3-addr: address of the N3 Interface between UPF and nodeB.
• --remote-peer-addr: address of the PFCP server. It supports the override of the IANA PFCP port (e.g. 10.0.0.1:8888).

To list all the available commands just append --help, when executing pfcpctl.

3. associate command will connect to remote peer set in the previous configuration step and perform an association.

docker exec pfcpsim pfcpctl -s localhost:12345 service associate

4. Create 5 sessions

docker exec pfcpsim pfcpctl -s localhost:12345 session create --count 5 --baseID 2 --ue-pool <CIDR-IP-pool> --gnb-addr <GNodeB-address> --sdf-filter 'permit out ip from 0.0.0.0/0 to assigned 81-81'

• --count the amount of sessions to create
• --baseID the base ID used to incrementally create sessions
• --ue-pool the IP pool from which UE addresses will be generated (e.g. 17.0.0.0/24)
• --gnb-addr the (e/g)NodeB address
• --sdf-filter (optional) the SDF Filter to use when creating PDRs. If not set, PDI will contain a SDF Filter IE with an empty string as SDF Filter.

5. Delete the sessions

docker exec pfcpsim pfcpctl --server localhost:12345 session delete --count 5 --baseID 2

6. disassociate command will perform disassociation and close connection with remote peer.

docker exec pfcpsim pfcpctl --server localhost:12345 service disassociate

Compile binaries

If you don't want to use docker you can just compile the binaries of pfcpsim and pfcpctl:

1. Git clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/omec-project/pfcpsim && cd pfcpsim/

2. Compile pfcpsim

go build -o server cmd/pfcpsim/main.go

3. Compile pfcpctl

go build -o client cmd/pfcpctl/main.go

You can now place server and client wherever you want. To setup pfcpsim use the same steps shown above (without executing docker). E.G:

./server -p 12345 --interface <interface-name>