Request for help verifying COTS UE subscriber credentials in POWDER OAI OTA 5G setup
Ghinwa
Dear Administrators,
I am writing to ask for help with a POWDER OAI 5G experiment involving a physical X310-based gNB, the OAI mini core, and COTS UEs.
Experiment link: https://www.powderwireless.net/instantiate.php?profile=9b9417b5-9429-11ed-b318-e4434b2381fc&rerun_instance=535c7ebd-7a10-4921-98f4-b41c25857398
I have narrowed the issue down quite a lot and would like to confirm whether the remaining problem is related to subscriber credentials or SIM provisioning on the COTS UEs.
What I already verified and fixed:
At first, the gNB itself could not start correctly because of a UHD/FPGA compatibility mismatch on the X310. We fixed that by loading the matching FPGA image, and after that the gNB started normally.
Then the gNB and AMF were not completing NG setup. We captured SCTP traffic and observed repeated INIT messages from the gNB to the AMF with no reply.
After correcting the connectivity path between the host interface and the Docker AMF network, SCTP started working normally.
I then confirmed successful NG setup:
SCTP INIT / INIT-ACK / COOKIE-ECHO / COOKIE-ACK completed
NGSetupRequest / NGSetupResponse completed
the AMF shows the gNB as connected
After that, the UE side also progressed further:
the COTS UE reaches the gNB over the air
the gNB completes RA / RRC setup
the AMF receives the UE and shows IMSI values such as 999990000000000
the UE appears in AMF state 5GMM-REG-INITIATED
However, the UE does not complete registration:
quectel-CM remains detached
qwwan0 stays down
the AMF sends an Authentication Request, but the exchange does not complete successfully
So at this point, I no longer believe the issue is in:
RF / OTA access
UHD / X310 bring-up
SCTP / NGAP transport
gNB-to-core connectivity
I also checked the MySQL subscriber database and added a matching IMSI entry for the physical SIM we observed. Even with that, the UE still does not reach 5GMM-REGISTERED, which suggests that the remaining issue may be a mismatch between the physical SIM’s actual authentication material and the values available in the OAI subscriber database.
Could you please help me with the following:
confirm whether the COTS UE SIMs in this POWDER setup are expected to work with the OAI mini core profile we are using
confirm the expected IMSI / K / OPc values, or the recommended way to retrieve or provision them for these UEs
let me know whether there is a specific subscriber database, UE profile, or provisioning step that should be used for these COTS UEs
advise whether these modems/SIMs are tied to a different core configuration than the one currently running
In summary, the main result of the debugging is:
gNB ↔ AMF transport and NG setup: working
UE ↔ gNB radio access: working
remaining failure point: subscriber authentication / final UE registration
Thank you very much for your help.
Best regards,
Ghinwa Ismail
Kirk Webb
We can't speak to using the OAI mini core via the profile you
reference; that profile was created by another POWDER user, not the
core POWDER team.
We use the following K and OPc values:
K: 00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff
OPc: 0ed47545168eafe2c39c075829a7b61f
We add 50 subscriber entries, with IMSIs starting at 999990000000100
and ending at 999990000000150. This should provide entries for any of
our COTS UEs that make their way into the indoor OTA lab.
BR,
-Kirk
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Dustin Maas
Small correction…
For the indoor OTA lab, the IMSIs are 999990000000000-999990000000003. If you use this profile, all settings/config/credentials are visible in the associated repo.
-Dustin
Ghinwa
Thank you very much for the clarification.
Your correction was exactly the missing piece. After updating the subscriber credentials in the OAI core to match the indoor OTA COTS UE values you provided, the UE registration completed successfully.
The working values were:
* IMSI range: 999990000000000–999990000000003
* K: 00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff
* OPc: 0ed47545168eafe2c39c075829a7b61f
Thank you again for your help and for the correction regarding the IMSI range.
Best regards,
Ghinwa Ismail