Aether OnRamp

Aether OnRamp provides a low-overhead way to bring up a Kubernetes cluster, deploy a 5G version of SD-Core on that cluster, and then connect that Core to either an emulated 5G RAN or a network of physical gNBs. (OnRamp also supports a 4G configuration that connects physical eNBs.)

To download Aether OnRamp, type:

$ git clone https://github.com/opennetworkinglab/aether-onramp.git

Taking a quick look at your aether-onramp directory, you will find the following.

1. The deps directory contains vendored Ansible deployment specifications for all the Aether subsystems. Each of these subdirectories (e.g., deps/5gc) is self-contained, but the Makefile in the main OnRamp directory imports the per-subsystem Makefiles, meaning all the steps required to install Aether can be (and typically should be) managed from this main directory.

2. File vars/main.yml defines all the Ansible variables you will potentially need to modify to specify your deployment scenario. This file is the union of all the per-component var/main.yml files you find in the corresponding deps directory. This top-level variable file overrides the per-component files, so you will not need to modify the latter. The vars directory contains several variants of main.yml, each tailored for a different deployment scenario, with the default main.yml supporting the Quick Start deployment described below.

3. File hosts.ini specifies the set of servers (physical or virtual) that Ansible targets with various playbooks. The default version included with OnRamp is simplified to run everything on a single server (the one you've cloned the repo onto). Example multi-node inventories are commented out.

OnRamp is officially supported on Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04. Install the prerequisites, including Ansible, from the Ubuntu package repository on those releases:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install sshpass ansible make git

Aether OnRamp assumes Ansible is installed. (See the Aether Guide for instructions on doing this, along with additional guidance if this is your first attempt to install OnRamp.) Then, once you edit hosts.ini to match your local details, type the following to verify the setup:

$ make aether-pingall

Quick Start

Edit vars/main.yml to reflect your local scenario. For the Quick Start deployment, this means setting variable data_iface to your server's network interface. Note there are two lines that define this variable, one in the core section and one in the gnbsim section. You also need to set the IP address of the AMF (in the core section) to your servers's IP address.

You are now ready to install a one-node Kubernetes cluster. Type:

$ make aether-k8s-install

Once Kubernetes is running (which you can verify with kubectl), you are ready to install the 5G version of SD-Core. Type:

$ make aether-5gc-install

Once the Core is running (which you can verify by using kubectl to check the omec name space), you are ready to emulate a RAN workload. Type:

$ make aether-gnbsim-install
$ make aether-gnbsim-run

The second command can be executed multiple times, where the results of each run are saved in a file within the Docker container running the test. You can access that file by typing:

$ docker exec -it gnbsim-1 cat summary.log

Finally, you can bring up the Aether Management Platform (AMP) to view dashboards showing different aspects of Aether's runtime behavior. Type:

$ make aether-amp-install

You can access the dashboards for Aether's Runtime Control system and Aether's Monitoring system at the following URLs:

http://<server_ip>:31194
http://<server_ip>:30950

You will probably want to rerun make aether-gnbsim-run to generate traffic for the monitoring system to display.

When you are ready to tear down your Quick Start deployment of Aether, execute the following commands:

$ make aether-gnbsim-uninstall
$ make aether-amp-uninstall
$ make aether-5gc-uninstall
$ make aether-k8s-uninstall

Or alternatively:

$ make aether-uninstall

Beyond Quick Start

Being able to support more complex configurations of Aether is whole point of OnRamp. See the OnRamp documentation available as part of the Aether Guide for details.

Deploying Behind a Proxy

If your servers access the Internet through an HTTP proxy, enable proxy support in vars/main.yml:

proxy:
  enabled: true
  http_proxy: "http://proxy.example.com:3128"
  https_proxy: "http://proxy.example.com:3128"
  no_proxy: "localhost,127.0.0.1,10.0.0.0/8,172.16.0.0/12,192.168.0.0/16,10.42.0.0/16,10.43.0.0/16,.svc,.svc.cluster.local,.cluster.local"

When proxy.enabled is true, OnRamp automatically configures proxy settings for all deployment steps, including:

• Ansible tasks that download packages and scripts (apt, pip, get_url, git, helm).
• The Docker daemon on nodes that run Docker-based components (gNBsim, OAI, srsRAN, etc.), so that docker pull works through the proxy.
• RKE2's embedded containerd runtime on Kubernetes master and worker nodes, so that container image pulls work through the proxy.

Adjust no_proxy to include any additional internal hosts or domains that should bypass the proxy. The default value covers localhost, private RFC 1918 subnets, and Kubernetes internal domains.

You might also check the vars directory of this repo, where file main.yml specifies global variables used to configure how Aether is deployed. By default, it is configured for the Quick Start deployment. The other files define other common configurations, any one of which you can copy to main.yml, and then edit to account for your local details. These alternative configurations are identified in the README.

Deploying Offline / On Local Mirrors (Airgap)

Several roles run apt: update_cache=yes to refresh the apt cache before installing packages (iptables-persistent in the 5gc/router and oai/router roles, python3-software-properties in amp/monitor, the docker-ce stack in srsran/ocudu/oai/n3iwf/gnbsim/ oscric docker roles, build deps in ueransim/simulator). On a host that can't reach upstream apt archives — airgapped sites, baked images, internal mirrors that don't need upstream refresh — that refresh hard-fails and aborts the install.

Set the airgapped block in vars/main.yml (and in any vars/main-<flavor>.yml you cp over main.yml) to opt out:

airgapped:
  enabled: true                 # skip `apt update_cache` for offline / mirror-only sites

When enabled: true, every gated apt: update_cache call site is skipped. Operators are responsible for ensuring the required packages are already installed (offline bundle, baked image, or a local mirror keeping the apt cache fresh out-of-band) before running the install. The default (enabled: false) preserves online behaviour — apt cache is refreshed as before.