Tag Archives: LMPT

Huawei BTS 3900 LMPT Basic Config

EUTRAN, LTE, Mobile Networks, , , , , , ,

This post is one in a series documenting my adventures attempting to configure a used BTS 3900 to function as a eNB in my lab.

There are 5 network ports on the LMPT card:

  • 2x SFP cages – SFP 0 and SFP 1
  • 1x 10/100 Ethernet port – ETH – Used to access the Local Maintenance terminal
  • 2x Fe/Ge ports – Fe/Ge0 and Fe/Ge1

Configuring the Ethernet Ports

What took me a little while to realise is that SFP0 and Fe/Ge0 are paired, they’re really only one interface. This means you can only use one at a time – you can’t use SFP0 and Fe/Ge0 simultaneously- Same with SFP1 and Fe/Ge1.

Before we get started we’ll list the current interfaces:

DSP ETHPORT:;

Assuming the interfaces aren’t there, we’ll need to add the interfaces, in my case the LMPT card is in Chassis 1, Slot number 7.

ADD ETHPORT: SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD, PN=0, PA=AUTO, SPEED=AUTO, DUPLEX=AUTO, USERLABEL="SFP_Fe_Ge_0";
ADD ETHPORT: SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD, PN=1, PA=AUTO, SPEED=AUTO, DUPLEX=AUTO, USERLABEL="SFP_Fe_Ge_1";

And then we’ve got to add an IP to one of the interfaces, in the below example I’ve added 10.0.1.210/24 to port 0 (which can be either SFP0 or Fe/Ge0).

ADD DEVIP: SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD, PT=ETH, PN=0, IP="10.0.1.210", MASK="255.255.255.0", USERLABEL="SFP_Fe/Ge_0";

At this point I plugged into the Fe/Ge0 port into my switch, and from my laptop on the same 10.0.1.0/24 subnet, I was able to ping the eNodeB.

And now we can check the status of the port:

DSP ETHPORT: SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD, PN=0;
+++    4-PAL0089624        2020-11-28 00:19:13
O&M    #806355532
%%DSP ETHPORT: SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD;%%
RETCODE = 0  Operation succeeded.

DSP ETHPORT Result
------------------
                           Cabinet No.  =  0
                           Subrack No.  =  1
                              Slot No.  =  7
                         Subboard Type  =  Base Board
                              Port No.  =  0
                        Port Attribute  =  Copper
                           Port Status  =  Up
                 Physical Layer Status  =  Up
       Maximum Transmission Unit(byte)  =  1500
                             ARP Proxy  =  Enable
                          Flow Control  =  Open
                           MAC Address  =  DCD2-07FC-A9E8
                       Loopback Status  =  No Loop
               In Loopback Mode or Not  =  No
                 Ethernet OAM 3AH Flag  =  Disable
          Number of RX Packets(packet)  =  1682
              Number of RX Bytes(byte)  =  163929
Number of RX CRC Error Packets(packet)  =  2
                    RX Traffic(byte/s)  =  259
          Number of TX Packets(packet)  =  53
              Number of TX Bytes(byte)  =  13952
                    TX Traffic(byte/s)  =  0
  Local Configuration Negotiation Mode  =  Automatic Negotiation
         Local Actual Negotiation Mode  =  Automatic Negotiation
                           Local Speed  =  100M
                          Local Duplex  =  Full Duplex
          Peer Actual Negotiation Mode  =  Automatic Negotiation
                            Peer Speed  =  100M
                           Peer Duplex  =  Full Duplex
                         Number of IPs  =  1
                       IP Address List  =  10.0.1.210 255.255.255.0
(Number of results = 1)


---    END

On with the rest of the config,

Adding a default route:

ADD IPRT: RTIDX=0, SRN=1, SN=7, SBT=BASE_BOARD, DSTIP="0.0.0.0", DSTMASK="0.0.0.0", RTTYPE=NEXTHOP, NEXTHOP="10.0.1.1", MTUSWITCH=OFF, DESCRI="Default Route";

Setting a DNS Server:

ADD DNSSRV: DNSSRVID=0, IPVER=IPv4, DNSCIP4="10.0.1.210", DNSSIP4="1.1.1.1";

Ensure you can ping the DNS server & in my case the MME:

PING: SRN=1, SN=7, SRCIP="10.0.1.210", DSTIP="1.1.1.1", CONTPING=DISABLE, APPTIF=NO;
PING: SRN=1, SN=7, SRCIP="10.0.1.210", DSTIP="10.0.1.183", CONTPING=DISABLE, APPTIF=NO;

And with that, you’ve got the network side of the config done on the eNodeB.

At this stage you’re able to unplug from the ETH port you’ve got the WebLMT connection to, and just connect to it like any other network device.

There’s a few more steps before we bring cells on the air, we’ve got to set timing sources, configure a connection to an MME and S-GW, configure the Carrier settings and add the radios and sectors, but this will get you to the stage where you no longer need to plug directly into the eNB to configure it.

Huawei BTS3900 – MML Basics

EUTRAN, LTE, Mobile Networks, RF, , , , , , , , ,

How do humans talk to base stations? For Huawei at least the answer to this is through MML – Man-Machine-Language,

It’s command-response based, which is a throwback to my Nortel days (DMS100 anyone?),

So we’re not configuring everything through a series of parameters broken up into sections with config, it’s more statements to the BTS along the lines of “I want you to show me this”, or “Please add that” or “Remove this bit”,

The instruction starts of with an operation word, telling the BTS what we want to do, there’s a lot of them, but some common examples are; DSP (Display), LST (List), SET (Set), MOD (Modify) and ADD (Add).

After the operation word we’ve got the command word, to tell the BTS on what part we want to execute this command,

A nice simple example would be to list the software version that’s running on the BTS. For this we’d run

LST SOFTWARE:;

And press F9 to execute, which will return a list of software on the BTS and show it in the terminal.

Note at the end the :; – the : (colon) denotes the end of a command word, and after it comes the paratmeters for the command, and then the command ends with the ; (semi-colon). We’ll need to put this after every command.

Let’s look at one more example, and then we’ll roll up our sleves and get started.

Note: I’m trying out GIFs to share screen recordings instead of screenshots. Please let me know if you’re having issues with them.

So once you’ve logged into WebLMT, selecting MML is where we’ll do all our config, let’s log in and list the running applications.

So far we’ve only got some fairly basic data, listing and displaying values, so let’s try something a bit more complex, taking a backup of the config, in encrypted mode, with the backup label “blogexamplebackup”,

BKP CFGFILE: ENCRYPTMODE=UNENCRYPTED, BL="blogexamplebackup";

If you’ve made it this far there’s a good chance you’re thinking there’s no way you can remember all these commands and parameters – But I’ve got some good news, we don’t really need to remember anything, there’s a form for this!

And if we want to upload the backup file to an FTP server, we can do this as well, in the navigation tree we find Upload Backup Configuration, fill in the fields and click the Exec button to execute the command, or press F9.

These forms, combined with a healthy dose of the search tab, allow us to view and configure our BTS.

I’ve still got a lot to learn about getting end-to-end configuration in place, but this seems like a good place to start,