Tag Archives: SDR

iPhone connecting to SRS LTE eNodeB SDR

srsLTE Install for BladeRF & LimeSDR on Debian / Ubuntu

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

Note: I’m running version 19.12.0 which I installed from the repos due to issues with 20.4.0 (latest when I wrote this) and stability on LimeSDR.

I wrote the other day about installing SRS LTE stack,

But installing it is one thing, meeting all the requirements to use it with your SDR hardware turns out to be another whole thing all together.

srsENB is a software defined eNodeB, allowing you to use a Software Defined Radio to serve as an eNodeB, UE and a few other utilities.

SRS’ implementation of the eNB is supposed to be 3GPP R10 compliant and supports eMBMS to boot.

Meeting Dependencies

Installing prerequisites

I’m using a LimeSDR, but these instructions also for for the BladeRF. I found the frequency stability of my BladeRF X40 wasn’t great, meaning when running SRS’s eNodeB the cell wasn’t visible to my UE. 

sudo apt install tree vim git g++ make cmake pkg-config python-numpy swig libi2c-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libfftw3-dev libmbedtls-dev libboost-program-options-dev libconfig++-dev libsctp-dev gnuradio

Install SoapySDR from Source

git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDR.git 
pushd SoapySDR
git checkout tags/soapy-sdr-0.7.2 -b soapy-sdr-0.7.2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
popd

Install LimeSuite

You can skip this if you’re using a BladeRF

git clone https://github.com/myriadrf/LimeSuite.git 
pushd LimeSuite
#git checkout tags/v19.04.0 -b v19.04.0
mkdir builddir
cd builddir
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ../udev-rules
sudo sh ./install.sh
popd

Install BladeRF

You can skip this if using a LimeSDR

git clone https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF.git
pushd bladeRF/host/
mkdir build
cd build/
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON -DBLADERF_GROUP=plugdev ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
sudo mkdir -p /etc/Nuand/bladeRF/
sudo wget https://www.nuand.com/fpga/hostedx40-latest.rbf --output-document /etc/Nuand/bladeRF/hostedx40.rbf
popd


git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyBladeRF.git
pushd SoapyBladeRF
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
popd

Install SRS GUI

(Optional but makes life easier and has to be done prior to installing SRSLTE) 

sudo apt-get install libboost-system-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev libqwt-qt5-dev qtbase5-dev
git clone https://github.com/srsLTE/srsGUI.git
pushd srsGUI
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
popd

Install SRSLTE (SRSenb & SRSue)

pushd srsLTE
mkdir build 
cd build 
cmake ../ 
make 
make test 
sudo make install 
sudo ldconfig 
sudo ./srslte_install_configs.sh service 
popd

SRS LTE – Software Defined LTE Stack with BladeRF x40

EUTRAN, LTE, Mobile Networks, Software, , ,

The team at Software Radio Systems in Ireland have been working on an open source LTE stack for some time, to be used with software defined radio (SDR) hardware like the USRP, BladeRF and LimeSDR.

They’ve released SRSUE and SRSENB their open source EUTRAN UE and eNodeB, which allow your SDR hardware to function as a LTE UE and connect to a commercial eNB like a standard UE while getting all the juicy logs and debug info, or as a LTE eNB and have commercial UEs connect to a network you’re running, all on COTS hardware.

The eNB supports S1AP to connect to a 3GPP compliant EPC, like Open5Gs, but also comes bundled with a barebones EPC for testing.

The UE allows you to do performance testing and gather packet captures on the MAC & PHY layers, something you can’t do on a commericial UE. It also supports software-USIMs (IMSI / K / OP variables stored in a text file) or physical USIMs using a card reader.

I’ve got a draw full of SDR hardware, from the first RTL-SDR dongle I got years ago, to a few HackRFs, a LimeSDR up to the BladeRF x40.

Really cool software to have a play with, I’ve been using SRSUE to get a better understanding of the lower layers of the Uu interface.

Installation

After mucking around trying to satisfy all the dependencies from source I found everything I needed could be found in Debian packages from the repos of the maintainers.

To begin with we need to install the BladeRF drivers and SopySDR modules to abstract it to UHD:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:myriadrf/drivers
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:bladerf/bladerf
apt-get install *bladerf*
apt-get install libgnuradio-uhd3.7.11 libuhd-dev soapysdr-module-uhd uhd-soapysdr

Next up installing Software Radio System’s repo:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:srslte/releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install srslte -y

And that’s it!