“alarms” Command

List recent alarms. The number of alarms saved in the list is set by the “Log.Alarms.Max” configuration value.

“calls” Command

List in-progress Q.931 and SMS transactions from the internal transaction table. Displayed information includes:

• transaction id – The key for the corresponding entry in the transaction table that is currently making use of this channel.
• SIP call state
• Q.931/GSM call state
• time since last state change
• subscriber IMSI
• called or calling party number

“cellid” Command

Display or change cell identity parameters. These parameters are:

• MCC – Mobile Country Code (3 digits)
• MNC – Mobile Network Code (2 or 3 digits)
• LAC – Location Area Code (16 bits, 1-65520 are valid values)
• CI – Cell Identity (16 bits, 0-65535 are valid values)

With no arguments, this command displays the current MCC, MNC, LAC and CI values. With arguments cellid <MCC> <MNC> <LAC> <CI> this command sets the parameters to the given values and updates the corresponding GSM.Indentity.!* configuration table parameters, as described in Section 4.2. Using the command with arguments will also cause the TMSI Table to be cleared.

“chans” Command

This command displays physical channel status from the channel table (Section 4.4) for active dedicated channels. There are no arguments. The reported values are:

• TN – Timeslot number.
• chan type – The dedicated channel type.
• transaction id – The key for the corresponding entry in the transaction table that is currently making use of this channel.
• UPFER pct – Uplink frame erasure rate, as a percentage.
• RSSI dB – Uplink RSSI at the BTS, in dB with respect to full scale.
• TXPWR dBm – Current uplink transmitter power (from the MS) in dBm.
• TXTA sym – Timing advance in symbol periods.
• DNLEV dBm – Downlink RSSI in dBm as measured by the MS.
• DNBER pct – Downlink bit error rate, as a percentage.

“config” & “unconfig” Commands

This commands display and modify parameters in the configuration table (Section 4.2). The “config” command can be used to inspect, create or modify a configuration table value.

config <pattern>
lists all configuration parameters that contain given pattern.

config <key> <value>
Creates or sets the given key-value pair in the configuration table.

unconfig <key>
removes the associated key-value pair from the configuration table.

For example:

OpenBTS> config Example.Value 5
defined new config Example.Value as "5"
OpenBTS> config Example.Value
Example.Value: 5
OpenBTS> unconfig Example.Value
"Example.Value" removed from the configuration table
OpenBTS> config ExampleValue
nothing matching "ExampleValue"
OpenBTS>

The config command is possibly the most useful and powerful command in the interface. See here for more information on specific configuration values and their effects.

“endcall” Command

Force the termination of a call or other transaction.

endcall <transactionID>

“exit” Command

The “exit” command shuts down the OpenBTS and transceiver processes. In embedded applications, OpenBTS is running in a restart loop, so the effect of this command is to restart the OpenBTS GSM stack and its associated transceiver. This process takes about 20 seconds. The “exit” command with no arguments exits the OpenBTS process immediately. If an argument is given, in seconds, the command will wait up to the given number of seconds for in-progress calls and transactions to clear before exiting. During this wait time, no new calls or transactions will be allowed to start.

“load” Command

Give the current BTS load, in terms of active channels and queue lengths. load The results mean:

• SDCCH load – The number of active SDCCHs out of the total available.
• TCH/F load – The number of active TCH/Fs out of the total available.
• AGCH/PCH load – The number of queued messages awaiting transmission on the AGCH and PCH.
• Paging table size – The number of MSs currently being paged.
• Transactions/TMSIs – The number of active transactions in the BTS and the size of the TMSI table.
• T3122 – The current value of the T3122 hold-off timer, in seconds. See Section 5.2 for details.

“notices” Command

Print the copyright and legal notices associated with this installation of OpenBTS.

“page” Command

Page a given IMSI. Since there is no real transaction associated with this page, the MS will be rejected when it attempts to establish a dedicated channel to the BTS. This command is provided for testing purposes.

page <IMSI>

“power” Command

Inspect or change the downlink power parameters described in Section 5.2. With no arguments, this command displays the current power setting and bounds. With arguments, this command changes the power control bounds.

power <minAtten> <maxAtten>

“sendsms” and “sendsimple” Commands

Either of these commands sends a text message via SMS to a given MS , addressed by IMSI and appearing to originate from a given source address:

sendsms <IMSI> <sourceAddress>
sendsimple <IMSI> <sourceAddress>

You will then be prompted to enter the message text. The difference between these is that sendsms operates directly in the SMS control layers of OpenBTS while sendsimple operates by sending an RFC-3428 SIP MESSAGE packet to the OpenBTS SIP port.

“testcall” Command

This command is included in the CLI for development purposes, but not supported by Range.

“tmsis” Command

This command displays or clears the TMSI table (Section 4.3).

tmsis
prints the current TMSI table.

tmsis clear
clears the TMSI table.

“version” Command

Print information on the installed version of OpenBTS.

Shell Commands

Any line issued to the CLI starting with “!” is processed as shell command (in “sh”). This feature can be used to execute other applications from inside OpenBTS when only one interface screen is available. Examples follow:

• To see the 10 most recent registration attempts, assuming Log.Level.SIPEngine.cpp is set to INFO or lower,

  OpenBTS> ! grep Register /var/log/OpenBTS.log | grep IMSI | tail -n 10
  

• To access the local Asterisk console,

  OpenBTS> ! sudo asterisk -r
  

If you then exit the Asterisk shell with “quit”, you will return to the OpenBTS CLI.