Nokia BNG Lab

A comprehensive Containerlab-based network laboratory for deploying and testing Nokia Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) infrastructure with dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 support, network sharing capabilities, and full telemetry stack.

This lab simulates a Red Neutral (Neutral Network) architecture where multiple ISPs share the same access infrastructure to deliver broadband services.

What is Nokia BNG Lab?

Nokia BNG Lab is a production-ready network laboratory that provides a complete environment for learning, testing, and validating Nokia BNG deployments. The lab includes:

Dual BNG routers (SR-7) simulating multi-ISP scenarios
Access network with OLT/ONT for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) simulation
Transport network with SR Linux-based switching
Authentication via FreeRADIUS with RADIUS policies
Telemetry stack (gNMIc + Prometheus + Grafana) for real-time monitoring
NAT/CGNAT capabilities with ISA cards
Traffic testing with integrated iPerf servers

Key Components

The lab topology consists of these core network elements:

BNG Routers (Nokia SR-7)

bng1:
  kind: nokia_srsim
  image: localhost/nokia/srsim:25.10.R2
  type: sr-7
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.2
  components:
    - slot: 1
      type: iom5-e
      env:
        NOKIA_SROS_MDA_1: me6-100gb-qsfp28
    - slot: 2
      type: iom4-e-b
      env:
        NOKIA_SROS_MDA_1: isa2-bb  # For NAT/CGNAT
  ports:
    - 56661:22      # SSH
    - 56662:57400   # gNMI
    - 56663:830     # NETCONF

Two Nokia SR-7 routers configured as BNG nodes, each representing a different ISP in a network sharing scenario. Both include:

IOM5-E cards with 100Gb QSFP28 ports for access interfaces
IOM4-E-B cards with ISA2-BB for NAT/CGNAT functionality
Full management access via SSH, gNMI, and NETCONF

Access Network

OLT (Optical Line Terminal)

olt:
  kind: nokia_srsim
  type: ixr-ec
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.5
  ports:
    - 56678:22

ONT Devices (Optical Network Terminals)

# ONT1 - IPoE subscriber
ont1:
  kind: linux
  image: ghcr.io/abelperezr/ont-ds:0.2
  env:
    CONNECTION_TYPE: ipoe
    VLAN_ID: "150"
    MAC_ADDRESS: "00:D0:F6:01:01:01"
  ports:
    - 56673:22
    - 8081:8080

# ONT2 - PPPoE subscriber  
ont2:
  kind: linux
  image: ghcr.io/abelperezr/ont-ds:0.2
  env:
    CONNECTION_TYPE: pppoe
    PPP_USER: "test@test.com"
    PPP_PASS: "testlab123"
    VLAN_ID: "150"
    MAC_ADDRESS: "00:D0:F6:01:01:02"
  ports:
    - 56674:22
    - 8082:8080

Transport Network

TX Switch (Nokia SR Linux)

tx:
  kind: nokia_srlinux
  image: ghcr.io/nokia/srlinux:25.10
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.16
  ports:
    - 56676:22

Aggregation switch connecting both BNG routers, simulating a Layer 2 transport network (as the transport service is typically leased and doesn’t require IS-IS or MPLS). Access Switch (Nokia IXR-ec)

switch:
  kind: nokia_srsim
  type: ixr-ec
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.4
  ports:
    - 56667:22

Authentication (RADIUS)

radius:
  kind: linux
  image: ghcr.io/srl-labs/network-multitool
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.10
  binds:
    - configs/radius/clients.conf:/etc/raddb/clients.conf
    - configs/radius/radiusd.conf:/etc/raddb/radiusd.conf
    - configs/radius/authorize:/etc/raddb/mods-config/files/authorize

FreeRADIUS server configured with subscriber profiles:

RADIUS Subscriber Configuration

# IPoE subscriber (ONT1)
00:d0:f6:01:01:01   Cleartext-Password := "testlab123"
                    Framed-Pool = "cgnat",
                    Framed-IPv6-Pool = "IPv6",
                    Alc-Delegated-IPv6-Pool = "IPv6",
                    Alc-SLA-Prof-str = "100M",
                    Alc-Subsc-Prof-str = "subprofile",
                    Alc-Subsc-ID-Str = "ONT-001"

# PPPoE subscriber (ONT2)
"test@test.com"     Cleartext-Password := "testlab123"
                    Framed-Pool = "cgnat",
                    Framed-IPv6-Pool = "IPv6",
                    Alc-Delegated-IPv6-Pool = "IPv6",
                    Alc-SLA-Prof-str = "100M",
                    Alc-Subsc-Prof-str = "subprofile",
                    Alc-Subsc-ID-Str = "ONT-002-PPPOE"

Telemetry Stack

Complete observability solution for monitoring network performance: gNMIc (Telemetry Collector)

gnmic:
  kind: linux
  image: ghcr.io/openconfig/gnmic:latest
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.12
  binds:
    - configs/gnmic/config.yml:/gnmic-config.yml:ro
  cmd: --config /gnmic-config.yml --log subscribe

Collects metrics via gNMI/gRPC from all Nokia devices:

Port statistics and operational states
CPU and memory usage
Interface traffic rates
BGP and routing statistics
Subscriber management metrics (LUDB)
Temperature and fan statistics

Prometheus (Time-Series Database)

prometheus:
  kind: linux
  image: prom/prometheus
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.13
  ports:
    - 9090:9090
  binds:
    - configs/prometheus/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:ro

Stores metrics scraped from gNMIc at 5-second intervals. Grafana (Visualization)

grafana:
  kind: linux
  image: grafana/grafana:10.3.5
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.14
  ports:
    - 3030:3000
  env:
    GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD: admin
  binds:
    - configs/grafana/datasource.yml:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources/datasource.yaml:ro
    - configs/grafana/dashboards:/var/lib/grafana/dashboards

Pre-configured dashboards for visualizing BNG operations.

Traffic Testing

iPerf Server

iperf:
  kind: linux
  image: ghcr.io/srl-labs/network-multitool
  mgmt-ipv4: 10.77.1.15
  ports:
    - 56675:22

Connected to both BNG routers for throughput and performance testing.

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                         RED NEUTRAL - BNG LAB                           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                         │
│    ┌─────────┐         ┌─────────┐         ┌─────────┐                 │
│    │  BNG1   │◄───────►│   TX    │◄───────►│  BNG2   │                 │
│    │SR-7     │         │SR Linux │         │ SR-7    │                 │
│    └────┬────┘         └────┬────┘         └────┬────┘                 │
│         │                   │                   │                       │
│         │              ┌────┴────┐              │                       │
│         │              │ Switch  │              │                       │
│         │              │ IXR-ec  │              │                       │
│         │              └────┬────┘              │                       │
│         │                   │                   │                       │
│         │              ┌────┴────┐              │                       │
│    ┌────┴────┐         │   OLT   │         ┌────┴────┐                 │
│    │  iPerf  │         │ IXR-ec  │         │ RADIUS  │                 │
│    └─────────┘         └────┬────┘         └─────────┘                 │
│                             │                                           │
│                     ┌───────┴───────┐                                   │
│                     │               │                                   │
│                 ┌───┴───┐       ┌───┴───┐                              │
│                 │ ONT1  │       │ ONT2  │                              │
│                 └───┬───┘       └───────┘                              │
│                     │                                                   │
│                 ┌───┴───┐                                              │
│                 │  PC1  │                                              │
│                 └───────┘                                              │
│                                                                         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TELEMETRÍA: gNMIc → Prometheus → Grafana                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Network Details

Management Network

Network: lab
Subnet: 10.77.1.0/24
All nodes accessible via management IPs

Service VLANs

VLAN 150: Subscriber services (IPoE/PPPoE)

Transport Design

Pure Layer 2 transport (no IS-IS, MPLS, or routing protocols between sites)
Simulates leased transport service scenario

Use Cases and Learning Objectives

This lab is ideal for:

BNG Fundamentals

Learn Nokia BNG configuration including subscriber management, authentication policies, and service profiles.

Dual-Stack Deployment

Practice IPv4 and IPv6 address allocation, including DHCPv4, DHCPv6, and IPv6 prefix delegation.

Network Sharing

Understand multi-ISP architectures where different service providers share access infrastructure.

NAT/CGNAT

Configure and validate Carrier-Grade NAT using Nokia ISA cards for IPv4 address conservation.

IPoE and PPPoE

Deploy both IPoE (DHCP-based) and PPPoE subscribers with RADIUS authentication.

Telemetry and Monitoring

Implement modern network observability using gNMI, streaming telemetry, and Grafana dashboards.

RADIUS Integration

Configure FreeRADIUS with Nokia-specific VSAs (Vendor-Specific Attributes) for subscriber policy assignment.

Technology Stack

Component	Technology	Version
Orchestration	Containerlab	v0.50+
BNG/OLT	Nokia SR OS Simulator	25.10.R2
Transport	Nokia SR Linux	25.10
Telemetry Collector	gNMIc	latest
Metrics Storage	Prometheus	latest
Visualization	Grafana	10.3.5
Authentication	FreeRADIUS	bundled
Container Runtime	Docker	v24+

License Requirement: This lab requires valid Nokia SR-SIM licenses. Licenses are NOT included in the repository and must be obtained separately from Nokia. Place your license file at configs/license/SR_SIM_license.txt before deployment.

Repository Structure

nokia-bng-lab/
├── lab.yml                     # Containerlab topology definition
├── configs/
│   ├── sros/                   # BNG router configurations
│   │   ├── config-bng.txt      # BNG1 startup config
│   │   └── config-bng-2.txt    # BNG2 startup config
│   ├── switch/                 # Switch configurations
│   │   ├── switch.txt          # Access switch config
│   │   └── srl.txt             # TX (SR Linux) config
│   ├── olt/
│   │   └── olt.txt             # OLT configuration
│   ├── radius/                 # RADIUS server configs
│   │   ├── clients.conf        # RADIUS clients
│   │   ├── radiusd.conf        # Main RADIUS config
│   │   └── authorize           # Subscriber database
│   ├── grafana/                # Grafana dashboards
│   │   ├── datasource.yml
│   │   ├── dashboards.yml
│   │   └── dashboards/
│   ├── prometheus/
│   │   └── prometheus.yml      # Scrape configuration
│   ├── gnmic/
│   │   └── config.yml          # gNMI subscriptions
│   └── license/                # ⚠️ Place Nokia licenses here
│       └── SR_SIM_license.txt  # (not included)
└── docs/                       # Documentation

Next Steps

Quick Start

Deploy the lab in minutes with step-by-step instructions

Configuration Guide

Learn about BNG configuration and subscriber management

Telemetry Setup

Configure and customize monitoring dashboards

Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions

Credits

Author: Abel Pérez
Role: Network Automation Engineer
Project: Nokia BNG Lab - Red Neutral

This laboratory was designed with Layer 2 transport services in mind, as the transport network is typically leased infrastructure. This is why protocols like IS-IS, MPLS, or other routing protocols are not configured between sites.

​Nokia BNG Lab

​What is Nokia BNG Lab?

​Key Components

​BNG Routers (Nokia SR-7)

​Access Network

​Transport Network

​Authentication (RADIUS)

​Telemetry Stack

​Traffic Testing

​Architecture Overview

​Network Details

​Use Cases and Learning Objectives

​Technology Stack

​Repository Structure

​Next Steps

Quick Start

Configuration Guide

Telemetry Setup

Troubleshooting

​Credits

Nokia BNG Lab

What is Nokia BNG Lab?

Key Components

BNG Routers (Nokia SR-7)

Access Network

Transport Network

Authentication (RADIUS)

Telemetry Stack

Traffic Testing

Architecture Overview

Network Details

Use Cases and Learning Objectives

Technology Stack

Repository Structure

Next Steps

Credits