Do you need ultra-lightweight, secure private mobile networks? Do you need lots of them? Discover how to operate 5G private mobile networks at scale using Ella Core on Ubuntu Core.

We package Ella Core as a Snap and a container image, allowing users to run it on most Linux distributions and Kubernetes. For maximum performance, security, and ease of use, users should install their private network on a minimal Operating System on dedicated hardware. Ubuntu Core is a minimal, secure, immutable operating system designed for edge devices, which makes it the ideal platform to run Ella Core.

Ella Core is the only open-source Private Mobile Network that runs natively on Ubuntu Core.

Try it Today

Are you a hands-on type of person? If yes, great! In this tutorial, we will deploy, initialize, and configure Ella Core, on Ubuntu Core 24. If not, that's ok; you can continue to the next section.

Pre-requisites

To complete this tutorial, you will need a Ubuntu 24.04 machine with the following specifications:

  • Memory: 8GB
  • CPU: 4 cores
  • Disk: 30GB

1. Create a Ubuntu Core Virtual Machine

From the Ubuntu machine, install LXD and Multipass:

sudo snap install lxd
sudo snap install multipass

Initialize LXD:

sudo lxd init --auto

Create three networks:

lxc network create n2 ipv4.address=22.22.22.1/24
lxc network create n3 ipv4.address=33.33.33.1/24
lxc network create n6 ipv4.address=66.66.66.1/24

Use Multipass to create a Ubuntu Core 24 instance with network interfaces attached to the networks we created:

multipass launch core24 --name=ella-core --network n2 --network n3 --network n6

2. Install Ella Core

Connect to the instance:

multipass shell ella-core

Inside the ella-core Multipass instance, install the Ella Core snap and connect it to the required snap interfaces:

sudo snap install ella-core
sudo snap connect ella-core:network-control
sudo snap connect ella-core:process-control
sudo snap connect ella-core:sys-fs-bpf-upf-pipeline
sudo snap connect ella-core:system-observe

Start Ella Core:

sudo snap start ella-core.cored

Exit the Multipass instance:

exit

3. Access the Ella Core UI

Get the IP address of the Multipass instance:

multipass info ella-core

Note the first IP address.

Navigate to https://<your instance IP>:5002 to access Ella Core's UI.

You should see the Initialization page.

4. Initialize Ella Core

On the Initialization page, create the first user with the following credentials:

After creating the user, Ella Core will redirect you to the Login page. Use the credentials you just created to log in. Ella Core should redirect you to the dashboard.

You've done it, you have just installed a private 5G network on Ubuntu Core!

From zero to large-scale edge deployments

As you saw, Ella Core runs natively on Ubuntu Core, making it easy and secure to ship embedded private mobile networks at scale. In the tutorial, we installed Ella Core on a pre-built Ubuntu Core 24 image. If you want to ship thousands of devices with Ella Core embedded, you will need to select the hardware system you intend to use and build a custom Ubuntu Core image for that hardware. You can see the complete list of certified hardware here.

This blog post was originally published on Medium.