First Published: September 20, 2024

5G Converged Core Session Management Function

Introduction

This Release Notes identifies changes and issues related to this software release.

Release Lifecycle Milestones

Release Lifecycle Milestone

Milestone

Date

First Customer Ship

FCS

31-Jul-2024

End of Life

EoL

31-Jul-2024

End of Software Maintenance

EoSM

29-Jan-2026

End of Vulnerability and Security Support

EoVSS

29-Jan-2026

Last Date of Support

LDoS

31-Jan-2027

These milestones and the intervals between them are defined in the Cisco Ultra Cloud Core (UCC) Software Release Lifecycle Product Bulletin available on cisco.com.

Release Package Version Information

Software Packages

Version
ccg-2024.03.3.SPA.tgz 2024.03.3
NED package

ncs-5.6.8-ccg-nc-2024.03.3

ncs-6.1-ccg-nc-2024.03.3
NSO

5.6.8

6.1.11

Descriptions for the various packages provided with this release are available in the Release Package Descriptions section.

Verified Compatibility

Products

Version

Ultra Cloud Core SMI

2024.03.1.12

Ultra Cloud CDL

 1.11.8.1

Ultra Cloud Core UPF

2024.03.0

Ultra Cloud cnSGWc

2024.03.3

For information on the Ultra Cloud Core products, refer to the documents for this release available at:

What's New in This Release

Features and Enhancements

There are no feature or enhancements in this release.

Behavior Changes

This section covers a brief description of behavior changes introduced in this release.

Behavior Change Description

Improved SMF Handling of Invalid N1 Message Type Requests

Previous Behavior: SMF expected the N1 Message Type to be N1 Establishment Request in the N11 SM Context Create Request. When SMF received the N11 SM Context Create Request with N1 Message Type as Release Request, the SMF handled the invalid message type in the following way:

  • SMF decoded and processed the unexpected Release Request as the N1 Establishment Request, which resulted in an incorrect interpretation of the message.

  • Despite the incorrect decoding, the SMF continued with the session establishment, leading to call setup failures.

  • The incorrect handling of the Release Request message type caused the SMF service pod to restart. This restart resulted in service interruptions momentarily for sessions which were anchored on the restarted service pod.

New Behavior: Now, SMF handles the invalid N1 Message Type in the following way:

  • SMF checks for the correct N1 Message Type in the N11 SM Context Create Request.

  • SMF immediately rejects the invalid requests with N1 Message Type as Release Request.

  • SMF sends a "400 Bad-Request" response without NAS details to AMF.

  • By rejecting the invalid request, the SMF avoids the undefined behavior and restarts that happened with the old behavior.

This behavior ensures that the SMF handles unexpected message types, such as handling of invalid N1 Message Type requests, gracefully, preventing service disruptions and maintaining the reliability of the 5G network.

Installation and Upgrade Notes

This Release Note does not contain general installation and upgrade instructions. Refer to the existing installation documentation for specific installation and upgrade considerations.

Software Integrity Verification

To verify the integrity of the software image you have from Cisco, you can validate the SHA512 checksum information against the checksum identified by Cisco for the software.

Image checksum information is available through Cisco.com Software Download Details. To find the checksum, hover the mouse pointer over the software image you have downloaded.

At the bottom you find the SHA512 checksum, if you do not see the whole checksum you can expand it by pressing the "..." at the end.

To validate the information, calculate a SHA512 checksum using the information in Table 1 and verify that it matches either the one provided on the software download page.

To calculate a SHA512 checksum on your local desktop, refer to the table below.

Table 1. Checksum Calculations per Operating System

Operating System

SHA512 checksum calculation command examples

Microsoft Windows

Open a command line window and type the following command:

> certutil.exe -hashfile filename.extension SHA512

Apple MAC

Open a terminal window and type the following command:

$ shasum -a 512 filename.extension

Linux

Open a terminal window and type the following command:

$ sha512sum filename.extension

OR

$ shasum -a 512 filename.extension

Note

 

filename is the name of the file.

extension is the file extension (for example, .zip or .tgz).

If the SHA512 checksum matches, you can be sure that no one has tampered with the software image or the image has not been corrupted during download.

If the SHA512 checksum does not match, we advise you to not attempt upgrading any systems with the corrupted software image. Download the software again and verify the SHA512 checksum again. If there is a constant mismatch, please open a case with the Cisco Technical Assistance Center.

Certificate Validation

SMF software images are signed via x509 certificates. Please view the .README file packaged with the software for information and instructions on how to validate the certificates.

Open Bugs for this Release

There are no open bugs in this specific software release.

Resolved Bugs for this Release

The following table lists the resolved bugs in this specific software release.

Bug ID

Headline

Behavior Change

CSCwm58741

SMF-Service pod Panic Message during Intial attach with - Release request

Yes

Operator Notes

Cloud Native Product Version Numbering System

The show helm list command displays detailed information about the version of the cloud native product currently deployed.

The appropriate version number field increments after a version has been released. The new version numbering format is a contiguous sequential number that represents incremental changes between releases. This format facilitates identifying the changes between releases when using Bug Search Tool to research software releases.

Release Package Descriptions

The following table provides descriptions for the packages that are available with this release.

Table 2. Release Package Information

Software Packages

Description

ccg.<version>.SPA.tgz

The SMF offline release signature package. This package contains the SMF deployment software, NED package, as well as the release signature, certificate, and verification information.

ncs-<nso_version>-ccg-nc-<version>.tar.gz

The NETCONF NED package. This package includes all the yang files that are used for NF configuration.

Note that NSO is used for the NED file creation.

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, refer to https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/index.html.