Skip to main content

Deploy Light OLT with Containerlab

In this tutorial, you will prepare a lab with Light OLT connected to a Nokia SR OS BNG. The NETCONF proxy is optional and is only required when integrating the OLT with Nokia Altiplano.

1. Requirements​

  • Docker.
  • Python 3.10 or newer.
  • Containerlab.
  • A Nokia SR-SIM image and license if you will use the example BNG.

2. Pull the base images​

Pull the OLT image:

docker pull ghcr.io/abelperezr/olt-ls:0.0.1

If you will use Nokia Altiplano, also pull the NETCONF proxy:

docker pull ghcr.io/abelperezr/olt-proxy:0.0.1

3. Clone the repository​

git clone https://github.com/abelperezr/olt-light.git
cd olt-light

4. Prepare the lab directory​

Create the lab structure and copy the ONT inventories:

mkdir -p clab/config-bng clab/configs/license
cp -R seeds clab/

The repository contains a reference Nokia SR OS BNG configuration under examples/config-bng/. Copy it together with the example topology:

cp examples/config-bng/bng.txt clab/config-bng/
cp examples/lab.clab.yml clab/

Copy your SR-SIM license to the path expected by the topology:

cp <license-path>/SR_SIM_license.txt clab/configs/license/

Edit clab/lab.clab.yml before deploying it:

  1. Replace <your-registry>/srsim:25.10.r2 with your SR-SIM image name.
  2. Change the olt node image from light-olt:dev to ghcr.io/abelperezr/olt-ls:0.0.1.
  3. Change both bind mounts from ../seeds/ to ./seeds/, because this tutorial places the inventories inside clab/.
  4. If you will not use Nokia Altiplano, remove the entire olt-proxy node from the topology.

5. Enable OLT persistence (optional)​

Create the persistent directory:

mkdir -p clab/persist/olt/repo

Then uncomment this bind mount in the olt node of clab/lab.clab.yml:

- ./persist/olt/repo:/persist/repo

If you will use the proxy, also create its data directory to preserve its SSH identity between deployments:

mkdir -p clab/persist/olt-proxy/data

6. Deploy the lab​

cd clab
sudo containerlab deploy -t lab.clab.yml

7. Configure the OLT​

8. Validate authenticated ONTs​

Follow the onu-dhcp daemon events, replacing the placeholder with the OLT container name:

docker logs -f <olt-container-name> 2>&1 | grep onu-dhcp

For example, if the container is named olt:

docker logs -f olt 2>&1 | grep onu-dhcp

When a VSI has an enabled v-VPLS and the BNG grants an address, the log shows the selected uplink with via=v-vpls and the DHCPv4 ACK or DHCPv6 REPLY messages.