rs-pfcp

A high-performance Rust implementation of the PFCP (Packet Forwarding Control Protocol) for 5G networks, providing comprehensive compliance with 3GPP TS 29.244 Release 18 specification.

🚀 What is PFCP?

PFCP is the critical communication protocol between Control Plane and User Plane functions in 5G networks:

• SMF (Session Management Function) ↔ UPF (User Plane Function)
• Manages packet forwarding rules, traffic steering, and usage reporting
• Essential for 5G service orchestration, QoS enforcement, and network slicing

✨ Key Features

• 🏆 3GPP TS 29.244 Release 18 Compliance - 259+ Information Elements implemented with complete core session management
• 🔥 High Performance - Sub-microsecond binary protocol implementation
• 🧪 Battle Tested - 3,023+ comprehensive tests with full round-trip serialization validation
• 🛠️ Developer Friendly - Ergonomic builder APIs with convenience methods and direct marshaling
• 📊 Production Ready - Message comparison, YAML/JSON display, network interface support, and robust examples

Ergonomic Builder API

Build and send PFCP messages in just 2-3 lines:

// Session responses with convenience methods
let response = SessionEstablishmentResponseBuilder::accepted(seid, seq)
    .fseid(upf_seid, upf_ip)
    .marshal()?;

// Or with cause values
let response = SessionModificationResponseBuilder::new(seid, seq)
    .cause_accepted()
    .marshal();

// Requests with type-safe builders
let request = AssociationSetupRequestBuilder::new(seq)
    .node_id(Ipv4Addr::new(10, 0, 0, 1))
    .recovery_time_stamp(SystemTime::now())
    .marshal();

// IntoIe tuple conversions for common IEs
use rs_pfcp::ie::IntoIe;

let fseid_ie = (session_seid, ip_address).into_ie();  // F-SEID from tuple
let fteid_ie = (teid, ip_address).into_ie();           // F-TEID from tuple
let ue_ip_ie = (ipv4, ipv6).into_ie();                 // UE IP dual-stack

// Iterator-based IE access
for pdr in msg.ies(IeType::CreatePdr) {
    process_pdr(pdr);
}

let first_fseid = msg.ies(IeType::Fseid).next();
let pdr_count = msg.ies(IeType::CreatePdr).count();

// Typed IE decoding with Ie::parse<T>()
let pdr_id: PdrId = msg.ies(IeType::PdrId).next()?.parse()?;
let cause: Cause = msg.ies(IeType::Cause).next()?.parse()?;

Protocol Coverage

• ✅ 25/25 Message Types (100% coverage) - All core session and association management
• ✅ 259+ Information Elements implemented (334+ enum variants defined) - Complete 3GPP TS 29.244 Release 18 core IEs
• ✅ Advanced Features - Network slicing (S-NSSAI), multi-access support, F-TEID with CHOOSE flags, QoS enforcement, usage reporting, Ethernet PDU sessions
• ✅ 5G Core Integration - Session establishment, modification, deletion, and comprehensive usage reporting with quota management

🏃‍♂️ Quick Start

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
rs-pfcp = "0.3.0"

Basic Usage

use rs_pfcp::message::session_establishment_request::SessionEstablishmentRequestBuilder;
use rs_pfcp::message::session_establishment_response::SessionEstablishmentResponseBuilder;
use std::net::Ipv4Addr;

// Create a session establishment request with ergonomic builders
let request_bytes = SessionEstablishmentRequestBuilder::new(session_id, sequence_number)
    .node_id(Ipv4Addr::new(10, 0, 0, 1))           // Direct IP address
    .fseid(0x123456789ABCDEF0, my_ip_addr)         // SEID + IP
    .create_pdrs(vec![pdr.to_ie()])
    .create_fars(vec![far.to_ie()])
    .marshal()?;                                    // Direct marshaling

// Send over network
socket.send(&request_bytes)?;

// Parse received messages and respond
let parsed_msg = rs_pfcp::message::parse(&received_bytes)?;
match parsed_msg.msg_type() {
    MsgType::SessionEstablishmentRequest => {
        // Handle session establishment
        println!("Received session establishment for SEID: {:016x}",
                 parsed_msg.seid().unwrap_or(0));

        // Create response with convenience methods
        let response_bytes = SessionEstablishmentResponseBuilder::accepted(seid, sequence)
            .fseid(upf_seid, upf_ip)
            .marshal()?;

        socket.send(&response_bytes)?;
    }
    _ => {} // Handle other message types
}

Message Comparison & Validation

use rs_pfcp::comparison::MessageComparator;

// Test mode - ignore transient fields (sequence, timestamps)
let result = MessageComparator::new(&msg1, &msg2)
    .test_mode()
    .compare()?;

if result.is_match {
    println!("✓ Messages match functionally");
} else {
    println!("Differences found:");
    for mismatch in &result.ie_mismatches {
        println!("  - {:?}: {:?}", mismatch.ie_type, mismatch.reason);
    }
}

// Semantic comparison with timestamp tolerance
let result = MessageComparator::new(&msg1, &msg2)
    .semantic_mode()                    // Compare F-TEID, UE IP by meaning
    .timestamp_tolerance(5)              // 5 second tolerance
    .ignore_sequence()
    .compare()?;

// Generate detailed diff
let result = MessageComparator::new(&msg1, &msg2)
    .generate_diff(true)
    .compare()?;

if let Some(diff) = result.diff {
    println!("{}", diff);  // YAML-formatted differences
}

Features:

• Multiple comparison modes - Strict, semantic, test, and audit presets
• Semantic comparison - F-TEID, UE IP Address compared by function, not bytes
• Timestamp tolerance - Configurable window for timestamp comparison
• Flexible IE filtering - Ignore specific IEs, focus on subsets, or handle timestamps
• Detailed reporting - Match statistics, mismatch details, YAML diffs

Network Examples

The library includes comprehensive examples for real-world scenarios:

# Run PFCP heartbeat server
cargo run --example heartbeat-server -- --interface lo --port 8805

# Run session client connecting to UPF
cargo run --example session-client -- --address 127.0.0.1 --sessions 5

# Analyze captured PFCP traffic
cargo run --example pcap-reader -- --pcap traffic.pcap --format yaml

# Demo message comparison and validation
cargo run --example message-comparison          # All demos
cargo run --example message-comparison semantic # Specific demo

# Run performance benchmarks
cargo bench

🏗️ Architecture

Core Components

rs-pfcp/
├── src/ie/              # Information Elements (139+ types)
│   ├── f_teid.rs        # F-TEID with 3GPP compliant CHOOSE flags
│   ├── pdn_type.rs      # PDN connection types (IPv4/IPv6/Non-IP)
│   ├── snssai.rs        # 5G Network Slicing identifiers
│   ├── ethernet_*.rs    # Ethernet PDU session support (10 IEs)
│   └── ...
├── src/message/         # PFCP Messages (25 types)
│   ├── session_*.rs     # Session lifecycle management
│   ├── association_*.rs # Node association handling
│   └── heartbeat.rs     # Keep-alive mechanism
├── src/comparison/      # Message comparison framework
│   ├── builder.rs       # Fluent comparison API
│   ├── semantic.rs      # Semantic comparison (F-TEID, UE IP, timestamps)
│   ├── options.rs       # Configuration options
│   └── result.rs        # Result types and statistics
└── examples/            # Production-ready examples
    ├── session-server/  # UPF simulator
    ├── session-client/  # SMF simulator
    └── pcap-reader/     # Traffic analysis tool

Key Design Principles

• Type Safety - Rust's type system prevents protocol errors at compile time
• Zero Copy - Efficient binary serialization without unnecessary allocations
• Builder Patterns - Intuitive construction of complex PFCP messages
• Error Handling - Comprehensive error types with proper cause codes
• Testing - Every marshal/unmarshal operation verified with round-trip tests

📖 Documentation

Quick Links

Guides & Tutorials

• Comparison Guide - Testing and validating PFCP messages
• Deployment Guide - Production deployment strategies
• Session Report Demo - Quota management walkthrough
• Git Hooks Setup - Development workflow automation

Reference Documentation

• 3GPP Compliance - Detailed compliance verification
• IE Compliance - Information Element compliance details
• API Documentation - Full API reference on docs.rs

🔒 API Stability

rs-pfcp is currently pre-1.0 (version 0.3.x), meaning the API may change between minor versions. We follow Semantic Versioning and document all breaking changes in the CHANGELOG.

Current Status:

• Version: 0.3.0
• MSRV: Rust 1.87.0
• Spec Compliance: 3GPP TS 29.244 Release 18
• Stability: Pre-1.0 (API evolving)

Upgrade Guide

When upgrading between versions:

1. Check CHANGELOG.md for breaking changes
2. Run cargo update -p rs-pfcp
3. Fix compiler errors (we prefer compile-time breaks over runtime breaks)
4. Test your integration

For detailed API stability guarantees and version roadmap, see docs/API-STABILITY.md.

Writing Future-Proof Code

✅ DO: Use builder patterns, trait methods, and public constructors ❌ DON'T: Access struct fields directly or depend on internal modules

We provide migration guides for all breaking changes and deprecate features before removing them.

🔧 Development

Build and Test

# Build the library
cargo build

# Run all tests (2,800+ tests)
cargo test

# Run specific test category
cargo test ie::f_teid          # Test F-TEID implementation
cargo test message::heartbeat  # Test heartbeat messages

# Run performance benchmarks
cargo bench

# Check code formatting and linting
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings

# Generate documentation
cargo doc --no-deps --document-private-items --all-features

Example Workflows

# Test complete session lifecycle
cargo run --example session-server -- --interface lo --port 8805 &
cargo run --example session-client -- --address 127.0.0.1 --sessions 3

# Analyze protocol compliance
cargo run --example pcap-reader -- --pcap captured.pcap --format json --pfcp-only

# Benchmark performance
cargo test --release -- --ignored bench_

Cross-Language Interoperability Testing

Go interoperability tests (using go-pfcp) live in a separate repository: github.com/xandlom/go-pfcp-interop

It verifies cross-compatibility between rs-pfcp (Rust) and Go PFCP implementations:

• Association Setup/Release between Rust and Go stacks
• Complete session lifecycle (establish, modify, report, delete)
• Binary protocol compatibility and 3GPP TS 29.244 compliance

🌟 Real-World Usage

The library covers the full 5G session lifecycle: PDR/FAR construction with grouped IE builders, usage reporting with quota triggers, Ethernet PDU sessions, and network slicing (S-NSSAI). See docs/guides/api-guide.md for complete examples and examples/session-client/ for a working SMF simulator.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! This library is actively maintained and we're happy to help with:

• 🐛 Bug Reports - Protocol compliance issues, performance problems
• 💡 Feature Requests - Additional 3GPP features, improved APIs
• 📖 Documentation - Examples, tutorials, architectural guides
• 🧪 Testing - Real-world scenarios, edge cases, performance benchmarks

📜 License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Inspired by the excellent go-pfcp library
• Built according to 3GPP TS 29.244 Release 18 specification
• Developed with ❤️ for the 5G networking community

Ready to build next-generation 5G networks with Rust? Check out our examples to get started! 🚀