OpenAirInterface Cross-Compiler User Guide: explains how to build OAI for ARM64 (using the instruction set aarch64).

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Environment

Tested on Ubuntu 22. Newer version of Ubuntu should work as well, please file a bug report if not (Gitlab Issues page).

You should be able to compile OAI on the host (i.e., for x86). To do so, install the dependencies, if not done already:

cmake_targets/build_oai -I

Install ARM64 dependencies

Set up for install the package for ARM64.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture arm64

echo -e \
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy main restricted\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy-updates main restricted\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy universe\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy-updates universe\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy multiverse\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy-updates multiverse\n"\
        "deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse"\
    | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arm-cross-compile-sources.list

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list "/etc/apt/sources.list.`date`.backup"
sudo sed -i -E "s/(deb)\ (http:.+)/\1\ [arch=amd64]\ \2/" /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu \
                    g++-aarch64-linux-gnu

sudo apt-get install -y \
    libblas-dev:arm64 \
    libc6-dev-i386 \
    liblapack-dev:arm64 \
    liblapacke-dev:arm64 \
    libreadline-dev:arm64 \
    libgnutls28-dev:arm64 \
    libconfig-dev:arm64 \
    libsctp-dev:arm64 \
    libssl-dev:arm64 \
    libtool:arm64 \
    zlib1g-dev:arm64

The above enables apt to download packages for arm64. It also installs gcc cross-compilers for ARM64 in version 11. This version needs to match the versions of gcc defined in the cmake cross-compilation file (cross-arm.cmake).

Build for ARM64

Build code generation tools for host

Use the x86 compiler to build the ldpc_generators and generate the header file in the ran_build/build folder. They are necessary during a build for code generation, and therefore need to be created for the x86 architecture.

rm -r ran_build
mkdir ran_build
mkdir ran_build/build
mkdir ran_build/build-cross

cd ran_build/build
cmake ../../..
make -j`nproc` ldpc_generators generate_T

Build executables for ARM64

Switch to the ran_build/build-cross folder to build the target executables for ARM. The cross-arm.cmake file defines some ARM-specific build tools (e.g., compilers) that you might need to adapt. Further, it defines cmake variables that define in this step where the host tools (such as LDPC generators) are to be found. For the latter, the NATIVE_DIR option has to be defined in order to tell cmake where the host tools have been built.

cd ../build-cross
cmake ../../.. -GNinja -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../../../cmake_targets/cross-arm.cmake -DNATIVE_DIR=../build

ninja dlsim ulsim ldpctest polartest smallblocktest nr_pbchsim nr_dlschsim nr_ulschsim nr_dlsim nr_ulsim nr_pucchsim nr_prachsim nr_srssim
ninja lte-softmodem nr-softmodem nr-cuup oairu lte-uesoftmodem nr-uesoftmodem
ninja params_libconfig coding rfsimulator

Further information

You can do the above steps using docker, see dockerfiles docker/Dockerfile.base.ubuntu.cross-arm64 and docker/Dockerfile.build.ubuntu.cross-arm64 for more information.