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Azure Private 5G Core 2403 release notes

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The following release notes identify the new features, critical open issues, and resolved issues for the 2403 release of Azure Private 5G Core (AP5GC). The release notes are continuously updated, with critical issues requiring a workaround added as they’re discovered. Before deploying this new version, review the information contained in these release notes.

This article applies to the AP5GC 2403 release (2403.0-4). This release is compatible with the Azure Stack Edge (ASE) Pro 1 GPU and Azure Stack Edge Pro 2 running the ASE 2403 release and supports the 2023-09-01, 2023-06-01 and 2022-11-01 Microsoft.MobileNetwork API versions.

For more information about compatibility, see Packet core and Azure Stack Edge compatibility.

For more information about new features in Azure Private 5G Core, see What's New Guide.

Support lifetime

Packet core versions are supported until two subsequent versions are released (unless otherwise noted). You should plan to upgrade your packet core in this time frame to avoid losing support.

Currently supported packet core versions

The following table shows the support status for different Packet Core releases and when they're expected to no longer be supported.

Release Support Status
AP5GC 2403 Supported until AP5GC 2407 is released
AP5GC 2310 Supported until AP5GC 2404 is released
AP5GC 2308 and earlier Out of Support

What's new

TCP Maximum Segment Size (MSS) Clamping

TCP session initial setup messages that include a Maximum Segment Size (MSS) value, which controls the size limit of packets transmitted during the session. The packet core now automatically sets this value, where necessary, to ensure packets aren't too large for the core to transmit. This reduces packet loss due to oversized packets arriving at the core's interfaces, and reduces the need for fragmentation and reassembly, which are costly procedures.

Improved Packet Core Scaling

In this release, the maximum supported limits for a range of parameters in an Azure Private 5G Core deployment increase. Testing confirms these limits, but other factors could affect what is achievable in a given scenario. The following table lists the new maximum supported limits.

Element Maximum supported
PDU sessions Enterprise radios typically support up to 1000 simultaneous PDU sessions per radio
Bandwidth Over 25 Gbps per ASE
RAN nodes (eNB/gNB) 200 per packet core
Active UEs 10,000 per deployment (all sites)
SIMs 20,000 per ASE
SIM provisioning 10,000 per JSON file via Azure portal, 4 MB per REST API call

For more information, see Service Limits.

Issues fixed in the AP5GC 2403 release

The following table provides a summary of issues fixed in this release.

No. Feature Issue SKU Fixed In
1 Local distributed tracing In Multi PDN session establishment/Release call flows with different DNs, the distributed tracing web GUI fails to display some of 4G NAS messages (Activate/deactivate Default EPS Bearer Context Request) and some S1AP messages (ERAB request, ERAB Release). 2403.0-2
2 Packet Forwarding A slight(0.01%) increase in packet drops is observed in latest AP5GC release installed on ASE Platform Pro 2 with ASE-2309 for throughput higher than 3.0 Gbps. 2403.0-2
3 Security CVE-2024-20685 2403.0-2
4 Packet Forwarding GTP Echo requests are rejected by the packet core on the N3 reference point, causing an outage of packet forwarding. 2403.0-4

Known issues in the AP5GC 2403 release

The following table provides a summary of known issues carried over from the previous releases.

No. Feature Issue Workaround/comments
1 Local distributed tracing When a web proxy is enabled on the Azure Stack Edge appliance that the packet core is running on and Azure Active Directory is used to authenticate access to AP5GC Local Dashboards, the traffic to Azure Active Directory doesn't transmit via the web proxy. If there's a firewall blocking traffic that doesn't go via the web proxy then enabling Azure Active Directory causes the packet core install to fail. Disable Azure Active Directory and use password based authentication to authenticate access to AP5GC Local Dashboards instead.

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