This is largely derived from the first post N6CTA wrote in a series detailing how to get on HF with packet radio using John Wiseman, G8BPQ’s suite of PBBS software, and John Langner, WB2OSZ’s software TNC, Direwolf using the Linux operating system. Much of the series was geared towards meeting the goal of setting up a well functioning, always-on, reboot safe, packet bulletin board system. When possible, we've have tried to denote what is optional and what is not depending on the goal of being either a casual K2K OP with maybe an account on someone else’s machine or being the sysop of a full service HF BBS.

This is likely a weekend project at minimum if you have minimal Linux experience, but those with linux chops and BBS experience can likely get it all sorted in just a few hours. There’s no sugar coating the config files – but taken as-is on a clean system, they should work well.

N6CTA choose to use Direwolf as the software modem in this series as it appeared to the most performant and stable 300Bd FX.25 soft modem available for Linux. We've also investigated QtSoundModem and found it to be a little more challenging to use. This is still an imperfect solution as Direwolf doesn’t integrate as cleanly as it could with BPQ’s AGW driver. BPQ treats Direwolf (and all AGW ports) like a KISS TNC instead of allowing the TNC to handle some of the AX.25 stuff it’s good at. WB2OSZ’s OSI comments on why L1 and L2 need to be tightly coupled make a lot of sense and the AGW protocol allows for this kind of behavior but it does not appear to be implemented properly in BPQ.

We’ve choosen linBPQ as it is cross-platform, source is made readily available via GitHub, and has a large and active community. One other important reason we chose linBPQ is the ease of which an operator can expand PBBS functionality through telnet.

Note: I am listing Debian package names for the libraries throughout the series. If you’re on some other flavor, you’ll likely need to sort out the exact package names from your distribution’s repository. No exotic libraries are being used though and if you can live with using your distribution’s versions of some of this software, by all means, use your repository’s packages. In the case of using a Raspberry Pi, it makes more sense to me to use Raspberry Pi OS (Debian Trixie fork as of this writing) and compile software from source.

Boilerplate yadda yadda, YMMV. Let’s get on with it.

Don’t overthink this part. You can likely use any machine built in the last 15-20 years.

As long as it has the ports you need to connect it to your gear, it should be fine. The software isn’t particularly resource intensive. We're using a Raspberry Pi 4B because they are fairly common and easily available, while also aware there is ongoing discourse around very poor behavior and a scandalous staffing decision by the Raspberry Pi Foundation – so we're not suggesting to go out and buy a Raspberry Pi just for this. Start with looking for a suitable candidate sitting in a closet or can score one at an e-waste roundup or surplus store.

Reasons to choose a Raspberry Pi for N6CTA's original project:

• Already have a bunch for prototyping work from before the pandemic chip shortage
• Were relatively inexpensive when they were bought
• Raspberry Pi OS is fairly stable now with a vast repository of working software
• Other SBC's have varying level of update support for their OS, Raspberry Pi is consistently good about theirs
• The SBC can easily be powered by a portable battery

If you’re following along with a Pi, we wholeheartedly recommend using the Pi Imager tool to flash your memory card with.

In Pi Imager you’ll want to click on the gear icon and set:

• Set hostname
• Enable SSH
• Set user and password
• Set locale
• Configure Wireless LAN if necessary

We’ll be using 64-bit software and OS. You can use a “lite” or “netinst” OS version if you’d like to but you won’t have the advantage of using QtTermTCP unless you install a window manager or desktop environment of some sort. The server daemon parts can be set up headless if you want to run the client side software over a network instead of via VNC. You can split the installation into client/server if you’d like to. This can easily be done using PiVPN so you can access (remote control – FCC 👀) your BBS from anywhere you have an internet connection.

If you’re undecided about what linux disto to use and you’re on some other hardware, We recommend plain old Debian. It’ll run smoothly on just about everything that isn’t in a museum. Just slap it on a USB stick using your OS’s disk imager of choice and let ‘er rip. It’s the DOOM of OS’s.

But really we should say a bit more?

We recommend setting up the software with these directories:

cd ~/.local && mkdir bin log src
cd ~/.local/share/ && mkdir icons 
cd ~/.config && mkdir autostart linbpq direwolf qttermtcp hamlib 

We'll use the bin directory for the executables we build later, the log directory for logs, and the src directory for the source code that we compile. The share/icons directory is used by BPQ, and the configuration files will live in the appropriate subdirectory of ~/.config/ for each program.

You may have your own preference for these, but we'll follow this for the rest of the tutorials.

We recommend updating your system before we proceed and retrieving an up-to-date package list.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt clean -y && sudo reboot

When the machine reboots, the following is what you need to install to compile everything we’re going to use from source as well as some utilities for PBBS hardening.

sudo apt install -y qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools libqt5serialport5 libqt5serialport5-dev libfftw3-dev libasound2-dev libpcap-dev libminiupnpc-dev libconfig-dev autoconf libtool git gcc g++ make cmake libudev-dev qtmultimedia5-dev libreadline-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libavahi-common-dev libavahi-client-dev libgps-dev libjansson-dev libpaho-mqtt-dev ufw fail2ban yggdrasil

If you're going to run this “headless” AKA, without a monitor, or as a “remote” machine accessible from elsewhere, you'll want to enable the correct settings to join the network and start a VNC server (recommended if you want to use the GUI applications). This isn't strictly necessary, but nice to have.

If you're on a Raspberry Pi, run:

sudo raspi-config

If you're on another system, you'll need to follow tutorials found elsewhere online.

And then configure the following:

• System Options>Network at Boot
• System Options>Boot to Desktop (auto login)
• Interface Options>Enable VNC
• Display Options>VNC Resolution>1080p

If you want RealVNC instead of WayVNC you’ll need to go back to Openbox WM with X11:

• Advanced Options>Wayland>X11
• Install RealVNC from the RealVNC website

The various components we need to use are all open source, and we recommend grabbing the source code release versions specifically mentioned here if listed. You can do this by running the following:

cd ~/.local/src/
git clone --branch 24.52 --single-branch https://github.com/g8bpq/linbpq.git
git clone --branch 1.7 --single-branch https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf.git
git clone --branch 0.79 --single-branch https://github.com/g8bpq/QtTermTCP.git
git clone https://github.com/Hamlib/Hamlib.git

Next we'll compile these pieces.

If you’re compiling on a pi ‘make -j6’ will allow you compile using all four cores which significantly speeds things up.

We recommend building in this order.

cd ~/.local/src/Hamlib/
./bootstrap
./configure
make
export
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

cd ~/.local/src/linbpq/
make
cp linbpq ~/.local/bin/
cp *.ico ~/.local/share/icons/

cd ~/.local/src/QtTermTCP/
qmake
make
cp QtTermTCP ~/.local/bin/
cp QtTermTCP.ico ~/.local/share/icons/

Here are some suggestions for basic .desktop file entries for QtTermTCP. You’ll need to replace USER with your username. This will give you a nice shortcut in the applications menu. The file should be created in ~/.local/share/applications/qttermtcp.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=QTTermTCP
Path=/home/USER/.config/qttermtcp/
Exec=QtTermTCP
Icon=/home/USER/.local/share/icons/QtTermTCP.ico
Terminal=false
Type=Application

cd ~/.local/src/direwolf
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

I prefer to run multiple direwolf daemons instead of combining the configurations to run multiple modems.

You'll create this file in ~/.config/direwolf/direwolf.conf. If you run multiple modems and would like to follow my lead, you'll just create multiple configs in the ~/.config/direwolf/ directory like ~/.config/direwolf/direwolf_300.conf and ~/.config/direwolf/direwolf_1200.conf.

300Bd AFSK for HF

#Audio
ADEVICE0 pcm.300RX pcm.300TX
ACHANNELS 1
ARATE 48000

CHANNEL 0
#Modem
MYCALL CALL
MODEM 300 /1
PACLEN 40
FRACK 5
MAXV22 0
MAXFRAME 1
FX25TX 1

#PTT
PTT RIG 2 localhost:4532

#Control Port
AGWPORT 8000
KISSPORT 8001

1200Bd AFSK for VHF/UHF

#Audio
ADEVICE0 pcm.1200RX pcm.1200TX
ACHANNELS 1
ARATE 48000

CHANNEL 0
#Modem
MYCALL CALL
MODEM 1200 /1
PACLEN 256
FRACK 3
MAXV22 3
MAXFRAME 7
EMAXFRAME 7
FX25TX 1
V20
CDIGIPEAT 0 0 YOUR_ALIAS

#PTT
PTT RIG 2 localhost:4533

#Control Port                                                                                                             
AGWPORT 8002                                                                                                              
KISSPORT 8003

Here is an example configuration file for linBPQ. This should be created as ~/.config/linbpq/bpq32.cfg

;                                                     ;
;                 linBPQ config File                  ;
;                                                     ;
;***************  Core Node Settings  ****************;
LOCATOR=GRID                                          ;
EnableM0LTEMap=1                                      ;
MAPCOMMENT=                                           ;
OBSINIT=3                                             ; Initial Obsolescence value
OBSMIN=1                                              ; Minimum Obsolescence value to be included in NODES broadcasts
L3TIMETOLIVE=20                                       ; Maximum Level 3 hops
L4RETRIES=3                                           ; Level 4 Retries
L4TIMEOUT=60                                          ; Level 4 Timeout
L4DELAY=10                                            ; Level 4 Delayed ACK timer
L4WINDOW=4                                            ; Level 4 Window
PACLEN=256                                            ; Maximum Packet Length
T3=300                                                ; Link Validation Timer
IDLETIME=900                                          ; If there is no traffic for IDLETIME seconds, the link will be closed
BBS=1                                                 ; This enables application support
NODE=1                                                ; This allows users to connect to your node, and then connect out to other stations
MAXLINKS=256                                          ; Maximum Level 2 lines (Uplink, Downlink and Internode)
MAXNODES=1000                                         ; Number of Nodes (L4 destinations)
MAXROUTES=144                                         ; Number of adjacent Nodes
MAXCIRCUITS=160                                       ; Number of L4 Circults
MINQUAL=191                                           ; Minimum Quality to add to NODES table
HIDENODES=0                                           ; Suppresses the display of NODES with an Alias that starts with a # sign
FULL_CTEXT=1                                          ; Displays connect text on connection
AUTOSAVE=0                                            ; Save config on exit
SAVEMH=0                                              ; Save MHeard list on exit
ENABLE_LINKED=N                                       ; This controls the *** LINKED command
NODESINTERVAL=30                                      ; Nodes broadcast interval
IDINTERVAL=0                                          ; IDMSG is sent every IDINTERVAL minutes
IDMSG:
***
BTINTERVAL=0                                          ; BTEXT is the default beacon sent by the Node, every BTINTERVAL minutes
LINMAIL                                               ; Starts linmail
EXCLUDE=                                              ; Ban List
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;****************  Personal Settings  ****************;
NODECALL=CALL                                         ; Node callsign
NODEALIAS=ALIAS                                       ; Node alias
CTEXT:
BPQ Node: ? for Help >
***
Information about your node
>
***
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;**************   Port 1 VHF 1200Bd DW   *************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=1                                           ;
  ID=1200Bd FX.25 145.050 MHz
  Driver=UZ7HO
  CHANNEL=A
  PACLEN=236
  MAXFRAME=7
  QUALITY=192
  MINQUAL=192
  CONFIG
  ADDR 127.0.0.1 8000
ENDPORT 
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;***************   Port 2 HF 300Bd DW    *************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=2                                           ;
  ID=300Bd FX.25 14.105 LSB
  Driver=UZ7HO
  CHANNEL=A
  PACLEN=40
  MAXFRAME=1
  CONFIG
  ADDR 127.0.0.1 8002
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;*******************  Port 3 AXUDP  ******************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=3                                           ;
  ID=AXUDP                                            ; PORTS command text
  DRIVER=BPQAXIP                                      ; Driver name
  QUALITY=191                                         ; Default quality for nodes heard on this port
  MINQUAL=191                                         ; Entries in the nodes table with qualities greater or equal to MINQUAL will be sent
  MAXFRAME=7                                          ; Maximum outstanding frames 
  FRACK=3000                                          ; Level 2 delayed ack timer in milliseconds
  RESPTIME=1000                                       ; Level 2 timout in milliseconds 
  RETRIES=10                                          ; Level 2 maximum retry value
  PACLEN=256                                          ; Packet length
  MHEARD=Y                                            ; MHeard list enable
CONFIG                                                ; 
  UDP 10093,IPv6                                      ; Listen on port
  UDP 10093                                           ;
  BROADCAST NODES                                     ; Broadcast NODES beacons/info Add node BBSCALL IP TYPE PORT# B = Exchange NODES
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;******************  Port 4 Telnet  ******************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=4                                           ; Port number
  ID=Telnet                                           ; PORTS command text
  DRIVER=TELNET                                       ; Driver type
  CONFIG                                              ; Driver specific configuration from here to ENDPORT
  SECURETELNET=1                                      ; Restrict outbound telnet
  LOGGING=1                                           ; Log all connections
  DisconnectOnClose=0                                 ; Disconnect on close of application instead of return to node
  TCPPORT=8010                                        ; Port for telnet connections
  HTTPPORT=8008                                       ; Port for web interface
  FBBPORT=8011                                        ; Port for FBB protocol BBS connections
  CMDPORT=8015                                        ; Ports for APPS
  LOGINPROMPT=u:                                      ; Telnet login prompt
  PASSWORDPROMPT=p:                                   ; 
  RELAYAPPL=BBS                                       ; Relay CMS to BBS application instead of WL2K
  LOCALECHO=NO                                        ; Do not echo input
  MAXSESSIONS=10                                      ; Maxmimum simultaneous connections
  LOCALNET=192.168.1.0/24                             ; LAN Subnet
  CTEXT=BPQ Telnet Server\n'?' for Help>\n            ; Telnet connect message
  USER=call,password,CALL,NODE,SYSOP                  ; Telnet user
  USER=call-bbs,password,CALL,BBS,SYSOP               ; Telnet BBS user
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;**********************  ROUTES  *********************;
;CALL,QUAL,PORT,MAXFRAME,FRACK,PACLEN,INP3Flag
ROUTES:
***
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;*******************  Applications  ******************;
;1    2         3       4     5      6        7       ; Application entry field order
;#,BPQ CMD,BBS CMD EXE,CALL,ALIAS,QUALITY,L2ALIAS     ; Application entry field description
APPLICATION 1,BBS,,CALL-1,ABCBBS,190                  ; BBS Application
APPLICATION 2,K2K,C 4 HOST 0 K S,CALL,ABCK2K,190      ; K2K Application

If you only intend to run a single modem you'll want to adjust the config as follows:

;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;***************   Port 1 HF 300Bd DW    *************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=1                                           ;
  ID=300Bd FX.25 14.105 LSB
  Driver=UZ7HO
  CHANNEL=A
  PACLEN=40
  MAXFRAME=1
  CONFIG
  ADDR 127.0.0.1 8002
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;*******************  Port 2 AXUDP  ******************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=2                                           ;
  ID=AXUDP                                            ; PORTS command text
  DRIVER=BPQAXIP                                      ; Driver name
  QUALITY=191                                         ; Default quality for nodes heard on this port
  MINQUAL=191                                         ; Entries in the nodes table with qualities greater or equal to MINQUAL will be sent
  MAXFRAME=7                                          ; Maximum outstanding frames 
  FRACK=3000                                          ; Level 2 delayed ack timer in milliseconds
  RESPTIME=1000                                       ; Level 2 timout in milliseconds 
  RETRIES=10                                          ; Level 2 maximum retry value
  PACLEN=256                                          ; Packet length
  MHEARD=Y                                            ; MHeard list enable
CONFIG                                                ; 
  UDP 10093,IPv6                                      ; Listen on port
  UDP 10093                                           ;
  BROADCAST NODES                                     ; Broadcast NODES beacons/info Add node BBSCALL IP TYPE PORT# B = Exchange NODES
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;******************  Port 3 Telnet  ******************;
PORT                                                  ;
  PORTNUM=3                                           ; Port number
  ID=Telnet                                           ; PORTS command text
  DRIVER=TELNET                                       ; Driver type
  CONFIG                                              ; Driver specific configuration from here to ENDPORT
  SECURETELNET=1                                      ; Restrict outbound telnet
  LOGGING=1                                           ; Log all connections
  DisconnectOnClose=0                                 ; Disconnect on close of application instead of return to node
  TCPPORT=8010                                        ; Port for telnet connections
  HTTPPORT=8008                                       ; Port for web interface
  FBBPORT=8011                                        ; Port for FBB protocol BBS connections
  CMDPORT=8015                                        ; Ports for APPS
  LOGINPROMPT=u:                                      ; Telnet login prompt
  PASSWORDPROMPT=p:                                   ; 
  RELAYAPPL=BBS                                       ; Relay CMS to BBS application instead of WL2K
  LOCALECHO=NO                                        ; Do not echo input
  MAXSESSIONS=10                                      ; Maxmimum simultaneous connections
  LOCALNET=192.168.1.0/24                             ; LAN Subnet
  CTEXT=BPQ Telnet Server\n'?' for Help>\n            ; Telnet connect message
  USER=call,password,CALL,NODE,SYSOP                  ; Telnet user
  USER=call-bbs,password,CALL,BBS,SYSOP               ; Telnet BBS user
ENDPORT                                               ;
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;**********************  ROUTES  *********************;
;CALL,QUAL,PORT,MAXFRAME,FRACK,PACLEN,INP3Flag
ROUTES:
***
;*****************************************************;
;                                                     ;
;*******************  Applications  ******************;
;1    2         3       4     5      6        7       ; Application entry field order
;#,BPQ CMD,BBS CMD EXE,CALL,ALIAS,QUALITY,L2ALIAS     ; Application entry field description
APPLICATION 1,BBS,,CALL-1,ABCBBS,190                  ; BBS Application
APPLICATION 2,K2K,C 3 HOST 0 K S,CALL,ABCK2K,190      ; K2K Application

FARPN has moved away from plain AXUDP and now we use a private Yggdrasil mesh to connect to each other using the internet.

sudo yggdrasil -genconf -json > /etc/yggdrasil/yggdrasil.conf

In the `yggdrasil.conf` file, edit your peers to add:

"Peers": ["tls://ip.n6cta.com:60573", "tls://yggdrasil.clitheroe.ca:23277"],

I also strongly advise disabling the multicast interface:

"MulticastInterfaces": [],

A nice thing for gateway and mesh ops generally would be to also add something helpful here to let us know what the yggdrasil connected thing is like this:

"NodeInfo": {   
"Name": "John Doe",
"Peer Type": "Client"
}

My personal preference is to get as close to the hardware as I can when it comes to audio applications. ALSA is that equivalent for Linux. PipeWire is much better than Pulse is/was but this tutorial is for a dedicated PBBS Pi and not a traditional desktop system so let's make sure pipewire and its helpers don't hijack our audio hardware.

systemctl --user stop pipewire.service pipewire.socket pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket wireplumber.service
systemctl --user disable pipewire.service pipewire.socket pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket wireplumber.service
systemctl --user mask pipewire.service pipewire.socket pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket wireplumber.service

Next we'll configure ALSA – despite the jokes on the Internet, Linux audio isn't that bad for a simple case like ours. That said, you’ll need to do some experimenting here but it shouldn’t be all that different from what we have below. You’ll need to know the sample rates supported by your device though. If you poke around in /proc/asound/ you’ll find your card or you can run 'arecord -l' and 'aplay -l' to get a list of devices.

For example, run cat /proc/asound/card3/stream0:

Burr-Brown from TI USB Audio CODEC at usb-0000:01:00.0-1.1.4, full speed : USB Audio

Playback:
  Status: Stop
  Interface 1
    Altset 1
    Format: S16_LE
    Channels: 2
    Endpoint: 0x02 (2 OUT) (ADAPTIVE)
    Rates: 32000, 44100, 48000
    Bits: 16
    Channel map: FL FR

This is how you can set the default index for your USB audio card to force it to a consistent reboot safe value for the ALSA configuration. This can be done with even multiple USB audio interfaces. (ex. index=3,2,1)

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf to add:

options snd_usb_audio index=3

Edit your /etc/asound.conf file to add a hardware alias to this device.

pcm.RX {
    type dsnoop
    ipc_key 1049
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:3,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 1
        }
}

pcm.TX {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1048
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:3,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 2
        }
}

pcm.300RX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:RX" rate 48000}}
pcm.300TX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:TX" rate 48000}}

If you had multiple interfaces like say an IC-9700 for 1200Bd VHF and an IC-7300 for HF the configuration could look like this:

pcm.7300RX {
    type dsnoop
    ipc_key 1049
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:3,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 1
        }
}

pcm.7300TX {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1048
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:3,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 2
        }
}

<code>
pcm.9700RX {
    type dsnoop
    ipc_key 1049
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:4,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 1
        }
}

pcm.9700TX {
    type dmix
    ipc_key 1048
    ipc_key_add_uid false
    ipc_perm 0666
    slave {
        pcm "hw:4,0"
        rate 48000
        channels 2
        }
}

pcm.300RX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:RX7300" rate 48000}}
pcm.300TX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:TX7300" rate 48000}}
pcm.1200RX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:RX9700" rate 48000}}
pcm.1200TX {type rate slave {pcm "plug:TX9700" rate 48000}}

To make it reboot safe I would make a udev rule. Here is an example of mine. I use /dev/7300 as my CAT device in the above systemd entry as result of the entry below. The general idea is that you find a specific device identifier using the command below.

Start by running udevadm info -q property -n /dev/ttyUSB0, which will return information about the USB device:

DEVPATH=/devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1.1/1-1.1.1:1.0/ttyUSB0/tty/ttyUSB0
DEVNAME=/dev/ttyUSB0
MAJOR=188
MINOR=0
SUBSYSTEM=tty
USEC_INITIALIZED=5003759
ID_BUS=usb
ID_MODEL=CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller
ID_MODEL_ENC=CP2102\x20USB\x20to\x20UART\x20Bridge\x20Controller
ID_MODEL_ID=ea60
ID_SERIAL=Silicon_Labs_CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_IC-7300_02058466
ID_SERIAL_SHORT=IC-7300_02058466
ID_VENDOR=Silicon_Labs
ID_VENDOR_ENC=Silicon\x20Labs
ID_VENDOR_ID=10c4
ID_REVISION=0100
ID_TYPE=generic
ID_USB_MODEL=CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller
ID_USB_MODEL_ENC=CP2102\x20USB\x20to\x20UART\x20Bridge\x20Controller
ID_USB_MODEL_ID=ea60
ID_USB_SERIAL=Silicon_Labs_CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_IC-7300_02058466
ID_USB_SERIAL_SHORT=IC-7300_02058466
ID_USB_VENDOR=Silicon_Labs
ID_USB_VENDOR_ENC=Silicon\x20Labs
ID_USB_VENDOR_ID=10c4
ID_USB_REVISION=0100
ID_USB_TYPE=generic
ID_USB_INTERFACES=:ff0000:
ID_USB_INTERFACE_NUM=00
ID_USB_DRIVER=cp210x
ID_VENDOR_FROM_DATABASE=Silicon Labs
ID_MODEL_FROM_DATABASE=CP210x UART Bridge
ID_PATH=platform-fd500000.pcie-pci-0000:01:00.0-usb-0:1.1.1:1.0
ID_PATH_TAG=platform-fd500000_pcie-pci-0000_01_00_0-usb-0_1_1_1_1_0
ID_MM_CANDIDATE=1
DEVLINKS=/dev/serial/by-path/platform-fd500000.pcie-pci-0000:01:00.0-usb-0:1.1.1:1.0-port0 /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Silicon_Labs_CP2102_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_IC-7300_02058466-if00-port0
TAGS=:systemd:
CURRENT_TAGS=:systemd:

From there we want to grab some unique information to help identify this device as our transceiver and create a udev rules file for the device that'll give it a meaningful and consistent name.

Add some variation of the following to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ such as this example called 80-IC-7300.rules, using information about the device from udevinfo above:

ENV{MAJOR}!="?*", GOTO="7300_rules_end"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb-serial", GOTO="7300_usb_rules"
GOTO="7300_rules_end"

LABEL="7300_usb_rules"

# Icom 7300
ENV{ID_USB_SERIAL_SHORT} == "IC-7300_02058466", SYMLINK+="7300", MODE="660", GROUP="dialout"

LABEL="7300_rules_end"

After creating the file, run sudo udevadm control –reload to create a new device called /dev/7300.

We'll need to first make sure we've got IPv6 covered in UFW:

sudo nano /etc/ufw/ufw.conf

If it reads no change it to yes and if it is missing altogether, add it to the end of the file.

IPV6=yes

Next, we'll need to open port 22 so we don't lock ourselves out as well as applying sane defaults and starting the service. If you use a different internal subnet range you'll want to edit this to reflect it:

sudo ufw reload
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 22 proto tcp
sudo ufw enable

Configuring rigctld is a crucial step to getting the rest of this setup running smoothly. The exact commands may be a little different depending on your gear. What we need is rigctld running in the background to give us a CAT/CIV interface to play with.

You’ll need to change:

• USER to your username
• YOUR_RIG You’ll need to find the number for your rig by running rigctld -l | less
• CAT_DEVICE: We set this up earlier using udev

First we'll setup a systemd service for rigctld to make sure it comes up at boot, by creating the file /etc/systemd/system/rigctld.service with the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=rigctld
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
User=USER
Group=USER
ExecStart=rigctld -m YOUR_RIG -r CAT_DEVICE -s PORT_SPEED
SyslogIdentifier=rigctld

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then enable and start the service with:

sudo systemctl enable rigctld.service
sudo systemctl start rigctld.service

If you have multiple radios, you'll need to run multiple daemons. Just name the services so that you'll recognize them rigctld_7300.service rigctld_9700.service etc. You'll also need to use the option -t as shown below to set different port numbers to listen on. The default TCP 4532

ExecStart=rigctld -m YOUR_RIG -r CAT_DEVICE -s PORT_SPEED -t LISTEN_PORT

If for whatever reason you need to make an edit to a systemd service entry you’ll need to reload systemd and start the service again.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart rigctld.service

To check on the status of a service we use the ‘status’ command. At the bottom of the output we’ll get essentially a tail of stdout (the program's standard output). This is super handy for checking out issues.

sudo systemctl status rigctld.service

If we want to get really fancy we can get a running live log of the service using journalctl. The -f option gives a ‘tail -f’ like output. I use this so much I have a short alias for watching the output of my BBS services. I much prefer this to using screen because we get logging for troubleshooting and many of these daemons cannot take terminal input once run anyway.

journalctl -u rigctld.service -f

Create file /etc/systemd/system/direwolf.service with the following contents, enabled, and started:

[Unit]
Description=Direwolf
After=rigctld.service
Requires=rigctld.service
BindsTo=rigctld.service
PartOf=rigctld.service

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
User=USER
Group=USER
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/direwolf -a 10 -q d -t 0 -c /home/USER/.config/direwolf/direwolf.conf

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Create file /etc/systemd/system/linbpq.service with the following contents, enabled, and started:

[Unit]
Description=linBPQ
After=yggdrasil.service
After=direwolf.service
Requires=yggdrasil.service
BindsTo=yggdrasil.service
PartOf=yggdrasil.service

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
WorkingDirectory=/home/USER/.config/linbpq/
User=USER
Group=USER
ExecStart=/home/USER/.local/bin/linbpq

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

This should have been created and enabled but you can make sure by running:

sudo systemctl enable yggdrasil.service
sudo systemctl restart yggdrasil.service