This is not intended to be an exhaustive guide, but includes some less well known commands and variations that are found useful.

Where letters are shown bold in a command it indicates the minimum letters of the command that are required.

The original BPQ documentation can be found at
https://www.cantab.net/users/john.wiseman/Documents/NodeCommands.html for general user commands and
https://www.cantab.net/users/john.wiseman/Documents/Node SYSOP.html for SYSOP commands.

A 'cheat sheet', printable over 5 pages is also available at https://cheatography.com/gcremerius/cheat-sheets/bpq-user-and-sysop-commands/

? displays the currently available applications on the node followed by some commonly used commands.

Sample Output

?
BMONEY:GB7BMY} BBS CHAT CONNECT BYE INFO NODES PORTS ROUTES USERS MHEARD

GB7BMY has BBS(mail) and CHAT applications available.

Connect allows a node user to make a connection to another node. Users can then use applications on the remote node, or make another, onwards connection.

C P Call|Alias [via digi1 [digi2...]] [S]

Example - C 1 GB7RDG via GB7BPQ S

This would instruct the node to make a connection, on port 1, via GB7BPQ, to GB7RDG, and to stay connected to the current node when disconnecting.

Bye or Quit disconnects you from your current node.

Info displays a few lines of text that can contain details of the node location, services, equipment, the SYSOP, and other sources of information about it.

info
BMONEY:GB7BMY} This is Packet Node GB7BMY located in
Ballymoney, N.Ireland. - IO65rb
HF on 40m, 9:1 Random Wire, FT-818ND, 6W
Available Services: BBS CHAT
SYSOP: GI3JMC

Ports lists ports available for use on the node. The details can vary depending on how the SYSOP has set the port ID text in the configuration file. Hidden ports will not appear in the list.

p
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Ports
  1 HF 40m BPSK300 IL2P+CRC AX.25
  2 VHF 2m AFSK AX.25 1k2bd

MHeard lists the stations that have been heard on a port

MH P Call

Example - MH 1 - List all stations heard on port 1
Example - MH 1 GB - List all stations heard on port 1 with GB in the callsign

MHV lists stations in a table format with more detail.
MHU/MHL Lists stations with UTC/Local timestamps instead of time since last heard.

SYSOPs can replace the call filter with 'CLEAR' to erase the MHeard lists. Example - MH 1 CLEAR

Sample Output

MH 1 GB7B
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Heard List for Port 1 filtered by GB7B
GB7BPQ     00:00:21:56    
GB7BEX-15  00:00:59:42    
GB7BPQ-7   00:15:02:34     

MHU 1 GB7B
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Heard List for Port 1 filtered by GB7B
GB7BPQ     Apr 11 11:04:03    
GB7BEX-15  Apr 11 10:26:17    
GB7BPQ-7   Apr 10 20:23:25 

MHV 1 GB7B
BMONEY:GB7BMY} MHeard List GB7BMY for Port 1
Callsign   Last heard     Pkts RX    via Digi ;) 
---------  -----------    -------    ------------------------------------------
GB7BPQ     00:00:22:18    68                                       
GB7BEX-15  00:01:00:04    34                                       
GB7BPQ-7   00:15:02:56    9 

Listen allows a user to monitor traffic on specified ports

LIS P1 P2 P3....

Example - LIS 1 2 starts traffic monitoring for ports 1 & 2

While listening on a single port, CQ will send a beacon under the users callsign.

Entering LIS with no ports disables monitoring

Users lists all stations currently using the node.

Host is an internal (Normally BBS Port)
Circuit is a link from/to another node.
Uplink is a connection from a normal AX.25 station.
Downlink is a connection to a normal user.
←→ indicates an active session.
<~~> indicates a session being set up.

Version returns the version number of the node software

v
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Version 6.0.24.66 (64 bit)

PASSWORD Used to obtain SYSOP status on the node. If connected locally, or via a Telnet session with the SYSOP flag set for the user, no password is required. If required

Example user without SYSOP flag using the password 'packetradio'

Connected to TelnetServer
password
BMONEY:GB7BMY} 8 6 4 7 1
password atkrp
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Ok

Each character entered for the password, corresponds to the password character at the position indicated by the number, so in the example, 1=p, 2=a, 3=c, 4=k, 5=e, 6=t, etc…

Example user connected locally or with SYSOP flag set

Connected to TelnetServer
password
BMONEY:GB7BMY} Ok

These commands allow for the temporary disabling of a given port.

Example - STOPPORT 2 will disable the use of port 2
Example - STARTPORT 2 will enable the use of port 2

GETPORTCTEXT causes BPQ to read any files with names formatted as Port#CTEXT.txt (where # is a port number). These need to be in the same location as bpq32.cfg, or if using the Hibbian-packaged version, in /opt/oarc/bpq/.

This allows for CTEXT to be customised for each individual port. The files are read once when BPQ is started, however if the SYSOP alters the contents they can be re-read using GETPORTCTEXT. Any port that does not have a Port#CTEXT.txt file will use the node's general CTEXT or HFCTEXT instead.

TELReconfig allows a telnet port configuration to be loaded after being altered in bpq32.cfg by the SYSOP

TELR p [USERS|ALL]

Example - TELR 9 ALL reloads the entire configuration for port 9. Any users will be disconnected.
Example - TELR 9 USERS reloads only the USER access records for port 9. No users will be disconnected.

SAVENODES immediately saves the NODES (and ROUTES ??) table for reloading when BPQ is restarted, rather than rebuilding them.

SENDNODES sends immediate nodes broadcasts on all ports that have 'MHEARD=Y' in their configuration.

SAVEMH Sets the node to save and restore the MH list when being shut down/restarted.

KISS sends a KISS command/value pair. Parameters required are port, command, and value all specified in decimal

KISS 1 2 3

TXDELAY, MAXFRAME, FRACK, RESPTIME, PPACLEN, RETRIES,
QUALITY, PERSIST, TXTAIL, XMITOFF, DIGIFLAG, DIGIPORT,
MAXUSERS, L3ONLY, BBSALIAS, FULLDUP, SOFTDCD

Each of the commands listed above either update or display that setting for the specified port.

Example - PACLEN 1 100 sets the default maximum packet length for port 1 Example - PERSIST 2 displays the current 'probability to retransmit' value for port 2

VALIDCALL is also available. It is not possible to update the list, but it can be displayed.

Further details of the permitted values for the parameters above can be found in the bpq32.cfg documentation available here

REMDUMP, OBSINIT, OBSMIN, NODESINT, L3TTL,
L4RETRIES, L4TIMEOUT, T3, NODEIDLETIME, LINKEDFLAG,
IDINTERVAL, MINQUAL, FULLCTEXT, HIDENODES, L4DELAY, L4WINDOW, BTINTERVAL

Each of the commands listed above either update or display that setting for the node.

Further details of the permitted values for the parameters above can be found in the bpq32.cfg documentation available here