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.

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