• You are running this on a Raspberry Pi with built-in WiFi
• Running Raspberry OS Lite 32 Bit (Bullseye 2022-09-22).
• DireWolf DEVELOPMENT version 1.7 E (Jan 7 2023)
• This system will run headless, without a monitor or external display connected.
• You will be using a USB RTL-SDR dongle connected to your Pi.
• We will be using the default user pi for everything. Please change this to meet your requirements.
• There is no GPS connected. The Pi will rely on NTP for accurate timekeeping.

Download Raspberry OS Lite 32 Bit Lite from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ Not tested on 64 Bit (if anyone has tested please update to say Tested and Works on 64 Bit Lite

Get an APRS Password from http://apps.magicbug.co.uk/passcode/

Extract the downloaded tar file. Using Raspberry Pi Imager https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ using the “Operating System” button select “Use Custom” and select the extracted img file. In this example, it is “2022-09-22-raspios-bullseye-armhf-lite.img” Be sure to select the correct Storage device. Click the Setting, cogwheel, button. These settings may change in future versions. These are current as of v1.7.3

• Set hostname: igate
• [x] Enable SSH
  • [x] Use password authentication
• [x] Set username and password
  • Username: pi
  • Password: raspberry
• [x] Configure wireless LAN
  • SSID: <your wireless network>
  • Password: <your wireless network password>
  • Wireless LAN country: GB (change to match your location)
• [x] Set locale settings
  • Time zone: Europe/Dublin
  • Keyboard layout: gb
• [ ] Play sound when finished
• [x] Eject media when finished
• [ ] Enable telemetry

Verify your Operating System, Storage and Advnaced Settings are all correct and Write the image to SD Card. Once complete insert the SD Card in to your Pi and power it up. It may take a few minutes.

Logon to your Pi via ssh and preform a system update

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -you

Depending on the number of updates this may take a few minutes. Reboot your pi when all the updates are installed

sudo reboot

This is best contoled via a dhcp reservation on your router or on your dhcp server. If you choose to manually configure this on your pi please follow the steps below. Adjust IP address to match your networks configuration.

sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf

# Example static IP configuration:
interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.0.30/24
#static ip6_address=fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::ff/64
static routers=192.168.0.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1 8.8.8.8 fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::1

sudo apt install git build-essential libasound2-dev libudev-dev rsyslog logrotate

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf.git
cd direwolf
git checkout dev
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DUNITTEST=1 ..
make -j4
make test
sudo make install
make install-conf

cd ~
direwolf

You should see something like this

Dire Wolf version …
Audio device for both receive and transmit: default
Could not open audio device default for input
No such file or directory
Pointless to continue without audio device.

The default configuration files created in youi home directory provide a good starting point. Since we are setting up a receive only iGate using a RTL-SDR Dongle we will be using the sdr.conf file.

cd ~
sudo nano sdr.conf

We need to update a few lines. Change MYCALL xxxxx to your callsign plus SSID. For example

MYCALL EI5IEB-10

Update IGSERVER to one in your region. For example

IGSERVER euro.aprs2.net

In order for send received pactked to the internet we need to update IGLOGIN with our login details. Callsign-SSID and passcode. Passcode can be generated here https://apps.magicbug.co.uk/passcode/ Please use your callsign. For example. xxxxx is my passcode.

IGLOGIN EI5IEB-10 xxxxx

If you want your iGate to disply on aprs.fi add the following line to the end of the sdr.conf file. Modify lat and long to your location.

 PBEACON sendto=IG delay=0:30 every=10:00 symbol="igate" overlay=R lat=53.000000 long=-06.000000 comment="144.800MHz IGate | RPi | RTL-SDR"

We want to log what packets we receive for future analysis and to get an indication of the area covered by our iGate. Add the following lines to the end of the sdr.conf file.

# Logging
LOGDIR /var/log/direwolf/

We need to create the log directory referanced the the sdr.conf file and make sure that it is writable by the pi user.

cd ~
sudo mkdir /var/log/direwolf
sudo chown -hR pi:pi /var/log/direwolf

The main parts of Direwolf are now configured.

cd ~
sudo apt install cmake build-essential libusb-1.0-0-dev
git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
cd rtl-sdr
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON -DDETACH_KERNEL_DRIVER=ON
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

In my setup the dongle “just worked” however this is not always the case. The Pi may be using a different device driver. To prevent this from happening we need to blacklist the undesired driver.

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

The file is empty by default. Add the following lines.

blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu
blacklist dvb_usb_v2
blacklist rtl_2830
blacklist rtl_2832
blacklist r820t

Reboot the Pi

sudo reboot

Next we need to create a systemd service so direwolf starts on boot. We also redirect stdout and stderr to syslog, so we can treat it as a log file.

Create direwolf.service file

sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/direwolf.service

With following content

[Unit]
Description=Direwolf Daemon
Wants=network-online.target
After=sound.target syslog.target network-online.target

[Service]
User=pi
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'rtl_fm -f 144.8M - | direwolf -c /home/pi/sdr.conf -r 24000 -D 1 -'
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=direwolf

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Symlink the service

sudo ln -s /lib/systemd/system/direwolf.service /etc/systemd/system/direwolf.service

Reload systemctl. Enter your password when prompted.

systemctl daemon-reload

Enable the direwolf service. Enter your password when prompted.

systemctl enable direwolf

Enable the systemd-networkd-wait-online service so Direwolf starts after the network is up. . Enter your password when prompted.

systemctl enable systemd-networkd-wait-online

Reboot the Pi

sudo reboot

If all went to plan Direwof should have started automatically. You can verify this with

ps aux | grep direwolf

You should see a line with the following content.

direwolf -c /home/pi/sdr.conf -r 24000 -D 1 -

Next, we can configure logging application-level messages and errors from the Direwolf application. This is optional.

You might be interested in an easy way of showing what stations you are hearing. Direwolf outputs its logs in a delimited format which can be opened and parsed by a variety of applications. However, sometimes a web GUI is much nicer. Alfredo, IZ7BOJ, has developed a PHP web statistics viewer which parses the logs and displayed the results on a nicely formatted table presented on a self-hosted website. This is detailed here Direwolf Web Log Viewer

Earlier we configured the direwolf systemd service file to redirect all stdout and stderr to syslog. So it's easier to read we need to redirect the log entries to their own file.

Create a .conf file for rsyslog

nano /etc/rsyslog.d/direwolf.conf

And enter the following

if $programname == 'direwolf' then /var/log/direwolf/direwolf.log 
& stop

Then create a logrotate configuration file

nano /etc/logrotate.d/direwolf

And enter the following. Feel free to edit the parameters to suit your needs

/var/log/direwolf/aprs.log
{
    rotate 5
    daily
    missingok
}

/var/log/direwolf/direwolf.log
{
    rotate 5
    daily
    missingok
    postrotate
        invoke-rc.d rsyslog rotate > /dev/null
    endscript
}

From http://www.aprs.org/aprs11/SSIDs.txt

0 Your primary station usually fixed and message capable
1 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
2 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
3 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
4 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
5 Other networks (Dstar, Iphones, Androids, Blackberry's etc)
6 Special activity, Satellite ops, camping or 6 meters, etc
7 walkie talkies, HT's or other human portable
8 boats, sailboats, RV's or second main mobile
9 Primary Mobile (usually message capable)
10 internet, Igates, echolink, winlink, AVRS, APRN, etc
11 balloons, aircraft, spacecraft, etc
12 APRStt, DTMF, RFID, devices, one-way trackers*, etc
13 Weather stations
14 Truckers or generally full time drivers
15 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc

https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf/tree/master/doc

https://www.marrold.co.uk/2019/04/installing-direwolf-15-on-raspberry-pi.html