Provided by: aprsdigi_3.10.0-5_amd64 
NAME
aprsdigi - APRS(™) digipeater
SYNOPSIS
aprsdigi options
DESCRIPTION
Aprsdigi is a specialized Amateur Packet Radio (AX.25) UI-frame digipeater for the
Automatic Position Reporting Systems, APRS(tm). It uses the Linux kernel AX.25 network
stack as well as the SOCK_PACKET facility to listen for packets on one or more radio
interfaces (ports) and repeat those packets -- with several possible modifications -- on
the same or other interfaces. Aprsdigi can also use the Internet to tunnel connections
among other APRS digipeaters and nodes using IPv4 or IPv6 UDP unicast or multicast.
Aprsdigi implements conventional packet radio AX.25 digipeating, in which a packet is
digipeated if the next hop (non-repeated) digipeater ("via") callsign matches the AX.25
port's callsign and sub-station ID (SSID) or an alias callsign and SSID.
There are a number of extensions to conventional digipeating that have been proposed for
use in the APRS community. Some of these features have been adopted by Terminal Node
Controller (TNC) manufacturers, notably Paccomm and Kantronics. Aprsdigi implements most
if not all of the commercialy adopted and proposed features. See the APRS 1.0 Protocol
Specification at www.tapr.org for protocol documentation. Aprsdigi attempts to minimally
comply with the protocol specification as well as support experimental APRS features.
Specific features implemented include:
• Single-interface conventional UI-frame digipeating.
• Cross-interface digipeating (also known as bridging, routing or gatewaying) and one-to-
many fanout.
• Substitution of a digipeated alias with the interface's callsign (typically used to
substitute RELAY, WIDE or TRACE aliases).
• WIDEn-n flooding algorithim.
• TRACEn-n route recording.
• Mic-Encoder(tm) support, including SSID-based digipeating, decompression of packets into
the conventional APRS MIM format. (The Mic-Encoder compression is also used by other
products such as the Kenwood TH-D7A and D700, and TAPR PIC-Encoder).
• TheNet X1J4 node beacon text translation (removal of the “TheNet X1J4 (alias)” prefix
from the btext).
GENERAL OPTIONS
-v --verbose
Produce verbose debugging output.
-T --testing
Test mode: listen to my packets too. This mode is useful for off-air
experimentation and configuration testing. Do not use it on-air.
-D --kill_dupes
Suppress Duplicate packets. Remembers duplicate packets for the number of
seconds given by the -k option and will not repeat them more than once. This
reduces conjestion caused when several digipeaters that share a common flooding
alias (e.g. WIDE) have overlapping footprints, causing geometric duplication of
packets addressed via “WIDE,WIDE” for example.
-L --kill_loops
Suppress Looping packets. Similar in function to duplicate packet suppression,
but looks back through the list of already digipeated callsigns in the packet's
digipeat list and kills any packets that list a callsign belonging to this
aprsdigi. Note that only real callsigns are compared. Generic flooding aliases
are not. Therefore, loop detection is only useful when callsign substitution is
used.
-V --version
Print program version and exit.
-n|s|e|w --north|south|east|west
Set North|South|East|West SSID directional path.
-d --digipath
Set SSID omnidirectional next-hops when operating in a non flooding network
(e.g. when WIDEn-n is not an option).
-f --flood
Set flooding alias. Use “-f WIDE” to enable WIDEn-n flooding. Use -f multiple
times to define several flooding aliases.
-F --trace
Set flooding trace callsign. Use “-F TRACE” to enable TRACE and TRACEn-n
flooding. Use -F multiple times to define several trace aliases.
-k --keep secs
Remember old packets for this long for duplicate packet detection. Default is
28 seconds.
-l --logfile file
Log digipeated packets to this file.
PER-INTERFACE OPTIONS
Put these options before each -p --interface to set new values as needed. The values you
set are remembered for subsequent -p's so options you want to set for all interfaces need
only be specified once, before the first -p. But you have to remember to unset an option
if you don't want it to apply to subsequent interfaces.
-C (-c) --[no]subst_mycall
Do (not) perform callsign substitution. When enabled, aliases are replaced with
the interface's callsign when repeated.
-M (-m) --[no]mice_xlate
Do (not) perform Mic-E to MIM translation. When enabled, compressed Mic-E
reports are expanded into one MIM-style position report packet and optionally a
second telemetry packet if telemetry was supplied in the Mic-E packet.
-X (-x) --[no]x1j4_xlate
Do (not) perform X1J4 translation. When enabled, the leading “TheNet X1J4
(alias)” text is removed when digipeated. This allows non-compliant APRS
implementations to detect an APRS position report in an X1J4 beacon.
-i --idinterval secs
Seconds between ID transmissions. Set to 0 to disable IDs on this interface.
Default is 570 (9 minutes 30 seconds). IDs are only sent if the interface
transmitted anything since the last ID. ID packets are addressed to the “ID”
callsign, have no digipeat path, and list the callsign and aliases for the
interface the ID is being transmitted on.
-t --tag text
Text to append to received packets. Use -t - to reset to empty. Use this, for
example, when gatewaying Mic-E packets from a voice repeater to the APRS net
frequency to indicate where the report originated.
-3 --3rdparty
Enable 3rd party tunneling. Packets tunneled to a 3rd party interface are sent
with the unused digipeaters removed from the digipeater list. Packets tunneled
from a 3rd party interface have the Source Path Header prepended to the packet
payload prefixed by the "}" character.
-0 --no3rdparty
Enable transparent tunneling. No special tricks are done when sending to or
receiving from a tunneled interface. If the interface does not natively support
AX.25 addresses (from-call, to-call, and digipeater list), then the address
header is prepended to the payload in "cooked" format. Likewise, a cooked
prepended header is stripped from a cooked interface and put back in the AX.25
address when going from a non-AX.25 to AX.25 interface.
-o r --norx
Disable receiving on the following interface(s).
-o R --rx Enable receiving on the following interface(s).
-o t --notx
Disable transmitting on the following interface(s).
-o T --tx Enable transmitting on the following interface(s).
-o s --notxsame
Disable retransmitting a received packet on the same interface.
-o S --txsame
Enable retransmitting a received packet on the same interface.
-o d --duplicate intf
Duplicate received packets without modification to the given interface (port).
-p --interface ax25:port:alias1,alias2,...
AX25 interface name (port) and optional list of aliases. The primary callsign
is obtained from the interface's configuration. (See ifconfig(8)).
-p --interface udp:host/port/ttl:alias1,alias2,...
IP host name or address and list of aliases. IP addresses may be IPv4 unicast
or multicast or IPv6 unicast. The primary callsign is obtained from the first
alias.
-p --interface unix:filename:alias1,alias2,...
Unix file and list of aliases. Useful for debugging by setting up a simulated
APRS network on one machine. You may want to make your FIFOs explicitly
transmit- or receive-only to avoid confusion. The primary callsign is obtained
from the first alias.
-B|b --[no]bud
addr Is similar to a TNC-2's BUDLIST. Use -B --bud to accept or -b --nobud to
ignore packets from a sender or group of senders. Budlists are attached to each
interface and can be reset with --bud -
You can set up a global budlist once, or per-interface budlists. The format of
addr varies based on the interface type:
--bud ax25:callsign-ssid matches only a given digipeater callsign and SSID. For example,
-B ax25:n0clu-14.
--bud ax25:callsign matches all SSIDs for the given callsign. For example -B ax25:n0clu.
--bud ip:hostname matches one Internet host name (IPv6 or IPv4). For example -B
ip:n0clu.ampr.net
--bud ip:address/maskbits matches all IP addresses that have the given prefix. For
example --bud ip:44.0.0.0/8 matches the entire class-A network. --bud
ip:192.168.0.0/16 matches the entire class-B network. --bud
ip:fe80::201:3ff:fe9a:38c6 matches a single IPv6 host. --bud ip:2002:905::/32
matches the 32-bit IPv6 prefix.
RUNTIME CONTROLS
aprsdigi responds to the following signals:
SIGUSR1 Print cumulative statistics. For each port, the following counters are
displayed: packets received and how many of those where ignored, duplicates,
loops, mic-E formatted; packets transmitted and how many of those where
conventional digipeats, flooding digipeats (WIDEn-n), SSID-based digipeats, and
IDs. If a log file was specified with the -l --logfile option, then the
statistics are written to that file. Otherwise they are written to stderr.
SIGUSR2 Prints the statistics and then resets all counters to zero.
All other normal termination signals cause final statistics to print before aprsdigi
exits.
SSID-BASED ROUTING
SSID-based routing uses a non-zero sub-station ID in the destination callsign, an empty
digipeater path to indicate that the APRS digipeater should repeat the packet after
filling in an appropriate digipeater path. For example, a packet sent to “T1QS4W-3” would
be repeated with a modified destination of “APRS VIA WIDE3-3” (in a network that supports
WIDEn-n flooding). A packet sent to “APRS-11” would be repeated to the West unproto path,
as defined with the --west option. A table of SSID values and their paths follows:
SSID unproto path
---- ------------
0 none
1 WIDE1-1
2 WIDE2-2
3 WIDE3-3
4 WIDE4-4
5 WIDE5-5
6 WIDE6-6
7 WIDE7-7
8 NORTH UNPROTO path
9 SOUTH UNPROTO path
10 EAST UNPROTO path
11 WEST UNPROTO path
12 NORTH UNPROTO path + WIDE
13 SOUTH UNPROTO path + WIDE
14 EAST UNPROTO path + WIDE
15 WEST UNPROTO path + WIDE
SSID digipeating was first introduced with the Mic-Encoder but works with any destination
callsign with a non-zero SSID. The theory behind destination SSID digipeating is
described in more detail in the APRSdos README, MIC-E.TXT. Basically, the idea is to
minimize packet lengths and to have the manager of the WIDE APRS digipeater determine the
most appropriate directional digipeat paths, removing the burden from the mobile user.
Aprsdigi also fits into a non WIDEn-n network by using the same algorithm for selection of
subset of digipeaters from a list supplied with the --digipath option as the MIC-E. That
is, SSIDs of 1, 2 or 3 select that number of digipeaters from the first three digipeaters
in the --digipath list. SSIDs of 4, 5, 6, or 7, start at the fourth digipeater in the
list.
FLOODING ALIASES
APRS flooding (WIDEn-n) digipeating works by repeating any received packet whose next hop
digipeater has a flooding alias (specified with the --flood option), and the SSID is 1 or
greater. The SSID is decremented by one, and the packet is repeated. Furthermore, to
prevent broadcast storms, recently transmitted packets are remembered for a period of time
specified by the --keep option and are not repeated if they are heard within that time
period.
Unlike conventional digipeating, in which the digipeater callsign/alias is flagged as
“repeated”, the flooding mode does not do this. Once the SSID decrements to zero, then a
flooding alias is treated just like any other alias, and does get marked as repeated upon
transmission.
TRACE and TRACEn-n ALIASES
“Flooding” Trace aliases (TRACEn-n; --trace option) are treated like flooding aliases with
the addition that, besides decrementing the SSID, the current interface's callsign is
inserted in front of the trace alias, providing a record-route function. “Plain” trace
aliases (TRACE; also --trace option) are simply substituted in the conventional (
--subst_mycall ) manner.
MULTI PORT OPERATION
In single port operation, there is only one interface specified with --interface. All
packets are received and some are retransmitted on the same interface, depending on
whether they match the criteria for retransmission after translation of the digpeater path
from one of the APRS-specific formats:
• Mic-E TO-call SSID-based route.
• WIDEn-n/TRACEn-n flooding.
or a conventional next-hop (non-repeated) digipeater matching the callsign or one of the
aliases for the interface.
The decision to transmit is made by matching the next hop callsign/alias with the table of
callsigns and aliases you supply to --interface.
In multi-port operation, this same technique simply extends to several interfaces.
Besides each interface's unique callsign, you can give the same alias to several
interfaces. This results in a one-to-many fanout which might be useful for dual frequency
operation such as a general use APRS net frequency and an event-specific frequency.
By using different flags for Mic-E expansions, etc. you can tailor these fanouts
differently on each of these interfaces, perhaps keeping Mic-E packets compressed on one
frequency while decompressing them on another.
DUPLICATING PACKETS
The --dupe intf option will duplicate a packet received on one interface to the interface
name given. If you want to duplicate to several other interface, repeat --dupe intf for
each interface. The packet is duplicated verbatim as received. No callsign substitution,
flooding or other processing or checking such as whether the packet still has any non-
repeated digipeaters in the list is checked. This feature is meant to provide a means to
simply repeat received packets verbatim, on an RF interface, for example, out an interface
that might be an Ethernet, that has APRS client applications running on it (or aprsd
listening on a UDP interface). Digipeating without the normal processing can be dangerous
since the digipeater list is never used up. Because of this, packets received on a given
interface will never be blindly duplicated back to the same interface, regardless of the
option setting.
TRACE vs. TRACEN-N
Note that TRACEn-n vs. plain TRACE do different things: TRACEn-n *inserts* calls into the
digipath while decrementing ssid, e.g.:
RELAY*,TRACE3-3
RELAY,N2YGK-7*,TRACE3-2
RELAY,N2YGK-7,WB2ZII*,TRACE3-1
RELAY,N2YGK-7,WB2ZII,N2MH-15*,TRACE3
RELAY,N2YGK-7,WB2ZII,N2MH-15,WA2YSM-14*
KILLING LOOPING PACKETS
Kill looping packets (--kill_loops option):
RELAY*,WIDE,WIDE,WIDE
RELAY,N2YGK-7*,WIDE,WIDE
RELAY,N2YGK-7,WIDE*,WIDE
Normally n2ygk-7 would respond to this, but, by finding one of mycall earlier in the path,
I know to ignore it.
EXAMPLES
Following is a sample invocation of aprsdigi running on two ports. This is a contrived
example that tries to show all the features. Comments to the right describe each feature.
aprsdigi \
--verbose \ # verbose
--north "N2YGK-2 WB2ZII WA2YSM-14" \ # North digi path
--south "N2YGK-3 WB2ZII WA2JNF-4" \ # South ...
--east "N2YGK-3 WB2ZII KD1LY" \ # East ...
--west "N2YGK-2 WB2ZII N2MH-15" \ # West ...
--flood "WIDE" \ # WIDEn-n flooding
--trace "TRACE" \ # TRACEn-n tracing
--kill_dupes \ # kill dupes
--kill_loops \ # kill loops
--mice_xlate \ # do Mic-E translation
--subst_mycall \ # do callsign substituton
--tag " via 147.06 (WB2ZII/R)" \ # add this tag to rec'd pkts
--nobud "ax25:NOCALL" \ # ignore pkts from NOCALL
--dupe udp:233.0.14.100 \ # dupe everything heard
--int ax25:sm0:RELAY,WIDE,TRACE \ # ax25 soundmodem intf
--nomice_xlate \ # turn off Mic-E translation
--x1j4_xlate \ # do X1J4 translation
--nosubst_mycall \ # turn off callsign subst.
--tag - \ # clear the tag
--int ax25:ax0:RELAY,WIDE,FOO,TRACE \ # ax25 ax0 intf.
--bud - \ # clear the budlist
--bud ip:128.59.39.150/32 \ # allow only from this IP host
--int udp:233.0.14.99/12345/16:N2YGK-4,RELAY,WIDE,TRACE \ # multicast
--int udp:233.0.14.100/12345/16:N2YGK-5 # to this mcast group
opening UDP socket on 233.0.14.99/12345/16
UDP address info: family 2 type 2 proto 17 next 0x0
Linux APRS(tm) digipeater
Copyright (c) 1996,1997,1999,2001,2002,2003 Alan Crosswell, n2ygk@weca.org
Version: aprsdigi aprsdigi-2.4.3
This is free software covered under the GNU General Public License.
There is no warranty. See the file COPYING for details.
# configuration:
budlist 1 deny NOCALL/48
budlist 2 permit 128.59.39.150/32
interface ax25:sm0
callsign N2YGK-2
alias RELAY
alias WIDE
alias TRACE
option SUBST_MYCALL on
option MICE_XLATE on
option X1J4_XLATE off
option I_TX on
option I_RX on
option I_TXSAME on
option idinterval 570 #(09:30)
option tag via 147.06 (WB2ZII/R)
budlist 1
interface ax25:ax0
callsign N2YGK-3
alias RELAY
alias WIDE
alias FOO
option SUBST_MYCALL off
option MICE_XLATE off
option X1J4_XLATE on
option I_TX on
option I_RX on
option I_TXSAME on
option idinterval 570 #(09:30)
option tag #(none)
budlist 2
interface udp:233.0.14.99
callsign N2YGK-4
alias RELAY
alias WIDE
alias FOO
option SUBST_MYCALL off
option MICE_XLATE off
option X1J4_XLATE on
option I_TX on
option I_RX on
option I_TXSAME off
option idinterval 570 #(09:30)
option tag #(none)
budlist 2
# end of configuration
My callsigns and aliases (routing table):
Callsign Interfaces...
N2YGK-2 sm0
RELAY sm0 ax0 233.0.14.99
WIDEn-n sm0 ax0 233.0.14.99
TRACEn-n sm0
N2YGK-3 ax0
FOO ax0 233.0.14.99
N2YGK-4 233.0.14.99
SSID-based directional routing:
N: N2YGK-2 WB2ZII WA2YSM-14
S: N2YGK-3 WB2ZII WA2JNF-4
E: N2YGK-3 WB2ZII KD1LY
W: N2YGK-2 WB2ZII N2MH-15
keep dupes for: 28 seconds
log file: (none)
kill dupes: ON loops: ON testing: OFF
BUGS
Aprsdigi should not be confused with a Wes Johnson's DOS program of the same name. This
code has most recently been tested with the Linux 2.4.20 kernel under Red Hat Fedora Core
1. The command line syntax is ugly and will eventually be replaced by a configuration
file. Short options are deprecated and will disappear in a future release. Please use
long options.
FILES
/etc/ax25/axports
SEE ALSO
call(1), listen(1), beacon(1), ax25(4), kissattach(8), ifconfig(8), aprsmon(1),
http://www.tapr.org
AUTHORS
Alan Crosswell, n2ygk@weca.org
APRS and the Mic-Encoder are Trademarks of APRS Engineering LLC.
25 February 2004 APRSDIGI(8)