Version 1.7 - October 2023

New Documentation:

Additional documentation location to slow down growth of main repository. https://github.com/wb2osz/dire
wolf-doc . These are more oriented toward achieving a goal and
understanding, as opposed to the User Guide which describes the functionality.

• APRS Digipeaters

• Internal Packet Routing

• Radio Interface Guide

• Successful IGate Operation

• Understanding APRS Packets

New Features:

• New ICHANNEL configuration option to map a KISS client application channel to APRS-IS. Packets from APRS
  -IS will be presented to client applications as the specified channel. Packets sent, by client application
  s, to that channel will go to APRS-IS rather than a radio channel. Details in Internal-Packet-Routing.
  pdf.

• New variable speed option for gen_packets. For example, "-v 5,0.1" would generate packets from 5% too s
  low to 5% too fast with increments of 0.1. Some implementations might have imprecise timing. Use this to
  test how well TNCs tolerate sloppy timing.

• Improved Layer 2 Protocol (IL2P). Com
  patible with Nino TNC for 1200 and 9600 bps. Use "-I 1" on command line to enable transmit for first chan
  nel. For more general case, add to config file (simplified version, see User Guide for more details):

  After: "CHANNEL 1" (or other channel)

  Add: "IL2PTX 1"

• Limited support for CM108/CM119 GPIO PTT on Windows.

• Dire Wolf now advertises itself using DNS Service Discovery. This allows suitable APRS / Packet Radio a
  pplications to find a network KISS TNC without knowing the IP address or TCP port. Thanks to Hessu for
  providing this. Currently available only for Linux and Mac OSX. [Read all about it here.](https://github
  .com/hessu/aprs-specs/blob/master/TCP-KISS-DNS-SD.md)

• The transmit calibration tone (-x) command line option now accepts a radio channel number and/or a singl
  e letter mode: a = alternate tones, m = mark tone, s = space tone, p = PTT only no sound.

• The BEACON configuration now recognizes the SOURCE= option. This replaces the AX.25 source address rath
  er than using the MYCALL value for the channel. This is useful for sending more than 5 analog telemetry c
  hannels. Use two, or more, source addresses with up to 5 analog channels each.

• For more flexibility, the FX.25 transmit property can now be set individually by channel, rather than ha
  ving a global setting for all channels. The -X on the command line applies only to channel 0. For other
  channels you need to add a new line to the configuration file. You can specify a specific number of parit
  y bytes (16, 32, 64) or 1 to choose automatically based on packet size.

  After: "CHANNEL 1" (or other channel)

  Add: "FX25TX 1" (or 16 or 32 or 64)

Bugs Fixed:

• The t/m packet filter incorrectly included bulletins. It now allows only "messages" to specific station
  s. Use of t/m is discouraged. i/180 is the preferred filter for messages to users recently heard locally
  .

• Packet filtering now skips over any third party header before classifying packet types.

• Fixed build for Alpine Linux.

Notes:

The Windows binary distribution now uses gcc (MinGW) version 11.3.0.
The Windows version is built for both 32 and 64 bit operating systems.
Use the 64 bit version if possible; it runs considerably faster.

Version 1.7 -- Development Snapshot A -- March 2021

Version 1.7 -- Development Snapshot A -- March 2021

New Feature:

• CM108/119 GPIO PTT is now available for Windows. Simply specify "PTT cm108" in the channel configuration section.

Notes:

This is a development snapshot that has not gone through the same amount of testing as a normal release. New features may be incomplete. Documentation may be lagging behind new functionality.

The Windows binary distribution is in the direwolf-1.7.0- *.zip files below. The Windows version is built for both 32 and 64 bit operating systems. Use the 64 bit version if possible; it runs considerably faster.

Version 1.6 - October 2020

Version 1.6 -- October 2020

New Build Procedure:

• Rather than trying to keep a bunch of different platform specific Makefiles in sync, "cmake" is now used for greater portability and easier maintenance.

• README.md has a quick summary of the process. More details in the User Guide.

New Features:

• "-X" option enables FX.25 transmission. FX.25 reception is always enabled so you don't need to do anything special. "What is FX.25?" you might ask. It is forward error correction (FEC) added in a way that is completely compatible with an ordinary AX.25 frame. See new document AX25_plus_FEC_equals_FX25.pdf for details.

• Receive AIS location data from ships. Enable by using "-B AIS" command line option or "MODEM AIS" in the configuration file. AIS NMEA sentences are encapsulated in APRS user-defined data with a "{DA" prefix. This uses 9600 bps so you need to use wide band audio, not what comes out of the speaker. There is also a "-A" option to generate APRS Object Reports.

• Receive Emergency Alert System (EAS) Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME). Enable by using "-B EAS" command line option or "MODEM EAS" in the configuration file. EAS SAME messages are encapsulated in APRS user-defined data with a "{DE" prefix. This uses low speed AFSK so speaker output is fine.

• "-t" option now accepts more values to accommodate inconsistent handling of text color control codes by different terminal emulators. The default, 1, should work with most modern terminal types. If the colors are not right, try "-t 9" to see the result of the different choices and pick the best one. If none of them look right, file a bug report and specify: operating system version (e.g. Raspbian Buster), terminal emulator type and version (e.g. LXTerminal 0.3.2). Include a screen capture.

• "-g" option to force G3RUH mode for lower speeds where a different modem type may be the default.

• 2400 bps compatibility with MFJ-2400. See 2400-4800-PSK-for-APRS-Packet-Radio.pdf for details

• "atest -h" will display the frame in hexadecimal for closer inspection.

• Add support for Multi-GNSS NMEA sentences.

Bugs Fixed:

• Proper counting of frames in transmit queue for AGW protocol 'Y' command.

New Documentation:

• AX.25 + FEC = FX.25

• AIS Reception

• AX.25 Throughput: Why is 9600 bps Packet Radio only twice as fast as 1200?

• Ham Radio of Things (HRoT) - IoT over Ham Radio

• EAS SAME to APRS Message Converter

• Dire Wolf PowerPoint Slide Show

Notes:

The Windows binary distribution (direwolf-1.60- *.zip files below) now uses gcc (MinGW) version 7.4.0. The Windows version is built for both 32 and 64 bit operating systems. Use the 64 bit version if possible; it runs considerably faster.

Version 1.5 - October 2018

Version 1.5 -- October 2018

New Features:

• PTT using GPIO pin of CM108/CM119 (e.g. DMK URI, RB-USB RIM), Linux only.

• More efficient error recovery for AX.25 connected mode. Better generation and processing of REJ and SREJ to reduce unnecessary duplicate "I" frames.

• New configuration option, "V20", for listing stations known to not understand AX.25 v2.2. This will speed up connection by going right to SABM and not trying SABME first and failing.

• New "NOXID" configuration file option to avoid sending XID command to listed station(s). If other end is a partial v2.2 implementation, which recognizes SABME, but not XID, we would waste a lot of time resending XID many times before giving up. This is less drastic than the "V20" option which doesn't even attempt to use v2.2 with listed station(s).

• New application "kissutil" for troubleshooting a KISS TNC or interfacing to an application via files.

• KISS "Set Hardware" command to report transmit queue length.

• TCP KISS can now handle multiple concurrent applications.

• Linux can use serial port for KISS in addition to a pseudo terminal.

• decode_aprs utility can now accept KISS frames and AX.25 frames as series of two digit hexadecimal numbers.

• Full Duplex operation. (Put "FULLDUP ON" in channel section of configuration file.)

• Time slots for beaconing.

• Allow single log file with fixed name rather than starting a new one each day.

Bugs Fixed:

• Possible crash when CDIGIPEAT did not include the optional alias.

• PACLEN configuration item no longer restricts length of received frames.

• Strange failures when trying to use multiple KISS client applications over TCP. Only Linux was affected.

• Under certain conditions, outgoing connected mode data would get stuck in a queue and not be transmitted. This could happen if client application sends a burst of data larger than the "window" size (MAXFRAME or EMAXFRAME option).

• Little typographical / spelling errors in messages.

Documentation:

• New document Bluetooth-KISS-TNC.pdf explaining how to use KISS over Bluetooth.

• Updates describing cheap SDR frequency inaccuracy and how to compensate for it.

Notes:

Windows binary distribution now uses gcc (MinGW) version 6.3.0.

How to install on Linux:

git clone http://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
make
sudo make install

How to install on Windows:

Download direwolf-1.5-win.zip (the file with "win" in its name) and extract the files. Run direwolf.exe in a command window. See User Guide for more details.

How to install on Macintosh OS X

Read the User Guide in the doc directory. It is a lot more complicated than Linux.

If you have any questions, post a message to the Dire Wolf packet TNC discussion group. I don't have a Mac and probably won't be able to help you. I rely on others, in the user community, for the Mac version support.

Version 1.5 -- Beta Test 4 -- September 2018

Fix for a different case of issue 132.

Version 1.5 -- Beta Test 3 -- July 2018

Version 1.5 -- Beta Test 3 -- July 2018

Bugs Fixed:

• Issue 132 - Under certain conditions, outgoing connected mode data would get stuck in a queue and not be transmitted. This could happen if client application sends a burst of data larger than the "window" size (MAXFRAME or EMAXFRAME option).

New Features:

• "NOXID" configuration file option to avoid sending XID command to listed station(s). If other end is a partial v2.2 implementation, which recognizes SABME, but not XID, we would waste a lot of time resending XID many times before giving up. This is less drastic than the "V20" option which doesn't even attempt to use v2.2 with listed station(s).

Notes:

Windows binary distribution now uses gcc (MinGW) version 6.3.0.

How to install on Linux:

git clone http://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
git checkout 1.5-beta3
make
sudo make install

How to install on Windows:

Download direwolf-1.5-beta3-win.zip (the file with "win" in its name) and extract the files. Run direwolf.exe in a command window. See User Guide for more details.

How to install on Macintosh OS X

Read the User Guide in the doc directory. It is a lot more complicated than Linux.

If you have any questions, post a message to the Dire Wolf packet TNC discussion group. I don't have a Mac and probably won't be able to help you. I rely on others, in the user community, for the Mac version support.

1.5-beta2

Version 1.5 -- Beta Test 2 -- May 2018

Bugs Fixed:

• Strange failures when trying to use multiple KISS client applications over TCP.
• Better error messages.

How to install on Linux:

git clone http://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
git checkout 1.5-beta2
make
sudo make install

How to install on Windows:

Download direwolf-1.5-beta2-win.zip (the file with "win" in its name) and extract the files. See User Guide for more details.

Version 1.5 - Beta Test - January 2018

New Features:

• PTT using GPIO pin of CM108/CM119 (e.g. DMK URI, RB-USB RIM), Linux only.

• More efficient error recovery for AX.25 connected mode. Better generation and processing of REJ and SREJ to reduce unnecessary duplicate I frames.

• New configuration option, V20, for listing stations known to not understand AX.25 v2.2. This will speed up connection by going right to SABM and not trying SABME first and failing.

• New application "kissutil" for troubleshooting a KISS TNC or interfacing to an application via files.

• KISS "Set Hardware" command to report transmit queue length.

• TCP KISS can now handle multiple concurrent applications.

• Linux can use serial port for KISS in addition to a pseudo terminal.

• decode_aprs utility can now accept KISS frames and AX.25 frames as series of two digit hexadecimal numbers.

• Full Duplex operation. (Put "FULLDUP ON" in channel section of configuration file.)

• Time slots for beaconing.

• Allow single log file with fixed name rather than starting a new one each day.

Bugs Fixed:

• Possible crash when CDIGIPEAT did not include the optional alias.

• PACLEN configuration item no longer restricts length of received frames.

• Little typographical / spelling errors in messages.

Documentation:

• New document Bluetooth-KISS-TNC.pdf explaining how to use KISS over Bluetooth.

• Updates describing cheap SDR frequency inaccuracy and how to compensate for it.

How to install on Linux:

git clone http://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
git checkout 1.5-beta
make
sudo make install

How to install on Windows:

Download direwolf-1.5-beta-win.zip (the file with "win" in its name) and extract the files. See User Guide for more details.

Version 1.4 - April 2017

Version 1.4 -- April 2017

New Features:

• AX.25 v2.2 connected mode. See chapter 10 of User Guide for details.

• New client side packet filter to select "messages" only to stations that have been heard nearby recently. This is now the default if no IS to RF filter is specified.

• New beacon type, IBEACON, for sending IGate statistics.

• Expanded debug options so you can understand what is going on with packet filtering.

• Added new document Successful-APRS-IGate-Operation.pdf with IGate background, configuration, and troubleshooting tips.

• 2400 & 4800 bps PSK modems. See 2400-4800-PSK-for-APRS-Packet-Radio.pdf in the doc directory for discussion.

• The top speed of 9600 bps has been increased to 38400. You will need a sound card capable of 96k or 192k samples per second for the higher rates. Radios must also have adequate bandwidth. See Going-beyond-9600-baud.pdf in the doc directory for more details.

• Better decoder performance for 9600 and higher especially for low audio sample rate to baud ratios.

• Generate waypoint sentences for use by AvMap G5 / G6 or other mapping devices or applications. Formats include

• $GPWPL - NMEA generic with only location and name.

• $PGRMW - Garmin, adds altitude, symbol, and comment to previously named waypoint.

• $PMGNWPL - Magellan, more complete for stationary objects.

• $PKWDWPL - Kenwood with APRS style symbol but missing comment.

• DTMF tones can be sent by putting "DTMF" in the destination address, similar to the way that Morse Code is sent.

• Take advantage of new 'gpio' group and new /sys/class/gpio ownership in Raspbian Jessie.

• Handle more complicated gpio naming for CubieBoard, etc.

• More flexible dw-start.sh start up script for both GUI and CLI environments.

Bugs Fixed:

• The transmitter (PTT control) was being turned off too soon when sending Morse Code.

• The -qd (quiet decode) command line option now suppresses errors about improperly formed Telemetry packets.

• Longer tocall.txt files can now be handled.

• Sometimes kissattach would have an issue with the Dire Wolf pseudo terminal. This showed up most often on Raspbian but sometimes occurred with other versions of Linux.

  kissattach: Error setting line discipline: TIOCSETD: Device or resource busy
  Are you sure you have enabled MKISS support in the kernel
  or, if you made it a module, that the module is loaded?

• Sometimes writes to a pseudo terminal would block causing the received
  frame processing thread to hang. The first thing you will notice is that
  received frames are not being printed. After a while this message will appear:

  Received frame queue is out of control. Length=... Reader thread is probably
  frozen. This can be caused by using a pseudo terminal (direwolf -p) where
  another application is not reading the frames from the other side.

• -p command line option caused segmentation fault with glibc >= 2.24.

• The Windows version 1.3 would crash when starting to transmit on Windows XP. There have also been some other reports of erratic behavior on Windows. The crashing problem was fixed in in the 1.3.1 patch release. Linux version was not affected.

• IGate did not retain nul characters in the information part of a packet. This should never happen with a valid APRS packet but there are a couple cases where it has. If we encounter these malformed packets, pass them along as-is, rather than truncating.

• Don't digipeat packets when the source is my call.

Version 1.3 -- May 2016

This is the same as version 1.3 beta test with a few minor documentation updates. If you already have 1.3 beta test version, there is no need to replace it with this.

Changes since version 1.2.

New Features:

• Support for Mac OS X.
• Many APRStt enhancements including: Morse code and speech responses to to APRStt tone sequences, new 5 digit callsign suffix abbreviation,
  position ambiguity for latitude and longitude in object reports
• APRS Telemetry Toolkit.
• GPS Tracker beacons are now available for the Windows version. Previously this was only in the Linux version.
• SATgate mode for IGate. Packets heard directly are delayed before being sent
  to the Internet Server. This favors digipeated packets because the original
  arrives later and gets dropped if there are duplicates.
• Added support for hamlib. This provides more flexible options for PTT control.
• Implemented AGW network protocol 'M' message for sending UNPROTO information without digipeater path.
• A list of all symbols available can be obtained with the -S
  command line option.
• Command line option "-a n" to print audio device statistics each n seconds. Previously this was always each 100 seconds on Linux and not available on Windows.

Bugs Fixed:

• Fixed several cases where crashes were caused by unexpected packet contents:
  • When receiving packet with unexpected form of GPS NMEA sentence.
  • When receiving packet with comment of a few hundred characters.
  • Address in path, from Internet server, more than 9 characters.
• "INTERNAL ERROR: dlq_append NULL packet pointer." when using PASSALL.
• In Mac OSX version: Assertion failed: (adev[a].inbuf_size_in_bytes >= 100 && adev[a].inbuf_size_in_bytes <= 32768), function audio_get, file audio_portaudio.c, line 917.
• Tracker beacons were not always updating the location properly.
• AGW network protocol now works properly for big-endian processors
  such as PowerPC or MIPS.
• Packet filtering treated telemetry metadata as messages rather than telemetry.

Known Problem:

• The Windows version in direwolf-1.3-win,zip crashes when starting to transmit on Windows XP. There have also been some other reports of erratic behavior on Windows. The crashing problem has been fixed in direwolf-1.3.1-win.zip. The original 1.3-win.zip file will be removed after it has been confirmed that the 1.3.1-win.zip version solves the problem .