DIREWOLF(1)

📦

version 1.8.1 · 7 versions

1.8.1 · alpine 3.24, fedora 43, fedora 44 (latest)
1.8.1-unstable-2026-05 · nixos 26.05
1.8.1-unstable-2026-09 · nixpkgs unstable
1.7 · fedora 43
1.6 · debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy
1.8.1 · ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking
1.7 · debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing

✨ DIREWOLF(1) ✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because this is the General Commands Manual page for direwolf, and she is that girl 💅

NAME

direwolf — Soundcard TNC for packet radio. 🎀

SYNOPSIS

direwolf [ options ] [ - | udp:9999 ]

so the first audio channel can be streamed thru stdin or a UDP port. this is typically used with an SDR receiver, no cap 🦋

DESCRIPTION

direwolf is a software "soundcard" modem/TNC and APRS encoder/decoder. she can be used stand-alone to receive APRS messages, as a digipeater, APRStt gateway, or Internet Gateway (IGate). 💖

she can also be used as a virtual TNC for other applications such as APRSIS32, UI-View32, Xastir, APRS-TW, YAAC, UISS, Linux AX25, SARTrack, RMS Express, and many others. literally the social butterfly of the radio world 🌸

OPTIONS

okay so here's the whole menu, don't skip anything, everything matters 💅

-c file — read the configuration file from the specified location rather than the default locations. choose your own adventure ✨
-l logdir — generate daily log files in the specified directory. use "." for the current directory. little diary entries, we love a routine 📔
-L logfile — generate a single log file with a fixed name. one big journal, main character energy 👑
-r n — audio sample rate per second for the first channel. default 44100. 🎧
-n n — number of audio channels for the first device. 1 or 2. default 1.
-b n — audio sample size for the first channel. 8 or 16. default 16.
-B n — data rate in bits/sec for the first channel. standard values are 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600.
- 300 bps defaults to AFSK tones of 1600 & 1800.
- 1200 bps uses AFSK tones of 1200 & 2200.
- 2400 bps uses QPSK based on V.26 standard.
- 4800 bps uses 8PSK based on V.27 standard.
- 9600 bps and up uses K9NG/G3RUH standard.
- AIS for ship Automatic Identification System.
- EAS for Emergency Alert System (EAS) Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME).
-g — force G3RUH modem regardless of data rate. she's committed, she's not checking the vibe first 🔥
-j — 2400 bps QPSK compatible with Dire Wolf <= 1.5. throwback era 🫶
-J — 2400 bps QPSK compatible with MFJ-2400.
-D n — divide audio sample by n for the first channel.
-X n — 1 to enable FX.25 transmit. 16, 32, 64 for specific number of check bytes.
-I n — enable IL2P transmit. n=1 is recommended. 0 uses weaker FEC.
-i n — enable IL2P transmit, inverted polarity. n=1 is recommended. 0 uses weaker FEC.
-d x — debug options. specify one or more of the following in place of x. 🐛 (the bug-hunting menu fr fr)
- a = AGWPE network protocol client.
- k = KISS serial port client.
- n = Network KISS client.
- u = Display non-ASCII text in hexadecimal.
- p = Packet dump in hexadecimal.
- g = GPS interface.
- W = Waypoints for position or object reports.
- t = Tracker beacon.
- o = Output controls such as PTT and DCD.
- i = IGate
- h = Hamlib verbose level. Repeat for more.
- m = Monitor heard station list.
- f = Packet filtering.
- x = FX.25 increase verbose level.
- d = APRStt (DTMF to APRS object conversion).
- 2 = IL2P.
-q x — Quiet (suppress output). specify one or more of the following in place of x. 🤫
- h = Heard line with the audio level.
- d = Decoding of APRS packets.
- x = Silence FX.25 information.
-t n — Text colors. 0=disabled. 1=default. 2,3,4,... alternatives. use 9 to test compatibility with your terminal. aesthetic check ✨🌈
-p — enable pseudo terminal for KISS protocol.
-x — send Xmit level calibration tones. 📡
- a = Alternating mark/space tones.
- m = steady Mark tone (e.g. 1200 Hz)
- s = steady Space tone (e.g. 2200 Hz)
- p = selence (set Ptt only).
- optionally add a number to specify radio channel.
-u — print UTF-8 test string and exit.
-S — print Symbol tables and exit.
-a n — report audio device statistics each n seconds. 📊
-T fmt — time stamp format for sent and received frames. ⏰
-e ber — receive Bit Error Rate (BER), e.g. 1e-5

EXAMPLES

okay so real talk, gqrx (2.3 and later) has the ability to send streaming audio through a UDP socket to another application for further processing. and direwolf can listen over a UDP port with options like this: 🦋

direwolf -n 1 -r 48000 -b 16 udp:7355

other SDR applications might produce audio on stdout so it's convenient to pipe into the next application. in this example, the final "-" means read from stdin. 😌

rtl_fm -f 144.39M -o 4 - | direwolf -n 1 -r 24000 -b 16 -