Remote Administration

[loch.ness.mustang]

What are the best practices for remotely operating and administering when the Pi isnt in the next room?  For example, when operating DigiPi as a digipeater or RMS Winlink gateway where the ability to remotely shutdown is imperative?

[Randall Luebke]

As an RMS gateway, you want to think of yourself as a "utility".  You want to offer your services to the public and your services need to be reliable and dependable.  Fortunately, the DigiPi is a very stable device.  It will almost certainly continue running without any intervention.  That said, there are still things you can do to improve its reliability and dependability.

First, you need to deal with backup power.  In my situation, I have a solar-powered home with 2 Tesla batteries.  With those batteries and because I live in sunny Southern California, I can literally run 24/7 off-grid.  If that is not your situation, you need to build up a supply of battery banks to supply power to your rig for hours or even days.

Next, even if your DigiPi is running perfectly and you don't have issues with power, what if your Internet goes down?  Again, due to my solar/battery setup, even when our neighborhood has experienced power outages, my Internet continued to work.  That said, to improve my situation more I purchased a Starlink Mini.  Running it on Standby mode provides all the speed I need to keep my RMS gateway running smoothly.

Now, sometimes the DigiPi may have an issue with your sound card.  I'm using an AIOC and, when it disconnects, I need to reboot the DigiPi.  This is not an issue when I'm home.  However, I travel a lot.  So, I've added remote access to another computer on my home network.  With this setup, I can log into that computer, access the DigiPi and reboot it as well as manage all the other DigiPi services remotely.  

To take it one step further, I have the power supply of my DigiPi plugged into a Smart Plug that I can access via Alexa.  With the smart plug I can force the DigiPi to shut down by turning off the power and, of course, when the power returns it will automatically reboot itself.

One last thing, the radio I use is a Baofeng AR-5RM.  It's battery-powered, so it has built-in backup power.  I do, of course, plug the radio into a wall charger as well.  

With this setup, I can manage my DigiPi from anywhere and, so far, I've been able to overcome any issues that develop.

[Craig]

spectacular advice!  especially for the remote-mountain-top deployment.

I might also add an automated reboot once a week in cron, I do that
on my remote installs.

Lastly a VPN would be ideal for real remote administration.

on an AX.25 node, you can use the telnet feature of the DigiPi bbs to
telnet into your system, login, and run commands over the radio.  be sure to change
your password afterwards :)

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[loch.ness.mustang]

Ive got lots of X-10 switches left over after converting to Hue; probably using that since Im not a fan of Alexa.

>> on an AX.25 node, you can use the telnet feature of the DigiPi bbs to

telnet into your system, login, and run commands over the radio.

I dont use telnet for much, so im unfamiliar with using it this way. Could you elaborate?

Somewhat related... If I ever do commit to starting an RMS gateway it will be a Pi with ethernet, since the wifi keeps popping up as a point of failure in my projects.

Thanks!

[Scott Sheppard]

I would enjoy seeing a you tube of this 

on an AX.25 node, you can use the telnet feature of the DigiPi bbs to
telnet into your system, login, and run commands over the radio.  be sure to change
your password afterwards :)

Thanks

Scott Sheppard

1702 Frazier Park Drive 

Decatur, GA 30033

732 861 3383 

sshe...@bellsouth.net

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On Sep 15, 2026, at 15:07, loch.ness.mustang <loch.nes...@gmail.com> wrote:

What are the best practices for remotely operating and administering when the Pi isnt in the next room?  For example, when operating DigiPi as a digipeater or RMS Winlink gateway where the ability to remotely shutdown is imperative?

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