Pat Config with Direwolf

[Sanjeev Taran]

Hello,

Looking for help from this esteemed group. I am trying to use pat with direwolf and want to use the kiss packets over port 8001 instead of the serial interface that uses hard-wired ax.25 network method. Can someone please share the pat.config file that does the bindings. Also, I assume you don't need axports setup with this configuration? Please advise. Thanks.

-Sanjeev

[Rich Sahlender]

The kernel ax25 stack has or is soon being removed so I suggest avoiding
the axports and related configurations. Unless something changed you
will likely need to use AGWPE rather than raw KISS.

In your direwolf config set AGWPORT 8001.

In your pat config.json set engine to agwpe in the ax25 section and set
addr to 127.0.0.1:8001 in the agwpe section. Adjust 127.0.0.1 as needed
for your environment.

That is what works for me on Debian based systems.

73 de Rich WA3WLH

[Mikel Berrocal]

Hello all,
I have just reinstalled pat on a debian server after a while.
There is anyway to configure both telnet and direwolf? something like defining both ports ax25 and agwpe
My config now is:

...  

"listen": [
    "telnet"
  ],

....

"ax25": {

    "engine": "linux",
    "rig": "",
    "beacon": {
      "every": 3600,
      "message": "Winlink P2P",
      "destination": "IDENT"
    }
  },
 
  "ax25_linux": {
    "port": "wl2k"
  },
 
  "agwpe": {
    "addr": "127.0.0.1:8002",
    "radio_port": 0
  },
...

Thanks in advance

73 de Mikel EA2CW

[LA5NTA]

Yes, the recommended Direwolf interface is AGWPE.

Please note that specifying `AGWPORT 8001` in direwolf's configuration file should not be necessary. The AGWPE interface is enabled by default on port 8000, which is also the default in Pat. So the *only* think you would need to change in pat's config is to set the ax25 engine to "agwpe". As for direwolf, you really only need to set the ADEVICE property to specify which soundcard to use. That's it really, everything else should work with the defaults :)

See https://github.com/la5nta/pat/wiki/AX.25-with-Direwolf for documentation.

-- 

73 de LA5NTA / Martin

[Sanjeev Taran]

Thank you. I will try agwpe. However, I was originally planning to use kiss tcp to connect to dire wolf. My understanding is that it does not use Linux kernel ax.25 subsystem.
Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 30, 2026, at 5:42 AM, Rich Sahlender <rsahl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The kernel ax25 stack has or is soon being removed so I suggest avoiding the axports and related configurations. Unless something changed you will likely need to use AGWPE rather than raw KISS.

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[Craig]

KISS interface requires "kissattach" to lash direwolf  to the Linux kernel AX.25 network stack.
This is what digipi does sanjeev, if you look in direwolf.tnc.sh.   kissattach creates the
Linux ax0 network interface, giving us not only ax.25 but also IP-over-ax25.  All of this
is deliberately wiped out in Linux kernel 7.1.

Unfortuantely agwpe doesn't help with AX.25 servers, ax25d, bbs, etc.  It's really for
client-side ax.25 software (I'm really hoping somebody can refute this at some point).

By default, direwolf has agwpe on 8000, and kiss on 8001.

When the time comes, DigiPi continue to ship ax.25 with the 7.1 Linux kernel, compiled
out-of-tree.

if it helps,
-craig
KM6LYW

[Corey Minyard]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2026 at 1:55 PM Craig <edfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

KISS interface requires "kissattach" to lash direwolf  to the Linux kernel AX.25 network stack.
This is what digipi does sanjeev, if you look in direwolf.tnc.sh.   kissattach creates the
Linux ax0 network interface, giving us not only ax.25 but also IP-over-ax25.  All of this
is deliberately wiped out in Linux kernel 7.1.

Yes, that software was a mess and nobody was maintaining it.  Plus the kernel is just not the right place for that software.

 

Unfortuantely agwpe doesn't help with AX.25 servers, ax25d, bbs, etc.  It's really for
client-side ax.25 software (I'm really hoping somebody can refute this at some point).

agwpe can work with a server.  It can make or receive connections.  But the software has to be able to use the agwpe protocol.  I believe it can receive connections with Pat, though I haven't tried it.

direwolf also has a kiss interface.  So if you have anything that's designed to talk kiss over the network, they should be able to use it.

If they will only talk to kiss to a real serial port, there are tools that can create a PTY and translate that to kiss.

If you need IP over AX25, it wouldn't be too hard to create a non-kernel program with that capability.

By default, direwolf has agwpe on 8000, and kiss on 8001.

When the time comes, DigiPi continue to ship ax.25 with the 7.1 Linux kernel, compiled
out-of-tree.

They are going to have to move on at some point.

 

-corey - AE5KM

 

if it helps,
-craig
KM6LYW

On 7/30/26 11:07, Sanjeev Taran wrote:

Thank you. I will try agwpe. However, I was originally planning to use 
kiss tcp to connect to dire wolf. My understanding is that it does not 
use Linux kernel ax.25 subsystem. 
Sent from my iPhone

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[Sanjeev Taran]

Craig, 

I thought kiss tcp allows client applications to send and receive raw KISS frames directly over a standard TCP network connection without requiring kiss attach. The ax25 support is built into direwolf and does not require kernel support. Is that not the case? 

Sent from my iPhone

[Corey Minyard]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2026 at 2:20 PM Sanjeev Taran <sanjee...@gmail.com> wrote:

Craig, 

I thought kiss tcp allows client applications to send and receive raw KISS frames directly over a standard TCP network connection without requiring kiss attach.

You are correct.  Craig is talking about attaching a kiss interface to the kernel code.

 

The ax25 support is built into direwolf and does not require kernel support. Is that not the case? 

It does not require kernel support.  Well, no more than any other standard userland program.

-corey

 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 30, 2026, at 11:55 AM, Craig <edfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

KISS interface requires "kissattach" to lash direwolf  to the Linux kernel AX.25 network stack.

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[Craig]

right, if you just need KISS,  8001/tcp with direwolf is good to go!

the linux kernel however wants a pty/serial device to create an ax0 network interface,
then you get the benefits of Linux networking which enslaves the KISS device
for the data-link layer, and all that. 

Getting off topic, but, I'd really like to know how to run uronode, convers, etc using AGWPE and
not Linux ax25, or run any arbitrary Linux command using AGWPE on the server side with
direwolf.


cool,
-craig
KM6LYW

[Craig]

and moving this back on topic, is it possible to run pat in "listen" mode with an AGWPE
connection, so it serves peer connections to calling clients?  I can't yet visualize how
to configure direwolf/agwpe to pass connections to pat --listen.

curiously,

-craig
KM6LYW

On 7/30/26 12:54, Corey Minyard wrote:

[Martin Hebnes Pedersen]

Yes, that is possible. Please see https://github.com/la5nta/pat/wiki/AX.25-with-Direwolf#listening-for-inbound-p2p-connections.

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Martin

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