Skip to content

ax25-apps

The programs you actually use over AX.25 once a port is up

What it does

The user-facing AX.25 programs: call for an interactive connection to another station, listen for watching raw traffic on a port, ax25ipd for tunnelling AX.25 over IP links, and ax25rtd for routing.

Why you would want it

listen alone justifies it. Watching the raw frames on a port is how every packet problem is actually diagnosed -- whether the TNC is keying, whether frames are malformed, whether anyone is hearing you -- and there is no substitute for seeing the traffic. call is the minimal way to prove a path works before blaming a terminal program.

Before it will work

A working AX.25 port from ax25-tools. Without one these programs have nothing to talk to.

How it installs

  • apt: ax25-apps

Known problems

Needs the kernel AX.25 stack, which Linux 7.1 removed (merge 64edfa65, 2026-04-24); on a 7.1 or newer kernel -- Kali rolling and Pop!_OS 24.04 on 7.1.5, measured 2026-09-04 -- the plan refuses or defers this unit by name. See ax25-tools and docs/reference/kernel-ax25.md. listen shows everything on the port including your own transmissions, which confuses a first diagnosis. ax25ipd links your local packet network to a wider one over the internet, which changes who can reach your station and is worth deciding deliberately rather than copying from an example configuration.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

The linux-ax25 project wiki.

Source: catalog/packages/ax25-apps.yaml