How WPSD Manages Hostfiles¶
Every digital voice mode WPSD supports — DMR, D-Star, YSF, P25, NXDN, XLX, and APRS — relies on a hostfile: a plain text list mapping reflector/master names or numbers to IP addresses and ports. WPSD ships with, and automatically maintains, a master hostfile for each of these networks.
This page explains two things that trip people up constantly: why a hand-edited hostfile keeps reverting, and the supported way to add your own entries so they actually stick.
Important
If you’ve ever added a reflector or master by editing a hostfile directly over SSH, and found your change gone a day or two later, this page is for you. Nothing was broken — this is expected behavior, and there’s a persistent way to do what you were trying to do.
The master hostfiles are managed for you¶
WPSD periodically refreshes and prunes its master hostfiles — checking that every listed reflector/master actually responds before including it, and dropping entries that don’t. This keeps the lists you see in the dashboard dropdowns free of dead servers. See How WPSD Hostfiles Work — Why Did a Reflector I Use Disappear? for more on the availability-scrubbing side of this.
The practical consequence: anything you add by hand-editing a master hostfile file directly (over SSH or otherwise) will eventually be overwritten the next time WPSD refreshes that file. This isn’t a bug to work around — it’s what keeps thousands of WPSD installations pointed at a consistent, working list without you having to babysit it. But it also means hand-editing is the wrong tool if you want an entry to persist.
The supported way: Hosts File Editors¶
WPSD provides a dedicated place to add your own persistent entries, separate from the auto-managed master lists: Admin -> Advanced -> Hosts File Editors.
Menu location |
Editor |
What it edits |
|---|---|---|
Hosts File Editors -> DMR |
DMR Hosts |
Custom DMR masters (also documented here) |
Hosts File Editors -> DMR |
XLX Hosts |
Custom XLX reflectors |
Hosts File Editors -> D-Star |
CCS Hosts |
Custom CCS reflectors |
Hosts File Editors -> D-Star |
DCS Hosts |
Custom DCS reflectors |
Hosts File Editors -> D-Star |
DExtra Hosts |
Custom DExtra reflectors |
Hosts File Editors -> D-Star |
DPlus Hosts |
Custom D-Plus reflectors |
Hosts File Editors |
YSF Hosts |
Custom YSF reflectors |
Hosts File Editors |
P25 Hosts |
Custom P25 reflectors |
Hosts File Editors |
NXDN Hosts |
Custom NXDN reflectors |
Hosts File Editors |
APRS Hosts |
Custom APRS-IS servers |
Entries you add here are stored separately from the auto-managed master list and are not touched by the automatic hostfile refresh — they’ll still be there next week, next month, and after every update.
Once saved, your custom entries become available for selection alongside the standard master list — typically toward the bottom of the relevant dropdown on the Configuration page or the mode’s Manager page (e.g. a custom DMR master shows up in the “DMR+ / FreeDMR / HB-Link / Custom Hosts” section described in DMR Operation & Functionality).
Quick reference¶
Want an entry to survive reboots, updates, and the automatic hostfile refresh? Use Admin -> Advanced -> Hosts File Editors for the relevant mode.
Just editing a file directly over SSH because it seemed like the obvious place? Expect it to be overwritten. Use the editor above instead.
Editing the DMRGateway configuration file itself (rewrite rules, network definitions) is a separate, more advanced topic covered in DMRGateway Configuration File and DMRGateway Rewrite Rules — those files follow the same rule: changes made through the main Configuration page will overwrite hand edits, and Profiles are your recovery path if that happens to you.