System Manager

Admin -> System Manager exposes three low-level system services you can instantly enable or disable. It’s deliberately narrow in scope — this isn’t a general system-administration page, just these three toggles.

Note

This page has no “Mode is Disabled” gating like the other Manager pages — it’s always available regardless of what modes you have configured.

Firewall

Disables or re-enables WPSD’s built-in iptables-based firewall.

If your hotspot already sits behind a firewall you trust (a router, a dedicated appliance, etc.), you may prefer to disable WPSD’s own firewall permanently rather than manage two overlapping rule sets.

Adding your own firewall rules

If you want to keep WPSD’s firewall active but need to allow additional traffic through it (for example, a port used by some other tool you’re running on the hotspot — see the caution about third-party software in the FAQ), create /root/ipv4.fw containing standard iptables syntax:

iptables -A OUTPUT -p <proto> --dport <port> -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p <proto> --dport <port> -j ACCEPT

This file is automatically sourced and applied whenever the firewall is (re)enabled — you don’t need to run anything yourself after creating it, just toggle Firewall off and back on here (or reboot) to pick it up.

RF Remote Control

Enables or disables RF Remote Commands, which is best thought of as an RF kill switch for repeater keepers — a way to stop, restart, or reboot your hotspot/repeater from the radio side, with no dashboard or SSH access needed. It’s aimed squarely at repeater sysops who may need to intervene remotely without network access to the site; most personal-hotspot users can leave this off.

This toggle only turns the RF Remote Commands service on or off. The actual commands it listens for are configured separately, via Admin -> Advanced -> Full Editors -> RF Remote Commands.

How it works

RF Remote Commands doesn’t listen for DTMF — it watches your MMDVMHost (and, for YSF, YSFGateway) log files for RF transmissions from one specific, configured Keeper callsign, addressed to a specific, configured target ID/talkgroup/destination per mode. When it sees a match, it runs the corresponding action. It checks roughly every 30 seconds, so expect up to about a minute of delay between keying up and the action firing — this is not instant.

Only transmissions from the callsign set under [keeper] in the RF Remote Commands editor are recognized; anyone else keying up on the same target IDs is ignored.

Configuring it

Open Admin -> Advanced -> Full Editors -> RF Remote Commands. There’s a section per mode ([dmr], [d-star], [ysf], [p25]), each with its own set of commands and target values. You must set enabled=true under [enable] and your own callsign under [keeper] for any of this to do anything, in addition to toggling the service on here in System Manager.

Command

What it does

svckill

Stops MMDVMHost and the services watchdog. This is the actual “kill switch” — see the warning below.

svcrestart

Restarts MMDVMHost (and the relevant gateway service) — a soft bounce, not a full stop.

reboot

Reboots the underlying OS (shutdown -r now).

shutdown

Powers off the OS (shutdown -h now). Commented out/disabled by default.

hostfiles

Manually triggers a hostfile update. Not present in the default template — add it yourself under any mode’s section if you want it.

Each command’s value is what you key up to — the specific meaning differs by mode:

  • DMR: a private call to the configured DMR ID (defaults: svckill=9999999, svcrestart=9999998, reboot=9999997). DMR also supports an undocumented reconnect command (not in the default template) that reconnects Wi-Fi.

  • P25: an RF transmission to the configured talkgroup (defaults: svckill=65531, svcrestart=65532, reboot=65533).

  • YSF: attempting to connect to the configured number as if it were a reflector/room (defaults: svckill=99999, svcrestart=99998, reboot=99997) — the same “kerchunk a magic number” mechanic used for linking/unlinking YSF reflectors.

  • D-Star: your radio’s UR (destination) field set to a specific word rather than a number (defaults: svckill=SVCKILL, svcrestart=SVCRSTRT, reboot=REBOOTPI). D-Star is also the only mode that talks back — it sends a text acknowledgement over the air before acting (e.g. “Shutting down at keeper request”). D-Star additionally supports several undocumented, disabled-by-default query commands you can add yourself: getip, wifissid, and wifirssi reply with your hotspot’s current IP address, Wi-Fi SSID, and Wi-Fi signal strength as a text message, and 8Ball (shown commented out in the default template as #8Ball=8BALL) replies with a random Magic 8-Ball–style answer — a fun way to confirm the feature is alive, not a real system command.

Warning

svckill is a genuine kill switch, not a pause. It stops MMDVMHost entirely, and RF Remote Commands can only detect further RF commands (including svcrestart) while MMDVMHost is running — once you’ve killed it, you cannot bring it back over RF. Recovering requires dashboard, SSH, or physical access. Only wire this up if that’s actually the behavior you want.

WPSD Services Watchdog

Enables or disables the background watchdog that monitors WPSD’s services and restarts anything that’s crashed or hung.

Important

Leave this enabled under normal circumstances — it’s a big part of why WPSD hotspots tend to self-heal after transient glitches. You’ll see it automatically and temporarily disabled on its own whenever you pause a mode with the Instant Mode Manager — that’s expected, and it re-enables itself once every paused mode is resumed. Only disable it by hand here if you’re actively debugging something and don’t want the watchdog interfering.