Open PR DIGI Server

Operate packet-radio digipeater nodes from Claude (and other MCP clients).

An MCP server that exposes packet-radio digital nodes — (X)Net, PC/Flexnet, BPQ32 / LinBPQ — as structured tool calls. Instead of a sysop opening a telnet session per node, logging in, running L / D / FL / NODES / ROUTES, and parsing the output by eye, an LLM operator gets one typed tool per operation and can query or manage the whole network from a single conversation.

This is the generalized, open edition. It is config-driven — it ships with no station baked in. The original was developed for the IW2OHX station, which now serves as the reference deployment.

What it can do

• Diagnostics (read-only): L / D / FL / MH / NODES / ROUTES / PORTS / links / stats / heard-lists / IP & ARP tables — returned as text/JSON.
• On-demand route discovery (remote_run): reach any callsign — even one not in nodes.yaml. It reads every configured node's FlexNet-destination (D) and NetROM-destination (N) tables, ranks the candidate routes (FlexNet routes first, by cost; then NetROM, by hops then quality), connects over AX.25 (C) to the best (falling back to the next on failure), recognises the far node's family (from its MOTD, else V), and runs your command in that family's own command set.
• Management (guarded): parameter set, route/node add-del, link reset, port and CMS control, etc. Every state-changing / identity-changing / offline-taking command refuses to run unless called with an explicit confirmation flag that the LLM may set only after the human operator approves (see Safety).
• Node types & transports:
  • xnet — (X)Net telnet nodes ((X)Net V1.39 command set; the only type with the structured xnet_* write tools)
  • bpq / linbpq — BPQ32 (Windows) / LinBPQ (Linux), incl. PASSWORD sysop elevation
  • xnet_chained — AX.25-only nodes reached via C <call> from a transit node (single- or multi-hop; first hop may be (X)Net or BPQ/LinBPQ). PC/Flexnet lives here — it has no telnet and a different command set from (X)Net, so it's driven via xnet_sys_command (see docs/tools.md), not the structured (X)Net tools.

(X)Net ≠ PC/Flexnet. They are distinct node families with different command sets. (X)Net is telnet-reachable; PC/Flexnet is packet-radio-only (chained).

How it connects

Each node is described in nodes.yaml. Two connection modes:

• Direct — connect straight to telnet_host:telnet_port (node on your LAN, or reachable over HAMNET / AMPRNet / the Internet). Just omit ssh_host.
• Via SSH jump host — set ssh_host (an alias from your ~/.ssh/config) and the telnet TCP channel is tunnelled over SSH. Handy when the nodes are only reachable from a gateway box.

Credentials live in your OS keyring (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / Linux Secret Service, via keyring), with an optional credentials.yaml fallback. Passwords are never stored in the node inventory and never committed.

Install

Requires Python 3.10+.

pip install "git+https://github.com/onionuser79/Open-PR-DIGI-MCP-Server-for-Claude-AI"
# or, for a local dev checkout:
git clone https://github.com/onionuser79/Open-PR-DIGI-MCP-Server-for-Claude-AI
cd Open-PR-DIGI-MCP-Server-for-Claude-AI
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quickstart

mkdir -p ~/.config/pr-digi-mcp
cp config/nodes.example.yaml       ~/.config/pr-digi-mcp/nodes.yaml
cp config/credentials.example.yaml ~/.config/pr-digi-mcp/credentials.yaml
chmod 600 ~/.config/pr-digi-mcp/credentials.yaml
# 1. edit nodes.yaml     — your callsigns, hosts, types, ssh_host (optional)
# 2. set passwords       — OS keyring (preferred) or credentials.yaml
# 3. run the server
pr-digi-mcp

Then point your MCP client (e.g. Claude Desktop / Claude Code) at the pr-digi-mcp command — see docs/mcp-clients.md for ready-to-copy Claude Desktop / Claude Code configs. Smoke-test a single node without an MCP client:

pr-digi-mcp test N0CALL-14        # connect + run a read-only command

Safety & authorization

This tool can send sysop-level commands to live amateur-radio infrastructure.

• Only operate nodes you are authorized to operate.
• Dangerous commands are gated behind an explicit confirm=true that the model must not set without human approval.
• You are responsible for compliance with your license conditions and national regulations. The software is provided "as is" (see LICENSE, MIT).

Credits

Developed for the IW2OHX digital station (the reference deployment) and generalized for anyone to run.

Docs: docs/tools.md — supported node types + the full 81-tool catalog · docs/onboarding-nodes.md — access prerequisites, credential storage, and how to onboard/offboard a node · docs/remote-access.md — optional authenticated (HTTP) remote access · DESIGN.md — architecture · CONTRIBUTING.md · PLAN.md — roadmap.

Let Claude Code drive it — the repo ships .claude/skills/: onboard-pr-digi / offboard-pr-digi (add/remove nodes) and setup-remote-access (enable authenticated HTTP + bearer token), each walking you through the steps.