Setup Guide

Before you begin with the actual installation, please have a quick look at the supported hardware page to make sure you are good to go.

There are a few basic ways of setting up an OpenWebRX receiver which you can choose from. The instructions are different for each method, so please stick to your choice. Picking steps from other instructions will probably not work or improve your results.

When you are done with the basic installation, feel free to continue to the configuration guide.

If you run into trouble, please check out the FAQ / Troubleshooting section.

Raspberry Pi SD card images

The most convenient way is to set up a Raspberry Pi based system, all you need is a spare SD card.

You can browse the available images here.

A few notes about the images (all those apply to Raspberry Pi OS, too):

• The default user "pi" no longer exists. Please use the included agent, the Raspberry Pi imager or other available methods to create your own user and password combination.
• The default keyboard layout is "gb", so keys might be in an unusual location (depending on what you're used to).
• The ssh server is disabled by default. If you want to enable it, put a file named ssh (no content needed) on the "boot" volume after flashing the image.
• You can use the official "raspi-config" tool to customize your system.
• Wi-Fi is initially disabled until you set your Wi-Fi location in raspi-config under Localisation Options > Change WLAN Country

Once you have booted a Raspberry with the SD Card, it will appear in your network with the hostname "openwebrx", which should make it available as https://openwebrx/ on most networks. This may vary depending on your specific setup.

For Digital voice, the minimum requirement right now seems to be a Raspberry Pi 3B+. I would like to work on optimizing this for lower specs, but at this point I am not sure how much can be done.

Package installation

We are providing package repositories for the Debian and Ubuntu Linux distributions that contain packages for OpenWebRX and most of its dependencies. There's also an experimental repository available which gives you access to the latest development updates.

Limitations:

• Latest version is available for Debian Bullseye or Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish. Packages are available for x86_64, armv7l and aarch64 architectures only (Yes, it will work on Raspberry Pi OS)
• Not all SDR drivers are available packaged in a repository, so device support is limited (see this table for details). Drivers and modules can still be installed manually, of course.
• The same applies to software, most notably WSJT-X, which is only available in version 2.0 on the Debian stable repository at this time. That means FT4 (which was added in 2.1) will not work until you replace it with a newer version from the WSJT-X homepage.

Please see the Debian or the Ubuntu repository pages for more instructions.

Docker Images

If you are familiar with Docker, this may be the easiest way to go for you. Images are built automatically and published to the docker hub, but it's up to you to pull the latest version.

Limited to x86_64, armv7l and aarch64.

Please check the basic guide for docker on how to get started.

Manual setup

This is for advanced users only, since it includes compiling a bunch of packages from source. This method however gives you the most flexibility, plus you get to choose what components to install on your system.

Recommended only if you want to develop for OpenWebRX, or if none of the methods above work for you.

Manual setup instructions