Installing BPQ on the Beaglebone Black and TNC-Black

Willem A. Schreüder AC0KQ

The BBB configuration is a bit more manual than the Raspberry Pi. So it takes a bit more work and probably requires a bit more Linux expertise than the rPi. However, in my opinion the BBB is cute as heck and I like it better, but that is just a personal preference.

Much more detailed about BPQ are provided at G8BPQ Home Page This page shows a mostly canned procedure to do this. You can use this as a starting point and then customize it.

If you want to use BPQ as an RMS gateway to WinLink, you need to obtain authorization from the WinLink folks. See this link on how to do that.

If you have any corrections or comments about this HOWTO, please email me.

Hardware

• The Beaglebone Black is available from several sources for about $50. If you want to use the TNC-Black as a daugter board (called a cape), use the Rev C version.
• The TNC-Black is available at Coastal Chipworks either built or as a kit. Get the kit, it is easy to build and lots of fun. The instructions are almost as good as the old Heathkit manuals.
• For most locations you need some sort of enclosure. I like this inclosure which expands to allow the TNC Black to peek out.
• The BBB runs on 5V. It has a barrel connector that I use to supply power, but you can also power it via the USB cable supplied.
• The BBB come with 4GB memory installed, but this is a bit tight for this application. You can install a Micro SD card which will provide more storage and can be replaced when it wears out. A high speed and reliable card is critical, so getting a 16GB Class 10 card is recommended. The bigger card should last longer since the wear is spread over a larger space. Get a spare since the cards do wear out eventually.
• Set the TNC-Black jumpers for UART1.

Software

• Download the firmware which is Debian for the Beaglebone Black. There are several other OS versions, but this was done using debian-wheezy (also called debian 7). I have had problems with debian-jessie (also called debian 8) which uses the 4.X kernel. For now I recommend you DO NOT use debian 8 with the BBB. Unpack the image and follow these instructions to burn the image to the SD card.
• Insert the card into the BB and boot it. You can either
• Connect a keyboard and monitor and log in directly.
• Connect the BB to a network running DHCP and ssh into it. The hostname will show up as beaglebone in the DHCP leases on your router.
• Log in to the computer using user name root and no password .
  • Expand the file system:
    • /opt/scripts/tools/grow_partition.sh
    • reboot
    • Log back in as root
  • Change the root password
    • passwd
  • Set time zone:
    • dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
  • Change the hostname
    • sed -i -e 's/beaglebone/newname/g' /etc/hostname /etc/hosts
• Update and install new packages
  • apt-get update
  • apt-get upgrade
  • apt-get install telnet unzip minicom
• Add new user with administrative privilidges
  • adduser username
  • adduser username sudo
• Enable /dev/ttyO1
  • echo "cape_enable=capemgr.enable_partno=BB-UART1" >> /boot/uEnv.txt
• Reboot and log back in as this new user

Install and configure BPQ

• Create the BPQ sub-directory
  • mkdir BPQ
  • cd BPQ
• Download getbpq and make it executable
  • wget http://www.prinmath.com/ham/getbpq
  • chmod a+x getbpq
• Run getbpq to download pilinbpq, the HTML pages and mkbpq
  • ./getbpq
• Configure BPQ file bpq32.cfg using mkbpq
  It writes bpq32.cfg based on the answers to the prompts.
  When run the first time it will create a few other files
  which you will need to run BPQ automatically.
  • ./mkbpq
• Move the executables made by mkbpq to /usr/local/bin
  • sudo mv bterm /usr/local/bin/
  • sudo mv bpq.service /lib/systemd/system/
• Start BPQ the first time
  It should give you some lines of output, but nothing should show up as an error.
  • sudo ./pilinbpq
• Configure the BBS
  • Connect to BPQ using your web browser by typing in
    http://X.X.X.X:8008/
    on the URL bar, where X.X.X.X is the IP address of your BPQ node
  • Click on Mail Server Pages
  • When prompted log in using the BPQ user name and password you supplied
  • Click on Configuration
  • Set BBS APPL No to 1
  • Set Streams to 32
  • Select Send System Msgs to SYSOP Call
  • Select Enable FBB UI System
  • Select Don't Request Name if you want.
  • Select Don't Request Home BBS if you want.
  • Select Forward Messages to BBS Call
  • Click Save
• Stop BPQ by hitting Ctrl-C in the window where you ran it
• Start BPQ again. This time it should give only good messages
  • sudo ./pilinbpq
• If everything works properly, set BPQ to run automatically
  • sudo systemctl enable bpq.service

Using BPQ

• You can connect to BPQ node from any computer on the LAN using
  • telnet X.X.X.X 8010
• Log in using your BPQ user name and password