tviitkar/sdrconnect repository overview

⁠SDRPlay SDRConnect

⁠Overview

This is an unofficial, containerized version of the SDRPlay SDRconnect⁠ server, built on a Debian base image. Although my first choice was Alpine Linux, I opted for Debian due to compatibility issues with the arm64 architecture on Alpine.

⁠Supported Architectures

• x86_64 (x64)
• aarch64 (arm64)

⁠Prerequisites

To allow the container to access the SDRPlay device, you need to grant read/write permissions to USB devices. Without this, you may encounter the following error when running the container:

libusb: error [get_usbfs_fd] libusb couldn't open USB device /dev/bus/usb/001/014, errno=13
libusb: error [get_usbfs_fd] libusb requires write access to USB device nodes

To fix this, create a custom udev rule to grant the necessary permissions. Run the following command to open a new udev rules file:

sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/99-sdrplay.rules

Add the following line to the file:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1df7", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3000", MODE="0666"

After saving the file, reload the udev rules to apply the changes:

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger

This ensures that the new udev rule is applied, allowing your container to access the SDRPlay device.

⁠How to Use

This guide assumes you are familiar with building, running, and managing Docker containers. Below are some basic guidelines to get you started with the SDRconnect container.

⁠Display help information

To view the available options and usage instructions for the SDRconnect container, run the following command:

docker run --rm -it local/sdrconnect --help

⁠Run with basic configuration

At a minimum, you need to provide the container with access to your SDRPlay device and map a port to allow access to the service. Here's an example:

docker run --rm -it \
  --name sdrconnect \
  --device /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb \
  -p 50000:50000 \
  local/sdrconnect:latest

⁠Define additional parameters

You can further customize the SDRconnect container by adding additional parameters. For example, the following command restricts access to a single client and runs the container in exclusive mode (prevent any client from accessing the hardware controls):

docker run --rm -it \
  --name sdrconnect \
  --device /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb \
  -p 50000:50000 \
  local/sdrconnect:latest \
  --exclusive \
  --max-clients=1

⁠Notes

While writing this documentation, I discovered an alternative project on GitHub that essentially accomplishes the same goals as this repository. Although there are some differences in implementation, the final product should provide a similar experience.

You can check out that project over here: dgadams/sdr-connect⁠

⁠References

• SDRconnect | Official website⁠
• dgadams/sdr-connect | Alternative project⁠