MeshTerm/docs/uconsole.md

MeshTerm on the uConsole

A ClockworkPi uConsole with the hackergadgets AIO LoRa board has no companion microcontroller and no firmware to flash — the LoRa chip sits straight on the host's SPI bus. MeshTerm can drive it directly: it starts a mesh node as a child process the moment you connect, talks to it over the standard companion protocol on a loopback port, and ends it when you disconnect or quit. No separate service, no TCP port to remember — just meshterm --spi.

If you'd rather the node stayed on the mesh while MeshTerm is closed, a small bridge can run it as a background service instead, fronting the same chip as a network companion. That's further down — most people want the section above it.

⚠ Read this first. Either route edits your uConsole's boot configuration, adds your user to hardware groups, and then keys a LoRa transmitter. It assumes you are comfortable at a Linux shell and know which frequency plan and power limits apply where you live — what the radio does on air is your responsibility, not MeshTerm's. There is a real risk of leaving the system, the radio or the mesh around you in a worse state if a step goes wrong. You do this at your own risk.

Read the whole manual through once before you start. Which install route you take depends on how you're running MeshTerm, and that's easier to get right knowing the later steps.

This is a guide, not a prescription. Despite the author's best efforts it may contain errors, and parts of it will go out of date as packages, runtimes and boards change. It is up to you to check every fact in it against your own hardware and the current sources before you act on it, and every decision along the way is yours. The author accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss or injury that results from following this guide.

• What you need
• Step 1 — Prepare the system
• Step 2 — Install the radio library
• Step 3 — Install MeshTerm
• Step 4 — Connect
• Moving over from the bridge
• Board wiring
• Troubleshooting
• Always on: the bridge
• What this has been tested on

---

What you need

Hardware:

Part	Notes
ClockworkPi uConsole (CM4 module)	Any uConsole with a Compute Module 4.
hackergadgets AIO expansion board	The board this guide is written for and the one we recommend: an SX1262 on SPI bus 1, plus GPS, an RTL-SDR and a USB hub you don't need here. MeshTerm's SPI defaults are its wiring (AIO v1; the v2 needs one extra setting — see Board wiring).
An antenna for your region's LoRa band	Required.

Installing the AIO board into the uConsole is out of scope here — follow hackergadgets' own setup guide for that part.

Software:

• Raspberry Pi OS / Debian bookworm or trixie on the uConsole, 64-bit. This is Linux-only — driving a radio on the host's own SPI bus is not something Windows or macOS can do.
• A /dev/spidev* node. This needs dtoverlay=spi1-1cs in /boot/firmware/config.txt.
• /dev/gpiochip0, and membership of the spi and gpio groups so you can read and write both without root.
• The radio library, openhop-core[hardware] 1.1.3 or newer — Step 2 gets you there. It doesn't have to be in MeshTerm's own Python; MeshTerm looks in several places for it.
• MeshTerm itself, on the uConsole — Step 3.

A node's own radio settings — frequency, bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate, TX power — are not part of this setup. They're the node's, saved by the node, and you change them the same way you would on any companion: MeshTerm's Device config page. A brand-new node starts on MeshCore's US/Canada preset (910.525 MHz, 62.5 kHz, SF 7, CR 4/5, 22 dBm) until you change it.

---

Step 1 — Prepare the system

Enable the SPI overlay. Edit /boot/firmware/config.txt and add:

dtoverlay=spi1-1cs

Add yourself to the groups that own the SPI and GPIO device nodes:

sudo usermod -aG spi,gpio $USER

Reboot so both the overlay and the group membership take effect:

sudo reboot

After it comes back, check the device nodes exist and that you can use them:

ls -l /dev/spidev* /dev/gpiochip0
groups

You should see /dev/spidev1.0 (or another spidev* node) and /dev/gpiochip0 listed, and spi and gpio in your groups output.

---

Step 2 — Install the radio library

MeshTerm needs openhop-core[hardware] 1.1.3 or newer importable by some Python on the machine — not necessarily MeshTerm's own. It looks, in order: a python named in the profile's spi table; MeshTerm's own interpreter; the bridge's venv at ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv/bin/python; /opt/venvs/meshcore-uconsole/bin/python; then python3 on your PATH. Whichever route you take below, that's the interpreter it lands in.

• Installed MeshTerm with pipx? Inject it into MeshTerm's own environment:

  pipx inject mesh-term 'openhop-core[hardware]'
  

• Installed with pip? Pull in the spi extra when you install MeshTerm (see Step 3):

  pip install 'mesh-term[spi]'
  

• Running the one-file Linux ARM64 build? It's a single frozen binary and can't carry the library, so give it a venv of its own — the same one the bridge guide uses, so it's shared if you ever run both:

  python3 -m venv ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv
  ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv/bin/pip install "openhop-core[hardware]"
  

  MeshTerm finds it there automatically; no configuration needed.

The older pymc_core runtime (the library's name before 2026) is not supported for a direct connection — only the standalone bridge still carries the compatibility shims it needs.

---

Step 3 — Install MeshTerm

Same as any other machine — the simplest way is the Linux ARM64 one-file release:

curl -fL -o meshterm https://github.com/jpmartineau/MeshTerm/releases/latest/download/meshterm-linux-arm64
chmod +x meshterm
sudo mv meshterm /usr/local/bin/meshterm

Or install it from the repository with pipx:

sudo apt install pipx
pipx install git+https://github.com/jpmartineau/MeshTerm
pipx ensurepath
pipx inject mesh-term 'openhop-core[hardware]'

Or with pip, pulling in the radio library as its own extra in one line:

pip install 'mesh-term[spi]'

---

Step 4 — Connect

meshterm --spi

--spi finds the AIO's radio at /dev/spidev1.0 and starts a node on it. The startup device picker also lists it — a row reading SPI radio (/dev/spidev1.0) with a 📍 icon — whenever that device node exists, so meshterm with no flags gets you there too.

You're connected when Device info or the dashboard shows a node name instead of a connection error. MeshTerm reports the device model as MeshTerm SPI node, and the header's connection label reads SPI.

What happens underneath. MeshTerm starts the node when it connects and ends it when you disconnect or quit — including a crash: the node exits with MeshTerm, and the kernel frees the GPIO lines and SPI handle the moment its process does. The trade-off is the one this implies: the node is off the mesh while MeshTerm is closed. If you want it on all the time, that's what the bridge is for.

Where its state lives. Each radio keeps its identity, preferences, channels and contacts under ~/.meshterm/radio/spidev1.0/ — identity.key, prefs.json, channels.json, contacts.json — plus a running log, node.log (the previous run's is kept as node.log.1). All of it survives a restart.

A profile, if you want a name for it:

[profiles.aio]
transport = "spi"

meshterm -p aio

The AIO's wiring is the default, so this profile needs nothing beyond transport = "spi". Board wiring is for when yours differs.

---

Moving over from the bridge

Already running the bridge? The first time you connect with --spi (or a profile, or the picker row), MeshTerm carries the bridge's node over — copying, never moving, so the bridge still works afterwards if you go back to it:

• the identity key — from the meshcore-console GUI's copy first (~/.local/share/meshcore-uconsole/identity.key), the way the bridge itself looks for it, else the bridge's own (~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/identity.key);
• the bridge's contacts.json;
• the name uConsole;
• the bridge's radio settings — frequency, bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate, TX power — read out of the bridge service's MESHCORE_* environment.

This only happens once, while ~/.meshterm/radio/spidev1.0/ has no identity.key yet — so your node keeps its public key, and with it its place in everyone else's contact list.

Wiring is not carried over. If your board needed MESHCORE_EN_PINS or another wiring variable for the bridge, put the equivalent in the profile's spi table (see Board wiring) — the direct connection reads wiring from there, never from the bridge's environment.

Stop the bridge before switching over, since only one program may hold the radio at a time:

systemctl --user stop meshterm-spi-bridge
systemctl --user disable meshterm-spi-bridge   # keep it stopped across reboots

If MeshTerm sees the bridge service running, it refuses to start the node and tells you the same two commands.

---

Board wiring

The defaults match the hackergadgets uConsole AIO v1, which needs no spi table at all. State only what differs, under [profiles.<name>.spi]. For a board that isn't an AIO — a LoRa HAT on a Raspberry Pi, say — Adding a radio on the SPI bus walks through a whole profile, including how to read the pins off the board's meshtasticd configuration:

[profiles.aio2]
transport = "spi"

[profiles.aio2.spi]
en_pins = [27]   # the AIO v2 needs this

Setting	Default	What it is
bus_id, cs_id	1, 0	Which SPI bus and chip-select the radio is on (/dev/spidev<bus_id>.<cs_id>).
cs_pin	-1	A GPIO driven as chip select by hand, instead of the bus's own.
gpio_chip	0	Which /dev/gpiochip<n> the pins below are on.
use_gpiod_backend	false	Drive the pins through gpiod instead of python-periphery.
reset_pin, busy_pin, irq_pin	25, 24, 26	The chip's reset, busy and interrupt (DIO1) lines.
txen_pin, rxen_pin	-1, -1	An external RF switch's transmit/receive-enable lines, if the board has one.
en_pins	[]	Power-enable lines to raise before the chip is touched. The AIO v2 needs [27].
use_dio2_rf, use_dio3_tcxo	true, true	Whether DIO2 drives the RF switch and DIO3 a TCXO (both on for the AIO).
is_waveshare	false	The Waveshare HAT's wiring quirks, which the radio library knows about.
python	"" (empty)	An interpreter to run the node under, when the one MeshTerm would find on its own isn't the one you want. Empty lets MeshTerm look.

An unknown key, or one of the wrong type, stops MeshTerm at startup with the profile named — a misspelt pin is never silently ignored.

Radio settings — frequency, bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate, TX power — are not in this table. They're the node's own, on Device config, as noted in What you need.

---

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
The radio library isn't found	Follow Step 2 for however you installed MeshTerm, or set python in the profile's spi table to an interpreter that has openhop-core[hardware].
No /dev/spidev1.0	Add dtoverlay=spi1-1cs to /boot/firmware/config.txt and reboot.
Permission denied opening the SPI or GPIO device	sudo usermod -aG spi,gpio $USER, then log out and back in.
"the meshterm-spi-bridge service has the radio"	Stop it: systemctl --user stop meshterm-spi-bridge (and disable it to keep it stopped).
"meshcore-console has the radio open"	Close the GUI and connect again.
Some other program has the radio	sudo lsof /dev/gpiochip0 shows which; only one program may hold the radio at a time.
The node starts but never answers	Check its log: ~/.meshterm/radio/spidev1.0/node.log.
An AIO v2 radio never comes up	It needs en_pins = [27] in the profile's spi table — see Board wiring.

---

Always on: the bridge

Most people should use the direct connection above. Use the bridge instead if you want the node reachable on the mesh while MeshTerm is closed — it runs as a systemd --user service, on its own, independent of whether MeshTerm is even installed. The trade-off runs the other way from the direct connection: once the bridge is running, it holds the radio's pins for good, so no other LoRa program — including a direct meshterm --spi — can use them until you stop it.

The bridge puts the standard MeshCore companion protocol in front of the same SPI-attached chip, on a local TCP port. MeshTerm then connects to that port like it would any network companion.

• Bridge step 1 — Install the radio runtime
• Bridge step 2 — Get the bridge
• Bridge step 3 — Run the preflight
• Bridge step 4 — Run it once in the foreground
• Bridge step 5 — Install it as a service
• Bridge step 6 — Connect MeshTerm to it
• Updating and uninstalling the bridge
• Bridge hardware knobs
• Bridge troubleshooting

The bridge's own wiring and radio defaults are the same AIO v1 numbers as the direct connection's — see the table in Board wiring — just set through MESHCORE_* environment variables instead of a profile's spi table.

The radio library that actually drives the chip was renamed in 2026: pymc_core became openhop_core. PyPI's pymc-core stopped at 1.0.12; openhop-core carries on from 1.1.x. The bridge supports both and prefers the newer one when it finds both installed.

Bridge step 1 — Install the radio runtime

Which route you take depends on your Debian release:

• trixie, with the meshcore-uconsole package (by cwill747) installed: you already have a working runtime (Python 3.13-based). Skip to step 2.

• bookworm: the trixie .deb of meshcore-uconsole 1.12.0 is built on Python 3.13 and needs glibc 2.38, so it will not install on bookworm, and the APT repository offers nothing for bookworm. Upstream's GitHub Releases also carry a separate bookworm .deb built on Python 3.11; it has not been tested with the bridge. The documented route is to give the bridge a runtime of its own:

  python3 -m venv ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv
  ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv/bin/pip install "openhop-core[hardware]"
  

This is also the route to take if you'd rather not install the meshcore-uconsole package at all.

You'll confirm which runtime the bridge actually found in step 3 — its first check line names the interpreter and the runtime.

Bridge step 2 — Get the bridge

scripts/uconsole/meshterm-spi-bridge is a single, self-contained Python file — no install step of its own. Either clone the MeshTerm repo:

git clone https://github.com/jpmartineau/MeshTerm
cd MeshTerm/scripts/uconsole

or download just the one file:

curl -L -o meshterm-spi-bridge \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jpmartineau/MeshTerm/main/scripts/uconsole/meshterm-spi-bridge

Make it executable:

chmod +x meshterm-spi-bridge

Bridge step 3 — Run the preflight

./meshterm-spi-bridge --check

This prints a Prerequisite check: block with one line per check. What each line means and what to do if it fails:

Check	Meaning if it fails	Fix
node runtime	Neither openhop_core nor pymc_core is importable by any interpreter the bridge tried.	Build the venv from step 1, or set MESHTERM_PYMC_PYTHON to a python that has one.
SPI device	No /dev/spidev* node exists, or it exists but you can't read/write it.	No node at all: add dtoverlay=spi1-1cs to /boot/firmware/config.txt and reboot. Node present but no permission: sudo usermod -aG spi $USER, then log out and back in.
GPIO chip	/dev/gpiochip0 is missing or not read/write for you.	sudo usermod -aG gpio $USER, then log out and back in.
bridge service / radio in use / port 5000 busy / radio is free	Tells you whether something already holds the radio: the bridge's own boot service, a running meshcore-console, or something else already listening on the TCP port.	Only one program may use the radio at a time — see step 6. If meshcore-console is running, close it before running the bridge.

If the first three checks all pass, you're ready to run it.

Bridge step 4 — Run it once in the foreground

./meshterm-spi-bridge --run

This runs the preflight again and prints it. Before it starts the bridge, it asks whether to add a bridge profile to your MeshTerm config (Add a 'bridge' profile to /home/you/.meshterm/config.toml so you can just run `meshterm`? [y/N]). Either answer is fine; step 5 asks again if you say no. Then it starts the bridge in this terminal. A healthy startup logs something like:

node runtime openhop_core 1.1.3 (/home/you/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/venv/bin/python)
radio config bus_id=1 reset_pin=25 busy_pin=24 irq_pin=26 frequency=910525000 tx_power=22
radio.begin() attempt 1/4
radio ready
node identity ab12cd34ef567890… (hash 0xab, name 'uConsole')
READY — connect with:  meshterm --tcp 127.0.0.1:5000

The radio config line lists every setting as key=value, so the one above is shortened; yours is longer.

You can test the bridge this way: leave it running, and in another terminal on the same machine run:

meshterm --tcp 127.0.0.1:5000

Back in the bridge's terminal, press Ctrl+C to stop it.

Bridge step 5 — Install it as a service

Run the bridge with no flags to get the interactive menu:

./meshterm-spi-bridge

Choose 2) Install as a service. This:

• copies the script to ~/.local/bin/meshterm-spi-bridge,
• writes a systemd --user unit at ~/.config/systemd/user/meshterm-spi-bridge.service that restarts on failure and starts with your session,
• enables and starts it now,
• tries to enable lingering for your user, so the service comes up at boot even before you log in. If it can't, it prints the command to run yourself:

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

It also offers to add a [profiles.bridge] block to your MeshTerm config.toml — say yes, it's the profile you'll use next.

Check on it any time:

systemctl --user status meshterm-spi-bridge.service
journalctl --user -u meshterm-spi-bridge.service -f

Menu option 4) Show status prints the same information from inside the script.

Bridge step 6 — Connect MeshTerm to it

Install MeshTerm on the uConsole the same way as Step 3 above — the bridge doesn't need the spi extra or openhop-core[hardware] in MeshTerm's own Python, since the bridge is the one running the node.

If you accepted the profile in step 4 or 5, ~/.meshterm/config.toml now has this block (the bridge always writes to that path, even if you set MESHTERM_HOME):

[profiles.bridge]
host = "127.0.0.1"
tcp_port = 5000
description = "Local SPI radio via meshterm-spi-bridge"

Connect with:

meshterm -p bridge

or, without a profile:

meshterm --tcp 127.0.0.1:5000

You're connected when Device info or the dashboard shows a node name (uConsole by default) instead of a connection error. MeshTerm reports the device model as pyMC-spi-bridge — that's how you tell a bridged node from a real companion or a direct SPI connection.

Identity. If the meshcore-console GUI's package is present, the bridge loads that package's identity key, so MeshTerm and the GUI share the same public key. Contacts and radio settings are the bridge's own: it keeps contacts in ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/contacts.json, its channels in ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/channels.json (both survive a restart), and builds its radio settings from the MESHCORE_* variables and its defaults, never from the GUI's saved settings. Set the MESHCORE_* variables to match what the GUI uses. On a library-only install, the bridge mints and keeps its own identity key under ~/.local/share/meshterm-spi-bridge/identity.key.

Only one program may use the radio at a time. Never run the bridge and the meshcore-console GUI at the same time — whichever started second will fail to open the radio. The same goes for a direct meshterm --spi connection while the bridge is running.

Updating and uninstalling the bridge

To update, pull or re-download meshterm-spi-bridge and reinstall the service (menu option 2 again — it overwrites the copy in ~/.local/bin/). The running service keeps the old code until you restart it:

systemctl --user restart meshterm-spi-bridge.service

Option 2 also rewrites the unit file, so any Environment= lines you added to it by hand are lost. Put them in a drop-in instead, as Bridge hardware knobs shows.

To remove the bridge, run the menu and choose 3) Uninstall the service. This stops and removes the systemd --user unit and the installed script copy. It does not touch meshcore-console, the radio library, your node identity, or your saved contacts and channels — those stay put. If you'd added [profiles.bridge] to your MeshTerm config, it tells you to remove that block by hand if you no longer want it.

Bridge hardware knobs

The pin defaults match the hackergadgets uConsole AIO v1, which needs none of these. The AIO v2 needs MESHCORE_EN_PINS=27, whether or not the meshcore-console package is installed. The radio settings default to the US/Canada preset. For a foreground run, export what differs before launching the bridge. For the service, add a drop-in, which survives a reinstall:

systemctl --user edit meshterm-spi-bridge.service

and put the variables under a [Service] heading, one Environment= line each:

[Service]
Environment=MESHCORE_EN_PINS=27

Then systemctl --user restart meshterm-spi-bridge.service.

Variable	What it sets
MESHCORE_BUS_ID, MESHCORE_CS_ID, MESHCORE_CS_PIN	which SPI bus, device and chip-select pin the radio is on
MESHCORE_RESET_PIN, MESHCORE_BUSY_PIN, MESHCORE_IRQ_PIN	the three control lines
MESHCORE_FREQUENCY, MESHCORE_TX_POWER	frequency in Hz, power in dBm
MESHCORE_SPREADING_FACTOR, MESHCORE_BANDWIDTH, MESHCORE_CODING_RATE	the modem preset — all three must match the mesh you are joining. Whole numbers only: bandwidth in Hz (62500), coding rate as the denominator (5 for 4/5). A decimal or 4/5 stops the bridge at startup.
MESHCORE_TXEN_PIN, MESHCORE_RXEN_PIN, MESHCORE_EN_PINS	the RF-switch and power-enable lines a board may need (-1 for none; EN_PINS is a comma list — the AIO v2 wants 27)
MESHCORE_USE_DIO2_RF, MESHCORE_USE_DIO3_TCXO, MESHCORE_IS_WAVESHARE	whether DIO2 drives the RF switch and DIO3 the TCXO (both on for the AIO), and a flag for a different vendor's wiring the runtime knows about
MESHCORE_GPIO_CHIP, MESHCORE_USE_GPIOD_BACKEND, MESHCORE_PREAMBLE_LENGTH	which gpiochip, whether to drive it through gpiod, and the LoRa preamble (leave it unset: the bridge follows MeshCore, 32 symbols up to SF8 and 16 above, and a shorter one leaves the radio deaf to most of the mesh)
MESHTERM_PYMC_PYTHON	force a specific interpreter instead of letting the bridge discover one

The bridge passes a knob only when the runtime's radio constructor accepts it, so the same environment works under pymc_core 1.0.x, which lacks the newer ones. Where the meshcore-console package is installed, the bridge builds the radio through that package's environment reader, which reads the same names plus a few more of its own (see that package's documentation) and ignores the GUI's saved presets. On a library-only install the table above is the whole of it. Either way, an AIO v2 without MESHCORE_EN_PINS=27 will not power its radio.

Bridge troubleshooting

Symptom	Check
node runtime fails in the preflight	Did you build the venv in step 1? Is MESHTERM_PYMC_PYTHON pointing at the right interpreter, if set?
SPI device shows "no /dev/spidev* found"	Is dtoverlay=spi1-1cs in /boot/firmware/config.txt? Did you reboot after adding it?
SPI device or GPIO chip shows a permission error	Are you in the spi and gpio groups (groups)? Did you log out and back in after usermod?
Preflight warns radio in use meshcore-console is running:	Close the GUI before running or installing the bridge.
Preflight warns port 5000 busy something is already on 127.0.0.1:5000	Something other than the bridge service is listening there (an active service is reported as bridge service running instead). Usually it is a foreground --run in another terminal; stop that one.
Bridge exits with bridge failed: GPIO pins still busy after retries	The bridge retries radio.begin() four times only when the GPIO lines are busy. They may still be held by a session that just closed — wait a few seconds and try again.
MeshTerm connects but direct messages to an old contact say "not found"	Contacts are restored from the bridge's snapshot file at startup. If the contact is not in it, wait until the contact is heard again.
Reboot, factory reset, or setting a device PIN silently does nothing	Expected — the radio library has no handler for these three, whatever runtime you're on.
Traces or the live feed don't show up	These rely on compatibility shims the bridge installs (or, under openhop_core, on the library's own equivalents). Check the bridge's log for lines starting compat: to confirm they're wired.

---

What this has been tested on

The direct connection has been tested against the real radio library (openhop-core) with a simulated radio; it has not yet been verified on uConsole hardware.

The bridge has been verified on a bookworm uConsole with openhop-core 1.1.3: the radio comes up, contacts are restored across a restart, and info and contacts answer correctly over the TCP connection. The older pymc-core 1.0.x path, with all three of the bridge's compatibility shims active, has been exercised in full, including traces and the live feed. MeshTerm's test suite does not cover the bridge.

What has not been confirmed:

• The direct connection on real hardware — everything above has only run against a simulated radio under the real library.
• The bridge under openhop_core beyond info and contacts. Startup, identity, contact restore and those two reads were exercised; a trace, a message and the live feed under the new runtime were not, though the library's own trace push is what the bridge now relies on for the first.
• Everything on-air — the per-hop trace semantics the bridge reassembles and the acknowledgement bytes newer firmware appends after the CRC. The code is internally consistent with the library's API; the wire behaviour was seen on one mesh, against the radios in range of one bench.