Airspy HF+ udev configuration

(originally written January 2022)

Some Linux distributions' driver packages for the AirspyHF+ will not configure udev rules correctly, which results in the device being visible only with root privileges.

Check first that the Airspy is actually visible as root. Two simple ways to do this:

Run your SDR application of choice as root, and see if the device appears.
Run airspyhf_info (included in many distributions' Airspy driver packages) as root. If everything has installed correctly and the device is recognized, it will print the serial number, firmware version, etc. similar to:
AirSpy HF library version: 1.6.8 S/N: <serial number> Part ID: 0x00000002 Firmware Version: R3.0.7-CD Available sample rates: 912 kS/s 768 kS/s 456 kS/s 384 kS/s 256 kS/s 192 kS/s

If neither of the above work, there may be a larger issue at hand. Try looking at dmesg to see if the Airspy is detected at all.

After verifying that the device is actually visible as root, it is fairly straightforward to configure udev. Edit /etc/udev/rules.d/52-airspyhf.rules to contain:

ATTR{idVendor}=="03eb", ATTR{idProduct}=="800c", SYMLINK+="airspyhf-%k", MODE="660", GROUP="plugdev"

The device will now be available to all users in the plugdev group. After adding yourself to this group, inotify should pick up the changes and reload everything automatically. If not, a quick reload of udev rules will set everything in order (on most distributions, you can do this with udevadm).

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