RTL-SDR

RTL-SDR

The RTL-SDR is an inexpensive and widely used software-defined radio (SDR) receiver. The USB dongle is based on the Realtek RTL2832U chipset.

Installation

To begin using the RTL-SDR dongle, enable it with the following configuration:

hardware.rtl-sdr.enable = true;

This setting enables rtl-sdr udev rules, ensures the plugdev group exists, and blacklists DVB kernel modules. This is necessary to allow access to RTL-SDR devices without requiring root privileges, since udev will assign ownership of RTL-SDR USB descriptors to the plugdev group.

To use the RTL-SDR dongle without sudo access, add your user to the plugdev group:

users.users.<user>.extraGroups = [ "plugdev" ];

After making these changes, rebuild your system configuration.

To verify that everything is set up correctly and the dongle is working, run:

rtl_test

Troubleshooting

rtl_test requires sudo

If rtl_test or other RTL-SDR utilities require root access to function, make sure your user is a member of the plugdev group. Run:

groups

If plugdev is not listed, add the group to your user’s extraGroups in your configuration, rebuild the system, and log out and back in for the changes to take effect.