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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "freedombox".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         27th October 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The
  32 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
  33 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
  34 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
  35 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
  36 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
  37 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
  38 of a plan to simplify the build system for
  39 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
  40 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
  41 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
  42 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
  43 Raspberry Pi.</p>
  44
  45 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
  46 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
  47 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
  48 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
  49 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
  50 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
  51 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
  52 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
  53 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
  54 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
  55 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
  56 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
  57 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
  58 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
  59 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
  60 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
  61 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
  62 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
  63 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
  64 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
  65 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
  66 available from
  67 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
  68 upstream project page</a>.</p>
  69
  70 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
  71 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
  72 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
  73 list:</p>
  74
  75 <p><pre>
  76 #!/bin/sh
  77 set -e # Exit on first error
  78 rootdir="$1"
  79 cd "$rootdir"
  80 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
  81 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
  82 EOF
  83 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
  84 # install a kernel somewhere too.
  85 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
  86     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
  87 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
  88 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
  89 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
  90 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
  91 </pre></p>
  92
  93 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
  94 to build the image:</p>
  95
  96 <pre>
  97 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
  98     --variant minbase \
  99     --arch armel \
 100     --distribution jessie \
 101     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 102     --image test.img \
 103     --size 600M \
 104     --bootsize 64M \
 105     --boottype vfat \
 106     --log-level debug \
 107     --verbose \
 108     --no-kernel \
 109     --no-extlinux \
 110     --root-password raspberry \
 111     --hostname raspberrypi \
 112     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 113     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 114     --package netbase \
 115     --package git-core \
 116     --package binutils \
 117     --package ca-certificates \
 118     --package wget \
 119     --package kmod
 120 </pre></p>
 121
 122 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 123 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 124 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 125 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 126 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 127 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 128 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 129
 130 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 131 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 132 build dependency list.</p>
 133
 134 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 135 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 136 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 137 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 138
 139       </div>
 140       <div class="tags">
 141
 142
 143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
 144
 145
 146       </div>
 147     </div>
 148     <div class="padding"></div>
 149
 150     <div class="entry">
 151       <div class="title">
 152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
 153       </div>
 154       <div class="date">
 155         21st October 2013
 156       </div>
 157       <div class="body">
 158         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
 159 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
 160 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
 161 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
 162 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
 163 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
 164 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
 165 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
 166
 167 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
 168 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
 169 instead, I started playing with a
 170 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
 171 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
 172 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
 173 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
 174 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
 175 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
 176 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
 177 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
 178 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
 179 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
 180 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
 181 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
 182 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
 183 every client on the local network.</p>
 184
 185 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
 186 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
 187 and a script
 188 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
 189 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
 190 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
 191 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
 192 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
 193 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
 194 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
 195 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
 196 support.</p>
 197
 198 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
 199 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
 200
 201 <p><pre>
 202 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
 203     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
 204 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
 205 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
 206 %
 207 </pre></p>
 208
 209 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
 210 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
 211 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
 212 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
 213 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
 214 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
 215
 216 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
 217 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
 218 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
 219
 220 <p><table>
 221
 222 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
 223 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
 224 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
 225 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
 226 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
 227 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
 228
 229 </table></p>
 230
 231 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
 232 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
 233 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
 234 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
 235 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
 236 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
 237 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
 238
 239       </div>
 240       <div class="tags">
 241
 242
 243         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 244
 245
 246       </div>
 247     </div>
 248     <div class="padding"></div>
 249
 250     <div class="entry">
 251       <div class="title">
 252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
 253       </div>
 254       <div class="date">
 255         11th October 2013
 256       </div>
 257       <div class="body">
 258         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
 259 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
 260 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
 261 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
 262 successful examples like
 263 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
 264 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
 265 (see
 266 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
 267 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
 268 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
 269 can be seen from their
 270 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
 271 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
 272 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
 273 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
 274 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
 275
 276 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
 277 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
 278 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
 279 my recent involvement in
 280 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
 281 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
 282 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
 283 when possible, given that most communication between people are
 284 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
 285 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
 286 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
 287 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
 288 important over the years.</p>
 289
 290 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
 291 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
 292 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
 293 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
 294 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
 295 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
 296 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
 297 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
 298 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
 299 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
 300 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
 301 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
 302 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
 303 speakers about this talk (from
 304 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
 305
 306 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 307
 308 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
 309 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
 310 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
 311 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
 312 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
 313 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
 314 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
 315 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
 316 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
 317 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
 318 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
 319 that project (from
 320 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
 321
 322 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 323
 324 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
 325 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
 326 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
 327 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
 328 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
 329 based community mesh networks.</p>
 330
 331 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
 332 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
 333 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
 334 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
 335 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
 336 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
 337 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
 338 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
 339 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
 340
 341 <p><table>
 342 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
 343 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
 344 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
 345 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
 346 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
 347 </table></p>
 348
 349 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
 350 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
 351 VillageTelco about
 352 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
 353 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
 354 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
 355 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
 356 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
 357 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
 358
 359 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
 360 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
 361 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
 362 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
 363
 364 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
 365 us on IRC, either channel
 366 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
 367 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
 368 irc.freenode.net.</p>
 369
 370 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
 371 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
 372 and Innovation called
 373 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
 374 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
 375 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
 376 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
 377 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
 378 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
 379 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
 380 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
 381
 382 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
 383 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
 384 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
 385 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
 386 mesh system.</p>
 387
 388       </div>
 389       <div class="tags">
 390
 391
 392         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 393
 394
 395       </div>
 396     </div>
 397     <div class="padding"></div>
 398
 399     <div class="entry">
 400       <div class="title">
 401         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="date">
 404         27th September 2013
 405       </div>
 406       <div class="body">
 407         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 408 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 409 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 410 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 411
 412 <ul>
 413
 414 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 415 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 416
 417 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 418 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 419
 420 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 421 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 422 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 423 (Youtube)</li>
 424
 425 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 426 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 427
 428 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 429 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 430
 431 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 432 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 433 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 434
 435 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 436 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 437 (Youtube)</li>
 438
 439 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 440 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 441
 442 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 443 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 444
 445 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 446 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 447 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 448
 449 </ul>
 450
 451 <p>A larger list is available from
 452 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 453 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 454
 455 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 456 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 457 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 458 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 459 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 460 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 461 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 462 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 463 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 464 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 465 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 466
 467       </div>
 468       <div class="tags">
 469
 470
 471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 472
 473
 474       </div>
 475     </div>
 476     <div class="padding"></div>
 477
 478     <div class="entry">
 479       <div class="title">
 480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
 481       </div>
 482       <div class="date">
 483         10th September 2013
 484       </div>
 485       <div class="body">
 486         <p>I was introduced to the
 487 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 488 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 489 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 490 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 491 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 492 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 493 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 494 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 495
 496 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 497 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 498 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 499 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 500 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 501
 502 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 503 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 504 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 505 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 506 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 507 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 508 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 509 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 510 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 511 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 512 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 513 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 514 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 515 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 516 missing in Debian).</p>
 517
 518 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 519 scripts
 520 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 521 and a administrative web interface
 522 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 523 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 524 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 525 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 526 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 527 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 528 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 529 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 530 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 531 this is really working yet, see
 532 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 533 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 534 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 535 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 536 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 537 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 538 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 539
 540 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 541 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 542 at.</p>
 543
 544 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 545
 546 <ol>
 547
 548 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 549 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 550 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 551 to the Debian installer:<p>
 552 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 553
 554 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 555 install on.</li>
 556
 557 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 558 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 559
 560 </ol>
 561
 562 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 563
 564 <ol>
 565
 566 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 567 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 568 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 569 <pre>
 570 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 571 </pre></li>
 572 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 573 <pre>
 574 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 575    apt-key add -
 576 apt-get update
 577 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 578 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 579 </pre></li>
 580 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 581
 582 </ol>
 583
 584 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 585 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 586 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 587 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 588 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 589
 590 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 591 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 592 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 593 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 594
 595 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 596 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 597 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 598 irc.debian.org and the
 599 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 600 mailing list</a>.</p>
 601
 602 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 603 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 604 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 605 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 606 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 607 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 608
 609       </div>
 610       <div class="tags">
 611
 612
 613         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 614
 615
 616       </div>
 617     </div>
 618     <div class="padding"></div>
 619
 620     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="freedombox.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
 621     <div id="sidebar">
 622
 623
 624
 625 <h2>Archive</h2>
 626 <ul>
 627
 628 <li>2013
 629 <ul>
 630
 631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 632
 633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 634
 635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
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 638
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 640
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 642
 643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 644
 645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 646
 647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 648
 649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
 650
 651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (1)</a></li>
 652
 653 </ul></li>
 654
 655 <li>2012
 656 <ul>
 657
 658 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 659
 660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 661
 662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 663
 664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 665
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 667
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 669
 670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 671
 672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 673
 674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 675
 676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 677
 678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 679
 680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 681
 682 </ul></li>
 683
 684 <li>2011
 685 <ul>
 686
 687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 688
 689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 690
 691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 692
 693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 694
 695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 696
 697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 698
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 700
 701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 702
 703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 704
 705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 706
 707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 708
 709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 710
 711 </ul></li>
 712
 713 <li>2010
 714 <ul>
 715
 716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 717
 718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 719
 720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 721
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 723
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 725
 726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 727
 728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 729
 730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 731
 732 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 733
 734 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 735
 736 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 737
 738 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 739
 740 </ul></li>
 741
 742 <li>2009
 743 <ul>
 744
 745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 746
 747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 748
 749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 750
 751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 752
 753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 754
 755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 756
 757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 758
 759 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 760
 761 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 762
 763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 764
 765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 766
 767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 768
 769 </ul></li>
 770
 771 <li>2008
 772 <ul>
 773
 774 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 775
 776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 777
 778 </ul></li>
 779
 780 </ul>
 781
 782
 783
 784 <h2>Tags</h2>
 785 <ul>
 786
 787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 788
 789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 790
 791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 792
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 794
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 796
 797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
 798
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 800
 801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (89)</a></li>
 802
 803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
 804
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 806
 807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
 808
 809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 810
 811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (224)</a></li>
 812
 813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
 814
 815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 816
 817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
 818
 819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
 820
 821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
 822
 823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
 824
 825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
 826
 827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
 828
 829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 830
 831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
 832
 833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 834
 835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (3)</a></li>
 836
 837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
 838
 839  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (236)</a></li>
 840
 841  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (156)</a></li>
 842
 843  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
 844
 845  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 846
 847  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
 848
 849  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
 850
 851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 852
 853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 854
 855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 856
 857  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (8)</a></li>
 858
 859  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 860
 861  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 862
 863  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 864
 865  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (32)</a></li>
 866
 867  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 868
 869  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 870
 871  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
 872
 873  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 874
 875  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
 876
 877  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (20)</a></li>
 878
 879  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
 880
 881  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 882
 883  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
 884
 885  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 886
 887  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
 888
 889 </ul>
 890
 891
 892     </div>
 893     <p style="text-align: right">
 894  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
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