1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Det er jo makta som er mest sårbar ved massiv overvåkning av Internett
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Sat,
26 Oct
2013 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>De siste måneders eksponering av
15 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Her-er-Edvard-Snowdens-mest-omtalte-avsloringer-
7351734.html
">den
16 totale overvåkningen som foregår i den vestlige verden dokumenterer
17 hvor sårbare vi er
</a
>. Men det slår meg at de som er mest sårbare
18 for dette, myndighetspersoner på alle nivåer, neppe har innsett at de
19 selv er de mest interessante personene å lage profiler på, for å kunne
20 påvirke dem.
</p
>
22 <p
>For å ta et lite eksempel: Stortingets nettsted,
23 <a href=
"http://www.stortinget.no/
">www.stortinget.no
</a
> (og
25 <a href=
"http://data.stortinget.no/
">data.stortinget.no
</a
>),
26 inneholder informasjon om det som foregår på Stortinget, og jeg antar
27 de største brukerne av informasjonen der er representanter og
28 rådgivere på Stortinget. Intet overraskende med det. Det som derimot
29 er mer skjult er at Stortingets nettsted bruker
30 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
">Google
31 Analytics
</a
>, hvilket gjør at enhver som besøker nettsidene der også
32 rapporterer om besøket via Internett-linjer som passerer Sverige,
33 England og videre til USA. Det betyr at informasjon om ethvert besøk
34 på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av svensk, britisk og USAs
35 etterretningsvesen. De kan dermed holde et øye med hvilke
36 Stortingssaker stortingsrepresentantene synes er interessante å sjekke
37 ut, og hvilke sider rådgivere og andre på stortinget synes er
38 interessant å besøke, når de gjør det og hvilke andre representanter
39 som sjekker de samme sidene omtrent samtidig. Stortingets bruk av
40 Google Analytics gjør det dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å
41 spore representantenes aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av
42 representantene bruker Google Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som
43 krever innlogging, så vil det være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig
44 hvilke personer som bruker hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte
45 informasjonen opp til enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.
</p
>
47 <p
>Og jo flere nettsteder som bruker Google Analytics, jo bedre
48 oversikt over stortingsrepresentantenes lesevaner og interesse blir
49 tilgjengelig for svensk, britisk og USAs etterretning. Hva de kan
50 bruke den informasjonen til overlater jeg til leseren å undres
56 <title>A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node
</title>
57 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</link>
58 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</guid>
59 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Oct
2013 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
60 <description><p
>The last few days I have been experimenting with
61 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki
">the
62 batman-adv mesh technology
</a
>. I want to gain some experience to see
63 if it will fit
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the
64 Freedombox project
</a
>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
65 mesh network around the park where I live. Batman-adv is a layer
2
66 mesh system (
"ethernet
" in other words), where the mesh network appear
67 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.
</p
>
69 <p
>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
70 around, but I
've been unable to get them working with batman-adv. So
71 instead, I started playing with a
72 <a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org/
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, and tried to
73 get it working as a mesh node. My idea is to use it to create a mesh
74 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
75 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
76 network. This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
77 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
78 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh. This in turn is useful for
79 Android phones using
<a href=
"http://servalproject.org/
">the Serval
80 Project
</a
> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
81 phone and message each other for free. The reason is that Android
82 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
83 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted. But if
84 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
85 every client on the local network.
</p
>
87 <p
>To get this working, I
've created a debian package
88 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node
">meshfx-node
</a
>
90 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
">build-rpi-mesh-node
</a
>
91 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image. I
'm using Debian Jessie (and
92 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
93 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
94 image to get it booting, but I
'll ignore that for now. Also, as
95 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
96 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit. I hope
97 the routing performance isn
't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
100 <p
>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
101 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:
</p
>
104 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
105 https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
106 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node
> build.log
2>&1
107 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=
1M
109 </pre
></p
>
111 <p
>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
112 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node. At least it does for
113 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
114 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
115 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
">an
116 earlier blog post about this mesh testing
</a
>.
</p
>
118 <p
>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either. I bought
119 everything over the counter in shops nearby. If I had ordered online
120 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:
</p
>
122 <p
><table
>
124 <tr
><th
>Supplier
</th
><th
>Model
</th
><th
>NOK
</th
></tr
>
125 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi model B
</td
><td
>349.90</td
></tr
>
126 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi type B case
</td
><td
>99.90</td
></tr
>
127 <tr
><td
>Lefdal
</td
><td
>Jensen Air:Link
25150</td
><td
>295.-
</td
></tr
>
128 <tr
><td
>Clas Ohlson
</td
><td
>Kingston
16 GB SD card
</td
><td
>199.-
</td
></tr
>
129 <tr
><td
>Total cost
</td
><td
></td
><td
>943.80</td
></tr
>
131 </table
></p
>
133 <p
>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
134 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the
1th
135 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
136 play-node I use to develop the image building script. And some times
137 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it. I look forward
138 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
139 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)
</p
>
144 <title>Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github
</title>
145 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</link>
146 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</guid>
147 <pubDate>Sat,
19 Oct
2013 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
148 <description><p
>Back in
2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
149 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee
">the Spykee robot
</a
>
150 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
151 web page. Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
152 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github. If
153 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
154 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl
">the
155 libspykee-perl github repository
</a
>.
</p
>
160 <title>Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway
</title>
161 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</link>
162 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</guid>
163 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Oct
2013 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
164 <description><p
>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
165 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
168 <p
>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/
2013/
18/
">Debian
169 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a
> I came across the Outreach Program for
170 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
171 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
172 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013
">any donation done to Debian
173 earmarked
</a
> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
174 hope you will to. :)
</p
>
176 <p
>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
177 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos
">video
178 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a
> on every Internet user that
179 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I
've already
180 donated. Are you next?
</p
>
182 <p
>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
183 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
184 statement under the heading
185 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/
">Bloggers United for Open
186 Access
</a
> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
187 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
193 <title>Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania
</title>
194 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</link>
195 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</guid>
196 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Oct
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
197 <description><p
>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
198 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
199 areas, depending on the radio technology used. Normal wifi equipment
200 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
201 successful examples like
202 <a href=
"http://www.freifunk.net/
">Freifunk
</a
> and
203 <a href=
"http://www.awmn.net/
">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network
</a
>
205 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece
">wikipedia
206 for a large list
</a
>) around the globe. To give you an idea how it
207 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
208 can be seen from their
209 <a href=
"http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html
">dynamically
210 updated node graph and map
</a
>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
211 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
212 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
213 and that is the main topic of this blog post.
</p
>
215 <p
>I
've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
216 to do it as part of my involvement with the
<a
217 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG member organisation
</a
> community, and
218 my recent involvement in
219 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the Freedombox project
</a
>
220 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
221 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
222 when possible, given that most communication between people are
223 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
224 communication patterns). It also allow people to communicate without
225 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
226 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
227 important over the years.
</p
>
229 <p
>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
230 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
231 <a href=
"http://hackeriet.no/
">Hackeriet
</a
> at Husmania. They seem to
232 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
233 <a href=
"http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
">the Oslo
234 Freifunk project
</a
>, but that effort is now dead and the people
235 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
236 <a href=
"http://meshfx.org/trac
">meshfx
</a
>. Unfortunately the wiki
237 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
238 reflect this fact, so the old project page can
't be updated to point to
239 the new project. A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
240 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks. I
241 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
242 speakers about this talk (from
243 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
245 <p
><iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
247 <p
>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
248 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
249 figure out which one would be
"best
" for some definitions of best, but
250 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
251 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
252 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
253 batman-adv for now. It sure help me to know that the very cool
254 <a href=
"http://www.servalproject.org/
">Serval project in Australia
</a
>
255 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
256 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
257 less industrialized communities. Check out this cool video presenting
259 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
30qNfzJCQOA
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
261 <p
><iframe width=
"560" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/
30qNfzJCQOA
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
263 <p
>According to the wikipedia page on
264 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
">Wireless
265 mesh network
</a
> there are around
70 competing schemes for routing
266 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
267 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
268 based community mesh networks.
</p
>
270 <p
>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer
2
271 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
272 network. One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
273 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
274 computer. The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
275 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up. A
276 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide
">good
277 introduction
</a
> is available from the Open Mesh project. These are
278 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:
</p
>
280 <p
><table
>
281 <tr
><th
>Setting
</th
><th
>Value
</th
></tr
>
282 <tr
><td
>Protocol / kernel module
</td
><td
>batman-adv
</td
></tr
>
283 <tr
><td
>ESSID
</td
><td
>meshfx@hackeriet
</td
></tr
>
284 <td
>Channel / Frequency
</td
><td
>11 /
2462</td
></tr
>
285 <td
>Cell ID
</td
><td
>02:BA:
00:
00:
00:
01</td
>
286 </table
></p
>
288 <p
>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
289 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers. (See a nice post from
291 "<a href=
"http://tiebing.blogspot.no/
2009/
12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html
">Information
292 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!
</a
>
293 for details.) When these settings are activated and you have some
294 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
295 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
296 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)
</p
>
298 <p
>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
299 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
300 firmware supporting batman-adv. If anyone know how to use that old
301 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.
</p
>
303 <p
>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
304 us on IRC, either channel
305 <a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace
">#oslohackerspace
</a
>
306 or
<a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug
">#nuug
</a
> on
307 irc.freenode.net.
</p
>
309 <p
>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
310 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
311 and Innovation called
312 <a href=
"http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-
2008.pdf
">The
313 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks
</a
> and elsewhere
314 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
315 Grünerløkka in Oslo. So mesh networks are also interesting for
316 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
317 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
318 know have closed down the experiment. Perhaps Telenor or others would
319 be interested in a cooperation?
</p
>
321 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
10-
12</strong
>: I was just
322 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/
2013-October/
005900.html
">told
323 by the Serval project developers
</a
> that they no longer use
324 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
325 mesh system.
</p
>
330 <title>Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador
</title>
331 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</link>
332 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</guid>
333 <pubDate>Tue,
8 Oct
2013 17:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
334 <description><p
>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
335 Salvador had published a
336 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc
">video on
337 Youtube
</a
> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
338 Skolelinux profile. This is the profile intended for use at home or
339 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
340 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
341 in other word a single user machine). The result is
11 minutes long,
342 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
343 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
344 showing the
<a href=
"http://www.zygotebody.com/
">Zygote Body
3D model
345 of the human body
</a
>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
346 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
347 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
348 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
349 computers without hard drives by installing one central
350 <a href=
"http://www.ltsp.org/
">LTSP server
</a
>.
</p
>
352 <p
>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:
</p
>
354 <iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
>
356 <p
>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux? Please let
357 me know. :)
</p
>
362 <title>Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!
</title>
363 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html
</link>
364 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html
</guid>
365 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Sep
2013 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
366 <description><p
>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
367 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team. The
368 complete announcement text can be found at
369 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2013/
20130928">the Debian News
370 section
</a
>, translated to several languages. Please check it out.
</p
>
372 <p
>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon. One
373 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
374 partition is too small. A workaround is to extend the partition (use
375 lvresize + resize2fs in tty
2 while installing).
</p
>
380 <title>Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning
</title>
381 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</link>
382 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</guid>
383 <pubDate>Fri,
27 Sep
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
384 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
">Freedombox
385 project
</a
> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
386 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
387 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p
>
391 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA
">FreedomBox -
392 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
394 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE
">Eben Moglen
395 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
397 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g
">Eben Moglen -
398 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
399 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a
>
402 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE
">Fosdem
2011
403 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
405 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
9bDDUyJSQ9s
">Presentation of
406 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
408 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s
"> Freedombox -
409 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
410 York City in
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
412 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck
">Introduction
413 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a
>
416 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ
">Freedom, Out
417 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
419 <li
><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/
2013/schedule/event/freedombox/
">Freedombox
420 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a
> (FOSDEM)
</li
>
422 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg
">What is the
423 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
424 2013</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
428 <p
>A larger list is available from
429 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations
">the
430 Freedombox Wiki
</a
>.
</p
>
432 <p
>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
433 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
434 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
435 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
436 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
437 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
438 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
439 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC
440 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
441 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
442 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>
447 <title>Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy
</title>
448 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html
</link>
449 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html
</guid>
450 <pubDate>Mon,
16 Sep
2013 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
451 <description><p
>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
452 today. This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:
</p
>
455 <p
>Hi,
</p
>
457 <p
>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta
2 for
458 short) of
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
459 Skolelinux
</a
> based on Debian Wheezy!
</p
>
461 <p
>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
462 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
463 weekend. We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
464 if you find something, please notify us immediately!
</p
>
466 <p
>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
467 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)
</p
>
469 <p
>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu
7.1+edu0~b2
470 compared to beta1:
</p
>
474 <li
>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
475 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.
</li
>
476 <li
>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
477 understand ical/dav sources.
</li
>
478 <li
>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
479 main server.
</li
>
480 <li
>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.
</li
>
481 <li
>Updates for chromium (
29.0.1547.57-
1~deb7u1), imagemagick
482 (
6.7.7.10-
5+deb7u2), php5 (
5.4.4-
14+deb7u4), libmodplug
483 (
0.8.8.4-
3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (
4.0.2-
6+deb7u2), linux-image
484 (
3.2.0-
4-
486_3.2
.46-
1+deb7u1).
</li
>
488 <p
>Where to get it:
</p
>
490 <p
>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
</p
>
493 <li
><a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso
">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso
</a
></li
>
494 <li
><a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso
">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso
</a
></li
>
495 <li
>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .
</li
>
498 <p
>The SHA1SUM of this image is:
3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f
</p
>
500 <p
>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
502 <li
><a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso
">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso
</a
></li
>
503 <li
><a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso
">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso
</a
></li
>
504 <li
>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .
</li
>
507 <p
>The SHA1SUM of this image is:
702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e
</p
>
509 <p
>The Source DVD image has the filename
510 debian-edu-
7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
511 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
512 as the other isos.
</p
>
514 <p
>How to report bugs
</p
>
516 <p
>For information how to report bugs please see
517 <br
><a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
</a
></p
>
520 <p
>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</p
>
522 <p
>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
523 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
524 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
525 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
526 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
527 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
528 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
529 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
530 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
531 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
532 services. The desktop contains more than
60 educational software
533 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
534 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.
</p
>
536 <p
>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
537 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
538 Squeeze release.
</p
>
540 <p
>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases
</p
>
542 <p
>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
543 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
544 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
545 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (
1) Keep
546 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (
2)
547 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
548 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
549 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
550 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
555 <br
> Holger
</p
>
561 <title>Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi
</title>
562 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html
</link>
563 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html
</guid>
564 <pubDate>Tue,
10 Sep
2013 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
565 <description><p
>I was introduced to the
566 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
">Freedombox project
</a
>
567 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
568 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
569 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
570 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
571 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
572 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
573 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p
>
575 <p
>I
've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
576 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
577 and privilege exercised by the
"western
" intelligence gathering
578 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
579 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p
>
581 <p
>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/
">initial
582 Debian initiative
</a
> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
583 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
584 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
585 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
586 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx
">Dreamplug
</a
>,
587 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
588 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
589 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
590 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker
">freedom-maker
</a
>
591 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
592 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
593 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
594 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
595 missing in Debian).
</p
>
597 <p
>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
599 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup
">freedombox-setup
</a
>),
600 and a administrative web interface
601 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth
">plinth
</a
> + exmachina +
602 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
603 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy
">privoxy
</a
>
604 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
605 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat
">jwchat
</a
>)
606 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
607 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd
">ejabberd
</a
>). The
608 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
609 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
610 this is really working yet, see
611 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO
">the
612 project TODO
</a
> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
613 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
614 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
615 users. I
've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
616 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
617 with lots of half baked features.
</p
>
619 <p
>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
620 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
623 <p
><strong
>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong
></p
>
627 <li
>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li
>
628 <li
>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li
>
629 <li
><p
>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
630 to the Debian installer:
<p
>
631 <pre
>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a
></pre
></li
>
633 <li
>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
634 install on.
</li
>
636 <li
>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
637 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li
>
641 <p
><strong
>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong
></p
>
645 <li
>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li
>
646 <li
>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li
>
647 <li
><p
>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p
>
649 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a
> wheezy main
650 </pre
></li
>
651 <li
><p
>Run this as root:
</p
>
653 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
656 apt-get install freedombox-setup
657 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
658 </pre
></li
>
659 <li
>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li
>
663 <p
>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
664 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
665 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
666 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
667 short
"<tt
>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt
>" away. :)
</p
>
669 <p
>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
670 192.168.1.0/
24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
671 off the DHCP server by running
"<tt
>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
672 disable
</tt
>" as root.
</p
>
674 <p
>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
675 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
676 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox
</a
> on
677 irc.debian.org and the
678 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
679 mailing list
</a
>.
</p
>
681 <p
>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
682 <tt
>http://your-host-name:
8001/
</tt
> to see the state of the plint
683 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
684 get past it), and next visit
<tt
>http://your-host-name:
8001/help/
</tt
>
685 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is
'admin
' and the
686 default password is
'secret
'.
</p
>