From e9acb45ebe3d7a3e47157fd9efafb9fd7b66c85b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Petter Reinholdtsen Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:59:02 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] New post. --- blog/data/2013-09-10-freedombox.txt | 110 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 110 insertions(+) create mode 100644 blog/data/2013-09-10-freedombox.txt diff --git a/blog/data/2013-09-10-freedombox.txt b/blog/data/2013-09-10-freedombox.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..9480d22767 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/data/2013-09-10-freedombox.txt @@ -0,0 +1,110 @@ +Title: Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi +Tags: english, debian, freedombox +Date: 2013-09-10 20:40 + +

I was introduced to the +Freedombox project +in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need +of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and +within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give +people back the power over their network and machines, and return +Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of +depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone +control over their own basic infrastructure.

+ +

I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have +taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust +and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering +communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I +actually started working on the project a while back.

+ +

The initial +Debian initiative based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to +create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook +up in their home and get access to secure and private services and +communication. The initial deployment platform have been the +Dreamplug, +which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what +the current Freedombox setup, I had to come up with a way to install +it on some hardware I do got access to. I have rewritten the +freedom-maker +image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying +setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to +set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using +the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages +missing in Debian).

+ +

The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping +scripts +(freedombox-setup), +and a administrative web interface +(plinth + exmachina + +withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on privoxy +(freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP +client (jwchat) trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP +server (ejabberd). The web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to +use it to enable OpenID services, mesh network connectivity, use of +TOR, etc, etc. None of this is really working yet, see +the +project TODO for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is +on github at the moment.

+ +

Anyway, if you want to have a look the following recipes should +work to give you a test machine to poke at.

+ +

Debian Wheezy amd64

+ +
    + +
  1. Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
    2. +
  2. Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
    3. +

  3. Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument +to the Debian installer:

    +

    url=http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
    4. + +
  4. Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to +install on.
    5. + +
  5. When finished, your freedombox is ready for testing.
    6. + +
+ +

Raspberry Pi Raspbian

+ +
    + +
  1. Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
    2. +
  2. Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
    3. +

  3. Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:

    +
    +deb http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox wheezy main
+
    4. +

  4. Run this as root:

    +
    +wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
+   apt-key add -
+apt-get update
+apt-get install freedombox-setup
+/usr/lib/freedombox/setup
+
    5. +
  5. Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
    6. + +
+ +

Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the +192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn +off the dhcp server by running "update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server +disable" as root.

+ +

Please let me know if this work for you, or if you have any +problems. We gather on the IRC channel +#freedombox on +irc.debian.org and the +project +mailing list.

+ +

Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit +http://your-host-name:8001/ to see the state of the plint +welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to +get past it), and next visit http://your-host-name:8001/help/ +to look at the rest of plinth.

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