Previous post in this series: How to install KA Lite on the Raspberry Pi
If you got to the end of the previous post, you would have a working install of the open source KA Lite system on the Raspberrry Pi.
This post will show you how to deploy this KA Lite setup without relying on any existing network infrastructure:
To share the setup without an existing network, we will configure the wireless adapter to provide its own network for computers to connect to. If you have an existing wireless network, you can skip this post.
Before you begin
This post is intended for the widely-used “WiPi” USB WiFi adapter, so you’ll need one of those.
I used the same Tenda USB WiFi adapter as previous setups, which has a Ralink chip from the same series:
Set it up
See the official guide for these steps in compact form. These steps are the same, but expanded with extra output from my install.
Clone the raspberry pi scripts repo:
$ git clone https://github.com/learningequality/ka-lite-pi-scripts.git
Cloning into 'ka-lite-pi-scripts'...
remote: Counting objects: 66, done.
remote: Total 66 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 66
Unpacking objects: 100% (66/66), done.Open it up and run ./configure.sh as the root user. This requires Internet access, and will install and configure a few packages:
$ cd ka-lite-pi-scripts/
$ ls
README.md configure_network_interfaces.py use_wipi.sh
conf redirect_port80_to_port8008.py
configure.sh use_edimax.sh
$ sudo ./configure.sh
Get:1 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org wheezy Release.gpg [490 B]
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Reading package lists... Done
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Building dependency tree
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The following packages will be upgraded:
cups-bsd cups-client cups-common fuse libcups2 libcupsimage2 libfuse2 raspi-config
8 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
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Preconfiguring packages ...
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locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
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Preparing to replace raspi-config 20150131-3 (using .../raspi-config_20150131-4_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement raspi-config ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
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Setting up libcups2:armhf (1.5.3-5+deb7u6) ...
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Setting up cups-client (1.5.3-5+deb7u6) ...
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Setting up libfuse2:armhf (2.9.0-2+deb7u2) ...
Setting up fuse (2.9.0-2+deb7u2) ...
udev active, skipping device node creation.
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Setting up raspi-config (20150131-4) ...
update-rc.d: warning: default start runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match raspi-config Default-Start values (S)
update-rc.d: warning: default stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match raspi-config Default-Stop values (none)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
dnsmasq-base libnetfilter-conntrack3
The following NEW packages will be installed:
dnsmasq dnsmasq-base hostapd libnetfilter-conntrack3
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
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Selecting previously unselected package libnetfilter-conntrack3:armhf.
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[ ok ] Starting DNS forwarder and DHCP server: dnsmasq.
Setting up hostapd (1:1.0-3+deb7u2) ...
[ ok ] Starting advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapd.
[ ok ] Starting DNS forwarder and DHCP server: dnsmasq[....] (already running).
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencingNext, run run the ./use_wipi.sh script:
$ ./use_wipi.sh
[ ok ] Stopping advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapd.
[ ok ] Starting advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapd.And then the ./configure_network_interfaces.py script as root:
sudo python ./configure_network_interfaces.pyAfter this ran, the /etc/network/interfaces file looked like:
$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
#allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
auto wlan0
#allow-hotplug wlan0
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
auto wlan1
#allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface wlan0 inet static
address 1.1.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
pre-up sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i wlan0 -p tcp -j DNAT --to-destination 1.1.1.1
pre-up sudo python /home/pi/ka-lite/ka-lite-pi-scripts/redirect_port80_to_port8008.py &And I modified /etc/default/ifplugd to only include eth0, so that the pi does not attempt to join any wireless networks itself:
$ sudo nano /etc/default/ifplugd
INTERFACES="eth0"
HOTPLUG_INTERFACES="eth0"
ARGS="-q -f -u0 -d10 -w -I"
SUSPEND_ACTION="stop"And then reboot:
$ sudo reboot
Broadcast message from root@raspberrypi (pts/0) (Thu Jun 11 11:05:46 2015):
The system is going down for reboot NOW!See if its all working
Disregard the old addresses once you’ve done the above steps, and run ifconfig to find out about addresses after rebooting.
The pi broadcasts a passwordless wireless network called “kalite”, and all DNS lookups point to 1.1.1.1.
This means in a web browser, you can just load a URL like:
http://kalitePlatforms
On a laptop in range, the network appeared once the pi booted:
The network connected without a password:
And the connection info for the client computer is being checked in the background:
Once the computer gets a lease from DHCP, the URL loads, and the interface works as expected:
Tested on Android, the player and navigation worked in a similar way:
KA Lite’s media player doesn’t seem to require anything other than a web browser. Either Chrome or Firefox seem to be suitable choices.
Debug zone
Some useful commands for debugging are shown below.
List USB devices, for debugging the wireless adapter:
lsusbList recent errors, for debugging the same thing:
dmesgRestart networking, run when changing configuration:
service networking restartNote on dnsmasq
Because of the way dnsmasq hijacks lookups to provide the wireless network, the Raspberry pi cannot access the Internet over Ethernet (eg, to download content) while dnsmasq is running:
sudo service dnsmasq stopYou can access the web interface at http://1.1.1.1/ while this service is disabled.
And then start it again when done using the Internet, so that the user-friendly computer name works again:
sudo service dnsmasq start