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Raspberry Pi#

SSD as Additional Storage#

Important

If using a SATA SSD make sure the cable/adapter has an ASMedia chipset so it will work properly with Raspberry Pi.

If you have an additional SSD you'll need to:

  1. Choose a partition manipulation program
    • GNU Parted (parted) is probably already installed and ready to use from the command line.
    • GParted - If you have a desktop environment you can use this graphical frontend. Install with sudo apt install gparted.
  2. Create a partition table (aka disklabel). The default partition table type is msdos for disks smaller than 2 Tebibytes in size (assuming a 512 byte sector size) and gpt for disks 2 Tebibytes and larger.
  3. Create partition(s) and file system(s).
  4. Find the file system's UUID.
  5. Create a directory for mounting the SSD.
  6. Set up automatic SSD mounting, mount the SSD, reboot to test.

Example with parted: 

cat /sys/block/sda/queue/optimal_io_size
# 33553920
cat /sys/block/sda/queue/minimum_io_size
# 512
cat /sys/block/sda/alignment_offset
# 0
cat /sys/block/sda/queue/physical_block_size
# 512

sudo parted

(parted) print devices # you should see your SSD e.g. /dev/sda (240GB)
(parted) select /dev/sda # whatever name your SSD device has
(parted) mklabel msdos 

# Add optimal_io_size to alignment_offset and divide the result by physical_block_size.
# This number is the sector at which the partition should start. Here it ends in the last sector.
# Example:
(parted) mkpart primary ext4 65535s -1s

(parted) print list
(parted) align-check optimal 1 # or whatever number your partition has
# 1 aligned 
(parted) quit

# Make the filesystem with a volume label on partition 1 (or whatever number yours has)
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L WDSSD -c /dev/sda1
# Filesystem UUID is displayed but you can also find it with:
sudo lsblk -o UUID,NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL,MODEL

mkdir wdssd
sudo chown pi:pi -R /home/pi/wdssd/
sudo chmod a+rwx /home/pi/wdssd/
sudo nano /etc/fstab
# At the end of the file that opens, add a new line containing the UUID and mounting directory
# UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /home/pi/wdssd/ ext4 defaults,auto,users,rw,nofail 0 0

Resizing a root partition#

By default the root partition will consume all the available space. If you have an SSD you may want to set up partitions appropriately for things like a Ceph cluster. You can't shrink a system partition while it's being used so we'll create our own GParted bootable USB drive. This is because the GParted Live image available for download is only for x86-based architectures like amd64. Both the Pi and Apple Silicon Macs are arm64.

  1. Put a microSD card in a USB adapter and flash a Linux distribution with a desktop GUI.

    Danger

    Make sure you got the right device name. All data on the device will be lost.

    On your laptop
    diskutil list
diskutil zeroDisk short /dev/disk5

    ###################################################################
# REPLACE WITH YOUR VALUES
###################################################################
IMAGE='ubuntu-22.04.3-preinstalled-desktop-arm64+raspi.img' 
DEVICE='/dev/disk5' 
###################################################################

# Unmount the card
diskutil unmountDisk $DEVICE

cd ~/Downloads
# sudo dd if=$IMAGE of=$DEVICE bs=1m status=progress
pv $IMAGE | sudo dd bs=1m of=$DEVICE

    diskutil unmountDisk $DEVICE

  2. After setting up your Pi with the USB bootloader (see the Boot from SSD section), connect the SSD to your Pi using a USB 3.0 port.

  3. Allow time for cloud-init to finish configuring your SSD and connect to it via SSH for a required sudo reboot.
  4. Connect via SSH again and sudo shutdown -h now.
  5. Disconnect the SSD and connect the GParted USB to a USB 3.0 port, a monitor or TV, a mouse, and a keyboard. Turn on your Pi.
  6. After setting up the OS, install GParted.
    On your Pi
    sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install gparted
  7. Connect the SSD to the other USB 3.0 port and open GParted. Hit Refresh devices if needed. Select the SSD e.g. /dev/sdb.
  8. Right-click on the root ext4 partition e.g. /dev/sdb2 (it should already be unmounted) and select and apply these operations.
    1. Check the root partition.
    2. Resize it to 64 Gi (65,536 Mi) or desired size.
    3. Create unformatted partition in the unallocated space.
    4. Check the root partition again.
  9. Turn off the Pi. Disconnect the GParted USB, keep the SSD connected and turn it on.

Alternatively, you can use parted to set up/resize the SSD partitions and file systems as desired. For example, leave a raw partition (no formatted filesystem) for use by a Ceph storage cluster.

  1. Resize the filesystem.
  2. If needed, shrink the partition to leave space to be used by Ceph.

Repeat for each node in your cluster.

Upgrade#

  • upgrade is used to install available upgrades of all packages currently installed on the system. New packages will be installed if required to satisfy dependencies, but existing packages will never be removed. If an upgrade for a package requires the removal of an installed package the upgrade for this package isn't performed.
  • full-upgrade performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole.
On your Pi
sudo apt update # updates the package list
sudo apt full-upgrade

Authentication#

If you didn't do so during setup with cloud-init or manually, generate and add an ssh key.

On your laptop
# Specify the type of key to create e.g. `ed25519` or `rsa`.
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
# Add it on the remote machine (if the `-i` filename does not end in `.pub` this is added)
# Examples:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa pi@raspberrypi4b.local
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 orangepi@orangepi3b.local

To remove password authentication:

On your Pi
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
and replace #PasswordAuthentication yes with PasswordAuthentication no. Test the validity of the config file and restart the service (or reboot).
On your Pi
sudo sshd -t
sudo service sshd restart
sudo service sshd status

If you ever need to update the password for default users like pi, orangepi, ubuntu, etc. you can use:

On your Pi
sudo passwd root
sudo passwd pi

Board-specific tools#

Raspberry Pi#

On Raspberry Pi OS

On your Pi
sudo raspi-config
# Go to Interface Options, VNC (for graphical remote access)
# Tab to the Finish option and reboot.

Orange Pi#

In Ubuntu for Orange Pi, to reach other machines by hostname you need to add an entry to the hosts file. Example:

/etc/hosts
192.168.x.x  thathostname

Orange Pi has a config tool as well

On your Pi
sudo orangepi-config
If you just need to connect to Wi-Fi on Orange Pi, use:
On your Pi
nmcli dev wifi connect wifi_name password wifi_passwd

To set a static IP on Orange Pi see the user manual for instructions on using the nmtui command.

Remote GUI access#

If you installed a graphical desktop

You'll need a VNC viewer on your laptop to connect to the Pi using the graphical interface.

On your laptop
brew install --cask vnc-viewer

Attention

Apparently, on Raspberry Pi OS pip does not download from the Python Package Index (PyPI), it downloads from PiWheels. PiWheels wheels do not come with pygame's dependencies that are bundled in normal releases.

Install Pygame dependencies and Pygame.

On your Pi
sudo apt install libvorbisenc2 libwayland-server0 libxi6 libfluidsynth2 libgbm1 libxkbcommon0 libopus0 libwayland-cursor0 libsndfile1 libwayland-client0 libportmidi0 libvorbis0a libopusfile0 libmpg123-0 libflac8 libxcursor1 libxinerama1 libasyncns0 libxrandr2 libdrm2 libpulse0 libxfixes3 libvorbisfile3 libmodplug1 libxrender1 libsdl2-2.0-0 libxxf86vm1 libwayland-egl1 libsdl2-ttf-2.0-0 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libjack0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libinstpatch-1.0-2 libxss1 libogg0
sudo pip3 install pygame

# Check that the installation worked by running one of its demos
python3 -m pygame.examples.aliens

To set it up as a DNS server#

  1. Install and configure a DNS Server e.g. DNSmasq or Pi-Hole on the Pi.
  2. Change your router’s DNS settings to point to the Pi. Log in to your router's admin interface and look for DNS e.g. in LAN -> DHCP Server. Set the primary DNS server to the IP of your Pi and make sure it's the only DNS server. The Pi will handle upstream DNS services.

Copying files#

To copy files between the Pi and local machine

On your laptop
scp -r pi@raspberrypi2.local:/home/pi/Documents/ ~/Documents/pidocs

Find info about your Pi#

You can find info about the hardware like ports, pins, RAM, SoC, connectivity, etc. with:

On your Pi
free -h # RAM
df -h # storage space
pinout # requires `apt install python3-gpiozero`

View number of processing units and system load

On your Pi
nproc
uptime

CPU temperature in millidegree Celsius (one thousandth of a degree)

On your Pi
cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp
On the Orange Pi
On your Pi
# For CPU and GPU
sensors
# For NVMe SSD
sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0 | grep "Temperature:"

What model do you have?

On your Pi
cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model ;echo

What's the connection speed of the ethernet port?

On your Pi
ethtool eth0

32 or 64-bit kernel?

On your Pi
getconf LONG_BIT
# or check machine's hardware name: armv7l is 32-bit and aarch64 is 64-bit
uname -m

See OS version

On your Pi
cat /etc/os-release

Architecture
If the following returns a Tag_ABI_VFP_args tag of VFP registers, it's an armhf (arm) system.
A blank output means armel (arm/v6).

On your Pi
readelf -A /proc/self/exe | grep Tag_ABI_VFP_args
Or check the architecture with:
On your Pi
hostnamectl

Troubleshooting#

If your Pi's ethernet port is capable of 1Gbps, you're using a cat5e cable or better, your router and switch support 1Gbps, and you're still only getting 100Mbps first try with another cable. A faulty cable is the most common cause of problems like this. If that doesn't work you can try disabling EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet) although it will be reenabled at reboot. You could also try setting the speed manually.

On your Pi
ethtool --show-eee eth0
sudo ethtool --set-eee eth0 eee off

# set speed manually and disable autonegotiation
ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000 duplex full autoneg off

If not using cloud-init or an imager program, enable ssh with

On your Pi
touch /Volumes/$VOLUME/ssh

DNS issues

On your Pi
cat /etc/resolv.conf
resolvectl status

If modprobe shows 'not found' install the extra kernel modules package for your kernel release, rebuild the kernel to include the modules you need, install a newer kernel, or choose a different Linux distribution.

# Check if packages were installed
sudo cat /var/log/apt/history.log
On your Pi
# Check if there were any cloud-init errors
sudo cat /var/log/cloud-init.log | grep failures
sudo cat /var/log/cloud-init-output.log

Learn about electronics#

I've added some sample code from the MagPi Essentials book.
Sample code

GPIO Header#

GPIO