MOBILE ROUTER / ACCESS POINT / MEDIA SERVER

At the moment the world is experiencing a global chip shortage in which the demand for integrated circuit supersedes the supply. Many electronics companies especially those in the computing world such as smartphones have found themselves having to bump up prices of their phones because of this or having to use older chips on new phones. Electronics hobbyist such as myself have not been spared with prices of microcomputers such as Raspberry Pi soaring every now and then, and even being out of stock. As a result, many of us have found ourselves having to dust off those old raspberry pis. The raspberry pi 1, raspberry pi 2 and raspberry pi zero do not have wireless connection capabilities that most of us are looking for. So this is why I decided publish this instructable. In order to make the Pi to have wireless internet capabilities there is need to have some hardware and software installed, which will be described. I also thought of turning the raspberry pi to a media server so that I can stream media from a flash disk or external hard drive wirelessly. This would actually make sharing of files easier.

N/B : I did this documentation a while ago, there might be a few changes but the process stays the same. Enjoy!

Aims /Objectives

· I intend to make it a mobile server so that you can stream movies and videos, view those adorable pictures and listen to your favorite media.

· I intend to turn the raspberry pi to a router to avoid those frustrating moments when you want to have access to Wi-Fi but you only have wired internet (Ethernet cable connection).

· Raspberry pi model B

· WIFI Adapter (TP-LINK), any type would work

· Memory card (8GB) with adapter

· Ethernet cable

· Keyboard (USB wired)

· Mouse (USB wired)

· HDMI cable

· Monitor with HDMI port

· Phone charging adapter (USB, Output- 5V, 750mAh)

The OS was installed onto the memory card: The noobs file was downloaded and its contents extracted onto a folder. The contents on the folder were copied to a freshly formatted SD card.

SDFormatter software was used to format the SD card

· The Pi was booted and configured : The username was changed to “pi” and password set as “raspberry”

· Set up and test the Ethernet and Wi-Fi connection

· Connect with a USB console cable (optional)

When done the Pi was booting Raspbian, the USB console cable was connected and logged into the Pi via the command line interface. We then ran the following command to access the SSH option

sudo raspi-config

The raspberry configuration menu popped up and we selected advanced options and enabled SSH. We also expanded the memory to avoid running out of space while performing the various kernel upgrades and updates.

Sharing Wi-Fi Internet connection with Raspberry Pi through LAN/Ethernet (Headless Mode)

On windows I downloaded an SSH client called PuTTY.

When I booted the pi to the command line instead of desktop, the IP address was shown in the last few messages before the login prompt, though I encountered problems trying to connect via SSH. I found an awesome tutorial showing me how to use the raspberry in a headless mode. The Network and Sharing Centre was opened and I navigated to Change Adapter Settings. I opened the properties of the Wi-Fi network I intended to share and selected the Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection checkbox. Next the Ethernet adapter properties was selected and the IPV4 option double clicked, the IP address was 192.168.137.1. The raspberry pi was powered and one end of the Ethernet cable connected to its Ethernet port. On the Ethernet connection status message was Identifying then eventually Unidentified network. The command prompt was opened and the following command entered.

The pi IP address was revealed. I opened the PuTTY application and typed raspberrypi.mshome.net (raspberry pi IP could also work). A login prompt popped and I successfully logged in.

To test if the internet was successfully shared the following command was entered

ping www.google.com

The connection was successful. The Wi-Fi Adapter was set on the pi after running the command sudo shutdown now and it was made sure that the pi was off to prevent power surge in case on plugged the Wi-Fi Adapter before it was off.

Installation of TP-Link WN723N v.3 on Raspberry Pi

The TP-Link TL-WN723N doesn't work right out of the box so drivers had to be installed onto the Raspberry Pi for it to work.

First I ran the following command to find the kernel version

uname -a

The kernel version was 4.1.19+ #858 (for my case)

Next was to search for the drivers that could work on the TP-Link when inserted on the pi. The following commands were ran

wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80256631/8188...

tar -zxvf 8188eu-20160305.tar.gz

sudo install -p -m 644 8188eu.ko /lib/modules/4.1.19+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless

sudo insmod /lib/modules/4.1.19+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/8188eu.ko

sudo depmod –a

After installation we rebooted the pi with

sudo reboot

Installation of Software

Next up I installed the software onto the Pi that would act as the 'hostap' (host access point). For this task I needed internet access for this step I made sure that the Ethernet cable was connected both to the pi and computer. The computer was set up to share the internet to the pi via the cable by selecting the Wifi to share then clicking properties

The following lines were run on the PuTTY application

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install hostapd isc-dhcp-server

Next I did an edit on /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf, a file that sets up the DHCP server (which allows wifi connections to automatically get IP addresses, DNS, etc.)

In order to edit the file I ran the following command

sudo nano /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

I looked for the lines that say

option domain-name "example.org";

option domain-name-servers ns1.example.org, ns2.example.org;

and change them to add a # in the beginning so they read as

#option domain-name "example.org";

#option domain-name-servers ns1.example.org, ns2.example.org;

I also for the lines that said the following

# If this DHCP server is the official DHCP server for the local

# network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented.

#authoritative;

and removed the # so it said

# If this DHCP server is the official DHCP server for the local

# network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented.

authoritative;

pictures of the two edits above I scrolled to the bottom and added the following lines

subnet 10.10.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

range 10.10.0.25 10.10.0.50;

option routers 10.10.0.1;

option domain-name-servers 8.8.4.4;

interface wlan0

}

The file was saved by typing in Control-X then Y then return

Then the following command was run

sudo nano /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server

and scrolled down to INTERFACES="" and updated it to say INTERFACES="wlan0"

The file was saved and closed.

Next I needed to set up the wlan0 connection to be static and incoming. The following command was run

sudo nano/etc/network/interfaces to edit the file

The line that read “iface wlan0 inet manual” was changed to

iface wlan0 inet static

address 10.10.0.1

netmask 255.255.255.0

The file was saved (Control-X Y ).

A static IP address was assigned to the WiFi adapter by running

sudo ifconfig wlan0 10.10.0.1

Installation of Hostapd & Configuring the Access Point

First I downloaded hostapd with the following command

sudo apt-get install hostapd

Next was to configure the access point details. I did set up the password-protected network so that only those with the password would be able to connect to it. A new file was then created by running

sudo nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

The following lines were pasted

interface=wlan0

driver=nl80211

ssid=GROUP_3

hw_mode=g

channel=6

macaddr_acl=0

auth_algs=1

ignore_broadcast_ssid=0

wpa=2

wpa_passphrase=Raspberry

wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

wpa_pairwise=TKIP

rsn_pairwise=CCMP

The file was saved. I ran the following line to find the configuration file

sudo nano /etc/default/hostapd

The following line was edited #DAEMON_CONF="" to say DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

The file was then saved.

Configuring Network Address Translation

Next was to set up the Network Address Translation which would allow multiple people to connect to the WiFi and have all data ‘tunneled’ through the single Ethernet IP. The following was ran

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

The following line was added at the bottom after scrolling down

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

The following file was saved. This caused the IP forwarding to start on boot up. The following line was ran to activate it immediately.

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward"

The following commands were ran to create a network translation between the Ethernet port eth0 and the WiFi port wlan0.

sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o wlan0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT

The following line was ran

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

and the following added at the very end

up iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat

A reboot command was entered

sudo reboot

The dhcp server was restarted

sudo service isc-dhcp-server restart

To test the access point host the following command was ran

sudo /usr/sbin/hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

The SSID was visible on computer wifi connections. I tried connecting to GROUP_3 by typing the password – Raspberry.

Next was to set it up as a 'daemon' - a program that will start when the Pi boots. The following commands were ran

sudo service hostapd start

sudo service isc-dhcp-server start

The status of the host AP server and DHCP server were checked by running the following commands

sudo service hostapd status

sudo service isc-dhcp-server status

Next was to try and connect to the Wi-Fi connection (Group_3) with the password as “Raspberry”

A reboot command was entered and the connection tested again.

Next was to install the media server software. The following command was used to do this

sudo apt – get install minidlna

Before I started the media server I mounted the hard disk (which contained videos, pictures and music) on start-up. The following command was entered

sudo fdisk -I

I needed to access the media, to do this the following command was used

sudo mk dir /media/HardDrive

This command makes a folder called HDD in the media directory. Once the folder was made, it needed to have read and write permissions, this was possible by the following command

sudo chmond 777 /media/ HardDrive

Next was to edit the fstab file, the following command was used

First I ran the following command

sudo blkid

The following information was displayed

UUID="04FE-51E9" TYPE="vfat” The file to be configured was opened with the following command

sudo nano /etc/fstab

I scrolled to the bottom and added the following

UUID=04FE-51E9 /media/HardDrive vfat defaults 0 0

I rebooted the pi with the following command

sudo reboot

The minidlna configuration file was needed to be edited using the command

sudo nano /etc/minidlna . config

Once the file was open I edited the part that looked like this

# * “A” for audio (eg. media_dir=A,/var/lib/minidlna/music)

# * “P” for pictures (eg. media_dir=P,/var/lib/minidlna/pictures)

# * “V” for videos (eg. media_dir=V,/var/lib/minidlna/videos)

To this

media_dir=A,/media/HardDrive/Music

media_dir=P,/media/HardDrive/Pictures

media_dir=V,/media/HardDrive/Movies

media_dir=/media/HardDrive

The following was edited by removing “#” from # friendly_name=

# Name that the DLNA server presents to clients

# friendly_name= Group_3

After configuring MiniDLNA, it was refreshed by running the following command

sudo service minidlna restart

sudo service minidlna force-reload

On the network section of the computer I was able to see our minidlna server. When I viewed on the web I could see the media I had.

In order to test if all was working I ran a shutdown command and detached the Ethernet cable from both the raspberry pi and computer/laptop. I switched on the raspberry pi and connected to the Wi-Fi network (Group_3) and clicked on network section below the local disk and luckily the minidlna server was present (Group_3). To test the minidlna I opened the VLC player and clicked on the Universal Plug ‘n’ Play (UPnP) which detected the minidlna server and I could view our media.

GET YOURSELF SOME POPCORNS YOU DESERVE IT!!