Raspberry Pi

This page assumes you have an account and a ground station registered on either network.satnogs.org or network-dev.satnogs.org. Make note of your station ID and API Key.

Libre Space Foundation Raspberry Pi Case, on thingiverse

Intro

The Raspberry Pi 3 is the reference platform for SatNOGS (see our Ansible guide to install SatNOGS on other Linux machines). You can try using various distributions for this (eg. Arch, Fedora), but the one we suggest is our custom image based on latest Raspbian.

Download

You can download the latest Raspbian SatNOGS image following the links from the latest tag on GitLab. This image has the SatNOGS setup script installed, the SSH server enabled and all required packages preinstalled. Click on the cloud icon and then click "Download release". You will get an Artifacts.zip file:

Artifacts list

The current artifacts list consists of:

• A Zipped image file
• An Image info file
• A SHA256 checksums file

Data integrity verification

You should verify the data integrity of the artifacts by checking the SHA256 checksums. On Linux, run sha256sum -c sha256sums in the directory where the artifacts are downloaded

Example:

$ sha256sum -c sha256sums 
2017-09-29-Raspbian-SatNOGS-master-lite.info: OK
image_2017-09-29-Raspbian-SatNOGS-master-lite.zip: OK

Flashing

Follow the usual Raspbian flashing instructions, and boot your Raspberry Pi.

Configuration

The Raspberry Pi can be set up by connecting it to a keyboard and monitor, by connecting it to wired Ethernet, or by editing files in the /boot mount on the flashed USB stick.

Modifying the /boot mount

This eliminates the need for a keyboard and monitor. Note your OS may mount /boot in a different location, and Windows users have line ending problems. Suggested actions:

Set up wifi:

   edit /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf

contents: (note key_mgmt options include NONE, WPA-PSK, WPA-EAP)

   ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
   update_config=1
   country=US
   
   network={
       ssid="NETWORK_NAME"
       psk="password"
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
   }

Ethernet

If you are using wired Ethernet you should get connectivity right away.

Wireless setup

If you are using wireless then see this doc for network configuration instructions after booting.

Keyboard and monitor setup

Once your Raspberry Pi is booted, log in with username "pi" password "raspberry" and run:

sudo raspi-config

You will want to be sure to do the following:

• Set a strong, unique password
• Change localization settings:
  • by default the rpi locale is configured for EN-GB, change as appropriate (ie: to EN_US.UTF-8)
  • set timezone (we recommend UTC so your logs match the times in Network)
  • set keyboard layout, again this is defaulting to a UK layout
  • set wifi country
  • expand filesystem
• Finish and reboot

SatNOGS Setup

SSH to the Raspberry Pi with user "pi" and password "raspberry" (no quotes).

Follow SatNOGS Client Setup instructions to configure the system.

Fedora

Instructions for installing on Fedora can be found here.