Enable WiFi on a headless Raspberry Pi

Enabling WiFi on a headless Raspberry Pi is really simple. Here are the steps:

1. Take out the SD card from Raspberry Pi and insert into a computer/laptop using a SD card reader in write mode.
2. SD card will be named as "boot" on a drive on your computer.
3. Open a text editor and create a file named "wpa_suppplicant.conf" on the root of "boot" or directly on the SD card.
4. Add the below contents into the file and save it.

country=US
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="NETWORK-NAME"
    psk="NETWORK-PASSWORD"
}

Remember:

• country should have a two character country code of your country.
• ssid should be your Wifi Network Name in double quotes
• psk should be the your Wifi Password in double quotes.
• After saving the file check that the extension of the file is .conf and not .conf.txt. If so, then change it to .conf.

Now, eject the SD card and insert it in Raspberry Pi and it will automatically connect to the Wifi.

How to enable SSH on Raspberry Pi in five super easy and quick steps

 Following are the easy steps to enable SSH on Raspberry PI without any complications:

Step 1: Shutdown Raspberry Pi

Step 2: Take out the memory card and plug it in any computer using the card reader.

Step 3: Open /boot partition of the card

Step 4: Create an empty file named "ssh" on the boot partition without any extension.

Step 5: Unmount memory card and insert into Raspberry Pi and start it.

That's it !!

To connect to the raspberry pi using SSH, just use this command

 ssh <user>@<IP address of Raspberry pi>

How to enable Safemode for search engines on your home network using PiHole

If you are using Pi hole it is piece of cake to restrict any unsuitable content on your home network. In this blog, I will show how easy it is to restrict search engines search to Safe Content/Restricted Mode.

Following are the steps:

• Open Pihole admin console on the browser by opening https://<IP>/admin/index.php.

• Login into the console.

• Go to Local DNS -> CNAME Records

• Add server address for the search engine in Domain and its corresponding safe search server in Target Domain

• Click on Add

• You can see that the server and the corresponding safe search server is mapped in the list.

• Similarly do for all the search engines you want to add.

Names of the search engine domains and their corresponding safe servers:

Google: 

Domain: www.google.com

Target Domain: forcesafesearch.google.com

Bing:

Domain: www.bing.com

Target Domain: strict.bing.com

DuckDuckGo:

Domain: www.duckduckgo.com

Target Domain: safe.duckduckgo.com

How to backup and restore Raspberry Pi MicroSD card on Mac and Windows

 

In order to take a backup following are the basic steps:

1. Connect the Micro SD card.
2. Create an Micro SD card image which will act as a backup image.

In order to restore a backup following are the basic steps:

1. Connect the Micro SD card.
2. Format the Micro SD card.
3. Write the Micro SD card image on the Micro SD card.

On Windows

To take backup

• Connect your Micro SD card

• Ensure that your computer have an SD card slot.
• Insert Micro SD card in the SD card adapter which comes with the Micro SD card.
• Insert the SD card adapter in the SD card slot.
• Check if Windows is able to detect the card. SD card will have a boot as name.

• Install Win32 Disk Imager (One of best softwares to use for this purpose but feel free to use other software. Though the steps for other software will be similar.)

• Open Win32 Disk Imager

• Select the location for the file where back is required to be created and the file name by either selecting the folder icon (blue icon) or by typing the path. Ensure that the file name should end with .img.

• Select the SD card from Device dropdown.

• Click on "Read" button and relax as this is going to take some time to create the backup file.

To restore a backup

• Connect SD card 

• Format the SD card

• Open Win32 Disk Imager

• Select the file from which the backup is required to be restored.

• Select the SD card from Device dropdown

• Select Write and relax. This will take more time as compared to the time it took for backup.

On Mac

To take a backup

• Connect the SD card. Note: the SD card will not be detected as a card to read the contents and you may see an error popup. Ignore the error popup.

• Open the Terminal and run this command

$ diskutil list

This command will display all the connected storage devices

 

• Identify the Name, Size and Volume of your SD card by looking at the output

• Type this command to create a backup file for the SD card (ensure the file extension is .dmg)

$ sudo dd if=<Volume> of=<Location>/<filename>.dmg 

e.g. sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=~/Desktop/pi-backup.dmg

To restore a backup

• Connect the SD card (Ensure that the card is a blank card or is pre-formatted)

• List the disk volumes using the following command (refer output above)

$ diskutil list

• Run the following command to restore the backup

$ sudo dd if=<Location of file>/<filename>.dmg of=<Volume>

e.g. sudo dd if=~/Desktop/pi-backup.dmg of=/dev/disk1

How to get rid of crazy "remote identification changed" error

 In your life if you ever used SSH to access a machine from two different computers or laptops then you might have encountered this error:

[user@hostname ~]$ ssh pi@bestpi.in.universe
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
5e:45:f9:a8:af:38:3d:b1:a5:c3:76:1d:02:f5:77:00.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /home/hostname /.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending RSA key in /var/lib/sss/pubconf/known_hosts:4
RSA host key for pong has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

You might be wondering what in the world did you do wrong. Well....nothing actually.

How to get rid of this error (and remove yourself from guilt), just use this command on the terminal:
ssh-keygen -R <host>
for e.g. ssh-keygen -R 192.168.0.19
 
 

Easy steps to share an external USB drive on your Raspberry Pi

 Refer the whole story published on Medium

LINK --> My story on Medium

Setting up Pi-Hole with OpenDNS (Stop Ads and Get Content Filtering) at home

Below is described how to setup pi-hole and OpenDNS at home. I used Raspberry Pi 3 for it and the below tutorial will describe all the steps pertaining to it only. Refer to the end of the blog for additional help.

Prerequisite:

• Raspberry Pi (3 or above) with Raspbian installed and SSH ready. (Refer References section below for help with it. I will call Raspberry Pi as the pi machine henceforth).
• A router supporting custom DHCP configuration (I am going to explain for Netgear Router).
• Computer to SSH the pi machine (Mac or PC) (I used Mac in this tutorial. You can skip this and do it directly on the pi machine if you have set it up with keyboard and monitor).
• Internet
• Lots of spare time. (This is very important)

 Step1: Install pi-hole on Raspberry Pi

 * Before you begin, ensure that the pi machine is connected to the internet.

• Open Terminal and SSH to the raspberry pi using the command below:

ssh user@pihostname.local

Replace user and pihostname with the user and hostname you have configured for your pi machine.

• On the terminal, type the below commands to install pi-hole. 

          * Before you begin: 

• Use all the default configurations as shown by the installer do not change it (We will change it later using the pi-hole console).

• The installer will ask you to install a webserver to install the pi-hole console. This is an optional step but go ahead with installing it as we need this console later for changing settings of pi-hole.

• Ensure that you do not have another web server on your pi machine. If you have it then the pi-hole console will not come up. So, it is better to stop the server before starting. 

• After the installation note the following:
• IPv4 address of the pi machine.
• IPv6 address of the pi machine.
• The password of the pi-hole console given.

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole.git Pi-hole

cd "Pi-hole/automated install/"

sudo bash basic-install.sh

For other ways to install pi-hole refer to this documentation: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#alternative-install-methods

Step2: Configure the pi machine as the DHCP server on Router.

*Before you start, note:

1. The configuration below is only for Netgear routers. For other routers, refer to the router manual.
2. Ensure Parental Settings are turned off. (Don't worry as after OpenDNS configuration those will get auto applied)

• Go to router admin settings. On Netgear routers, it can be opened in a browser by typing the following URL and entering the admin user password you used while setting up your router. If you did not configure the new admin password then it can be found on your router or in the user manual.

          http://routerlogin.net (Ensure that you are connected to your home wifi before opening the URL)

• Change Domain Name Server (DNS) Address settings

• Go to Advanced -> Setup -> Internet Setup
• On the right pane, enter the IPv4 address of the pi machine you noted in Step 1 as Primary DNS after selecting the "Use These DNS Servers" option.

• Apply the settings (This will restart the router)

• Change IPv6 settings

• After router is restarted, go to Advanced -> Advanced Setup -> IPv6
• Select "Use DHCP Server"
• Enter the IPv6 address of the pi machine in "Start Address" field
• Select "Use These DNS Servers" option.
• Enter the IPv6 address of the pi machine in "Primary DNS" fields.
• Apply the settings (This will restart the router)

Step3: Open the pi-hole console and configure OpenDNS

• Open the browser on the computer from which you are doing SSH and enter the following URL
  
  http://pi.hole/admin/index.php?login
  or
  http://<Ip address of pi machine>/admin/index.php?login

          Pi-console will be shown as below:

• Enter the password noted in Step 1 and go to Dashboard. The screen will look as shown below

• Go to Settings -> DNS and do the following:

• Uncheck any checkbox under settings "Upstream DNS Servers" on the left side.
• Under "Upstream DNS Servers" on the right side check all the checkboxes and enter the following information:
• Under Custom 1 (IPv4) enter: 208.67.222.123
• Under Custom 2 (IPv4) enter: 208.67.220.123

*Note: Refer IP Addresses at https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/upstream-dns-providers/ under the OpenDNS section if the above IP address does not work. I chose IP Address with Family Filters (IPv6 server is not present currently).

• After entering the information scroll to the bottom of the page and press the "SAVE" button.

• After you save the information, the screen will look as shown below.

If you have done everything as described above then you are all set. This not only removes ads from all the apps (on phones) but from all the sites your surf. Plus, you get content filtering from OpenDNS (restricted access to porn, malware, unfriendly sites, etc).

References:

• https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up (Setup Raspberry Pi)
• https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/ssh-remote-control-raspberry-pi (Setup SSH on Raspberry Pi)
• https://pi-hole.net
• https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#alternative-install-methods
• https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/how-do-i-configure-my-devices-to-use-pi-hole-as-their-dns-server/245
• https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/upstream-dns-providers/
• https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/using-netgear-nighthawk-ac1900-r7000-router-with-opendns-parental-controls-plus-pi-hole/9274/2