pi-dash

Provision Raspberry Pi to Display a Web Dashboard

Requirements

• Ansible
• Ansible Vault
• Raspberry Pi OS

Setup Raspberry PI

Install Raspbian OS

• Format your SD using Disk Utility ~ Format MS-DOS (FAT)
• Download Raspbian
• Unzip the download
• Burn the image to your SD Card Using Etcher
• Insert your SD and turn on your Pi.

Enable SSH Access

• Open your Terminal
• Run sudo raspi-config
• Select 3 Interfacing Options
• Select P2 SSH
• Select Yes and Press Enter
• Select 35 Interfacing Options`
• Select P3 VNC
• Select Yes and Press Enter
• Reboot your Pi

Retrieve Pi's IP Address

• Connect your Pi to the network through ethernet or WIFI.
• Open your Terminal
• Run the ifconfig command
• Make note of the IP Address under eth0

Installation

Setup the ansible script.

cd pi-dash

Edit the hosts file by replacing host-ip with your IP.

Update variables in vars/all.yml:

• host_name
• host_ip
• ssh_pub_key

Update variables in vars/secrets.yml:

• user_password
• pi_password

Encyrpt vars/secrets.yml using Ansible Vault:

ansible-vault edit vars/secrets.yml

Deploy using Ansible.

ansible-playbook playbook.yml -i hosts --ask-pass --become -c paramiko

Pi default password raspberry.

Let Ansible do it's Magic :)

What does this playbook do?

1. Config

   • Generate locale and set it to en_US.UTF-8
   • Update Timezone to America/New York
   • Set hostname to the defined value - host_name
   • Add 127.0.0.1 host_name to hosts file
   • Disables Screen Sleep

2. SSH

   • Removes Root SSH Configuration
   • Updates sshd_config Parameters

3. APT

   • Installs Packages * apt_install_packages
   • Removes Packages * apt_remove_packages
   • APT Full System Update
   • Reboot if required

4. User

   • Creates a new user - user_name
   • Adds user to groups - user_groups
   • Uploads ssh_pub_key to authorized_keys
   • If your key is not located in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub update ssh_pub_key
   • Enables password less sudo
   • Sets user_name password to user_password
   • Changes Pi's password to - pi_password
   • Have Ansible to use new pi_password
   • Changes AutoLogin to user_name
   • Restarts Pi
   • Waits for SSH to come up

5. Chromium

   • Launches Chromium on Boot - Full Screen, Incognito, Geckoboard URL
   • Restarts Pi
   • Waits for SSH to come up

Ansible Vault

To use ansible-vault you must have the file ./.vault_pass.txt on your machine with the vault password inside. Do not upload it to Git!!

user_password and pi_password are stored in vars/secrets.yml.

Encrypt:
ansible-vault edit vars/secrets.yml

Decrypt:
ansible-vault decrypt vars/secrets.yml

Edit or View:
ansible-vault edit vars/secrets.yml

Using Playbook after Initial Setup

Add Pi to ~/.ssh/config

Host $IP $Hostname
    HostName $IP
    User ops
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/$ssh-key

Change remote_user to user_name on playbook.yml

Edit main.yml to include the tasks you want to run

Run the playbook: ansible-playbook playbook.yml -i hosts