12/12/2020 Installing Raspbian the go-to Raspberry OS — Code Done Right!

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Installing Raspbian
Typical Raspberry Pi OS, called Raspbian, installation is too cumbersome for a server. You do not even need
desktop environment. This part of the webstack tutorial will focus on installing a minimalistic system that can be
fine-tuned to your needs. You can use either Windows or Linux. Doesn’t matter as long as you have the means
of copying files to an SD card and you are able to connect on the same network both Raspberry and a computer
used to administrate your server with.

Getting Raspbian
To get the stock image of Raspbian OS go to The Raspberry Pi Foundation website and download Raspberry Pi
OS (32-bit) Lite and unzip the file.

Installing Raspberry Pi OS
Linux
The easiest way to place Raspbian on your SD card is the use of dd command, if you are doing this on Linux I
assume you know how to use terminal

sudo dd if=/$path_to_raspbian_img of=/dev/sdX bs=4MB conv=noerror

status=progress

bs= tells dd how big should be the write blocks, 4MB is fine
if= this is the path to Raspbian image file
of= this is the path to root of your SD card
conv=noerror ignores errors
status=progress simply shows progress

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Caution! Choosing wrong device will wipe your data, there is no prompt whatsoever! If you specify your hard
drive it WILL be erased.

FINDING PATH TO SD CARD IN LINUX

Run this command

sudo fdisk -l

Usually /dev/sda will be your main hard drive and /dev/sdb will be your SD card in case you have a single HDD
and only the SD card plugged in.

Devices follow this pattern starting with /dev/

sda – first physical drive

sda1 – first partition of the first physical drive
sda2 – second partition of the first physical drive
sdb – second physical drive
sdb1 – first partition of the second physical drive
etc.

/dev/sdd3 – this would be a third partition of the fourth device

Note that devices differ on the third letter. Don’t make the mistake of writing to /dev/sdA instead of /dev/sdB –
this will seriously ruin your evening… Trust me on that

Caution! Remamber that you have to write the image to the device itself and NOT a partition of the card.

Windows
With Windows the easiest way is using Balena Etcher. Just select Raspbian image as source, the SD card as
target and confirm that you are sure when the tool asks you.

You can use this tool to make backups of our SD card easily. Trim function allows for use of large cards without
bloating the image, which means that 32GB card with 4GB used will take actually 4GB on your hard drive.

Initial Raspbian modi cation

In case you took the card out after flashing it with Raspbian image put it back in. It will contain two new
partitions.

Caution! On Windows you will be able to see only the contents of the boot partition, as it is a fat32 partition.
Caution! Do not format the other partition like Windows suggests! It contains Raspbian and is visible only to
machines with Linux filesystem.

Allowing SSH connection to our server

SSH is the preferred way of connecting to the server. You do not need a graphical user interface (GUI) as
everything will be done via command line. Foregoing GUI saves space and resources as our Raspberry do not

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have to encumber the CPU with it. Later we will even remove any packages connected with GUI – why keep
what you do not use?

Add an empty file named ssh to boot partition. If using Windows make sure the file is NOT named ssh.txt as
windows automatically adds file extensions.

CAUTION If you fail to add this file, SSH interface will not be enabled and you will not be able to connect to your
server.

Disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Since server should have a stable connection we are going to use cable connection instead of Wi-Fi, which we
can then disable. If you still prefer using Wi-Fi connection over cable (which you should not), check out the
wpa_supplicant.conf instruction below. Since we will not be using Bluetooth we can disable it as well. Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth can be enabled and disabled at any time by including or removing the below code in config.txt on boot
partition

Navigate to boot partition on your SD card, find config.txt file and add following lines

dtoverlay=disable-wifi
dtoverlay=disable-bt

Bear in mind that disabling Wi-Fi on Raspberry without an ethernet port is a terrible idea. You do need a means
of connecting to the internet…

Enabling WiFi with wpa_supplicant.conf le

It is a bad idea to have a server run over Wi-Fi as it is not reliable enough and the bandwidth is limited when
compared to cable connection. If you are not concerned with the speed at least think of reliability. Still, if you do
not mind, or do not have a choice for some reason, here is how to connect to Wi-Fi.

Navigate to boot partition on your SD card, create a new file and name it wpa_supplicant.conf again mind the
extension. Inside place the following code

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

network={
ssid="$wifi_name"
psk="wifi_password"
}

Substitute XX in country line specifying your country code in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard. Different
countries use different frequencies for Wi-Fi and due to legal reasons you need to change it. Also it might
not connect if your router has a different country from your Raspberry
Substitute $wifi_name in ssid line with the name of your Wi-Fi
Substitute $wifi_password in psk line with your Wi-Fi password

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Booting Raspberry for the rst time

Just put the SD card that we just prepared into your Raspberry, connect it with ethernet cable to your router and
plug in the power.

CAUTION it is advised to firstly go through all steps below before opening ports on your router!
CAUTION if you have port 22 open and pointing to your Raspberry then it will be accessible through the internet
and anyone can log into it with the default credentials!

If all went well your Raspberry should now be connected to your local network, either via eth0 or Wi-Fi. Give it a
minute to boot properly and log in

Using SSH to access your raspberry

Finding your Raspberry IP
Consult the manual of your router on how to log into the admin panel and in device list search for device named
“raspberry”

Connecting on Windows
You can connect via PuTTY. In host name put the IP of your Raspberry on local network, make sureto select the
SSH connection type.

Connecting on Linux
Open a terminal window and use the following command

ssh pi@$RASPBERRY_IP

Substitute $RASPBERRY_IP with your… Raspberry’s IP address on your local network.

In case you do not have an ssh client installed run the following command first

sudo apt install openssh

Bonus – Android
It is also possible to log into your server via phone. Your smartphone can allow you to remotely access the
server just like any other computer can. I cannot recommend in good faith going through this tutorial series on
your phone but it is possible as well. It can, however, be used to remotely reboot a service, access a log, add a
user or just check up on your server. I am currently using habilis’ dynamic MOTD and after I log in I get
presented with basic information regarding the health of the server. Should you need it, you can shut down the
Pi as well – bear in mind that a power cycle is needed for a boot after a shutdown.

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In case you are interested, look for SSH client on Play Store or AppStore. A good choice would be Juice SSH. It
has a premium version but basic is useful as well, I never felt the need to upgrade to premium.

First time login to your Raspberry Pi

The default credentials for logging in are as follows

user: pi
password: raspberry

We will be creating a new user and deleting the default one shortly

Updating raspberry
Before we do anything, we need to make sure our server is up to date. Run the following commands answering
y to all prompts

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove

update – updates the repository cache files, which tell our server what packages are available, in which
version and what are their dependencies
upgrade – actually updates packages that you have currently installed on your system to their newest
versions
autoremove – should a package installed automatically become useless i.e. no other package depends on
it any longer, either because something got uninstalled and it orphaned said package or it became
obsolete, this command will remove any such packages

Creating a new user

Now we can add a new user that we will be using instead of the default user pi. Since it is a well-known user you
might be at risk of a security breach if you fail to at least change the password. It is best, however, to just delete
pi instead, you really do not need it. We will do that in a moment. For now run those commands to create a new
user and add it to video group

sudo adduser $NEW_USER_NAME

sudo usermod -aG video $NEW_USER_NAME

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Apart from the new password, which should NOT be 12345, you can to input some basic information about the
new user. You can safely ignore it and just press enter every time and confirm with y at the end. It does not
matter to us, unless you know why that matters but then you would not be reading this guide.

Adding our new user to video group enables the usage of vcgencmd commands to e.g. check CPU temperature,
failure to add that user to video group will result in errors while using vcgencmd. It is not important to normal
users e.g. email account users that we will create later, but add it to your main administrator account for good
measure.

adduser vs useradd
We have two commands available to us to add users. adduser, which we used, and useradd – this one should
be avoided. The difference is that adduser creates a home directory and copies default files there for the new
user. useradd does not. At a later stage, when we will be setting up the email server, we will also create a basic
skeleton of the mailbox folders in /etc/skel so that any subsequent users we create will have them enabled and
copied to their folder by default. Skeleton and /etc/skel – ha-ha! Am I right? Nothing?

Allowing the new user to use sudo

By default root account is disabled on Raspbian. Good, we do not actually need it, and 99% should be done with
normal account using sudo command anyways. Sudo stands for superuser do – act as the highest authority on
the server. All configuration modifications, reading logs and many more things require root privileges – hence
sudo!

Credit xkcd

We have two straightforward ways of enabling a user to use sudo. Either we can add the new user to sudo
group or run visudo command.

Adding the user to sudo group

This is easy and you probably already figured out how to do it, just type the following command

sudo usermod -aG sudo $NEW_USER_NAME

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The drawback is that you will be asked for password when you use sudo the first time during the current
session. It is a preemptive measure for that time when you leave your desk with the terminal window open – only
your files are compromised and not the whole server. Usually this is the best choice of enabling sudo.

Using visudo
Another way is to use visudo command. This modifies the file telling your system who is the boss around here,
so to speak. Be careful as erroneous dealings here might break everything you already did so far! As we have
no way of logging in as root you would have to start the whole installation process anew!

visudo modifies the /etc/sudoers file that normally is only readable to the root user. By default even root is not
able to write to the file. You can check out the contents of the file running the following command

sudo cat /etc/sudoers

Now that we know what we are modifying let us get on with it.

To access visudo run the following command

sudo visudo

Find the following line

ROOT ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Directly below, in a separate line add the following

$NEW_USER_NAME ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Substitute $NEW_USER_NAME with the name of the user you created, save and exit. visudo parses the file
before writing it to sudoers and checks for errors in case you make an unrecoverable mistake. If you make such
a mistake after saving and closing the file it will ask you what to do. type e to edit the file again or x to exit
discarding changes.

Now you have a user that can act as root (superuser) using the command sudo. The NOPASSWD: bit is there
so that you are not asked for password when using sudo. I do not recommend adding it in a live situation, again
– a potential security breach. Linux, in contrast to Windows, is all about security.

Acting as root
If for some reason you actually need, or want, to become root run the following command

sudo su -

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You will notice that Bash shell changed colors to reflect that you are acting as root and stopped helping you with
flashy colors. That is to tell you to be careful. You can stop acting as root by simply typing exit in the command
prompt.

Basic con guration of Raspbian

Now it is a good time to use the raspi-config tool that enables us to modify some system settings. Run the
following command

sudo raspi-config

Navigate to 2 Network Options and change N1 Hostname to your FQDN (domain name)
Now go to 3 Boot Options and change B1 Desktop / CLI to B1 Console
Navigate to 4 Localisation Options and set up correct settings. You can skip wi-fi even if you are using it,
wpa_supplicant.conf took care of any settings we might want to change here
Navigate to 7 Advanced Options and select A1 Expand Filesystem
OPTIONAL In advanced options select minimal memory split for video, you don’t need that
Select finish, if not prompted for a reboot, reboot now running the following command

sudo reboot

FQDN stand for Fully Qualified Domain and it should reflect the domain you are going to use. If your domain is
example.com then this is what you should put there. It will be used by postfix email delivery agent later on

As mentioned earlier we only require CLI (Command Line Interface) and resources needed to run desktop
environment (GUI) can be used elsewhere.

Raspbian defaults to UK standards. Changing to en_US.utf-8 is the most versatile option. Keyboard options are
changed so that you can use special symbols on your keyboard and local letters

Expanding the file system will make sure you are using all the available space on your SD card.

Log in with the new username and test sudo

After a reboot, connect to your server via SSH like you did previously, however this time instead of using pi
username use the one that you added. Once you are logged in run the following command

sudo apt update

If you are able to update the repository and server is not asking “Are you root?” then all is fine and we are almost
done with setting up our server. If something is wrong check out previous paragraphs of this tutorial.

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Deleting the default user

Now that we have everything set up, including our new administrative account we can get rid of our default user
pi. To do that run the following command

sudo deluser pi

CAUTION It is important to delete and never use the username pi as it is a default Raspbian account with sudo
privileges. Should someone log in with pi username the intruder will have access to all data stored on your
server and can break your machine after stealing all your data. Yeah that’s gone now… During the next step we
will secure our server, but logging in as pi will not be considered an attack, intruder had all the credentials
needed, and will not be prevented. Think of it as leaving your house keys on a sidewalk with the address
attached to it. Server hardware can be checked and it shows that it runs on Raspberry.

Conclusion
Right now we have a working server with a new user. Tabula rasa so to speak. We can now order it to do
whatever we want. But before we do that we need to secure it and open to the world. Stay tuned for the next
part on tightening security. Deleting the default user is just not enough.

Feel free to drop a comment if you spot a mistake somewhere or if a software update made a part of the tutorial
obsolete and in need of updating!

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