Greetings and thanks for your interest in the OpenRepeater Project. This Getting Started Guide is a collection of our Knowledge Base Articles intended to help you get the software portion of the project up and running quickly. For additional help on software & hardware, please Search the Knowledge Base.
In order to setup your pre-configured boot-able SD card you will need the following:
Please choose the appropriate platform you will be imaging your SD card from:
The boards are intended to run “headless” (meaning without a monitor and keyboard). If you want you can plug a monitor or TV in via the HDMI port to watch what is happen, otherwise you can SSH into the board.
Some boards have a jTag/UART interface for a serial console interface. you may also connect this route for terminal control.
Plug the board into your network using an ethernet cable. By default it will get an IP address via DHCP. You can use an app like the Angry IP Scanner (for Windows/Mac/Linux) or iNet Network Scanner (for Mac) to find out what the IP address of your device is on your local network. You may also be able to use the DHCP client list from your network router’s administration page to find this IP address.
For a long term solution, you may want to SSH into the board and set the IP address to a static address for more consistency.
While the OpenRepeater is designed to run headless, you may wish to connect it up to a keyboard and monitor for the initial setup and testing. Most single board computers have video out in some form, usually HDMI or Micro HDMI.
What you will need:
It pretty simple, just connected up the monitor with the appropriate cables, plug in the keyboard in a USB port (use a USB Hub if required) and power on the board. You can use the same username and password as you would with SSH.
Default Root Login
Username: root
Password: OpenRepeater
Once you are logged in to the command line, you can issue commands as usually. Use ifconfig to find the assigned IP address for your ethernet port (eth0). This is the IP address you will need to log into the Web Control Panel.
Note: Don’t forget to change your password to secure the root account.
If you plan to log in via SSH, then you have already discovered your device IP address (or will have to) using one of the other means. Once you know that you will be able to log into the Web Control Panel as well as use SSH for other command line functions.
Default Root Login
Username: root
Password: OpenRepeater
Once you are logged in via SSH, you can issue commands as usually.
Note: Don’t forget to change your password to secure the root account.
Another alternative to access your board if you need to obtain your IP or be able to set a static address is to use the UART serial connection on many boards. We won’t go into specifics for your board here, but the basic steps are as follows:
Default Root Login
Username: root
Password: OpenRepeater
Note: Previous beta versions might have used the following logins: RPI 2: root/debian (username/password) & Odroid C1: root/odroid (username/password). This has been fixed on newer releases.
Once you are logged in to the command line, you can issue commands as usually. Use ifconfig to find the assigned IP address for your ethernet port (eth0). This is the IP address you will need to log into the Web Control Panel.
Note: Don’t forget to change your password to secure the root account.
To connect to the web based configuration interface:
Default Web Login
Username: admin
Password: openrepeater
The first time that you log in on your new install you will be presented with a setup wizard. This is a one-time process that will help you set the basic settings to help get your system up and running quickly. There are setting like the callsign for the repeater, the sound device, and gpio in and out pins that are required to be set properly in order for the system to work at any level. This process is straightforward and you will be prompted for the information. Upon completing the setup wizard you will be logged out and a new configuration file will be generated. When you log back in you will see the normal web interface and can then modify additional settings.
NOTE: You will need to make sure that your sound device is connected before proceeding as it will try to detect it for you.
Chances are that your SD card is larger than the IMG file written to it above. To utilize all the space on the card (unpartitioned space) you will need to expand the file system to fill the entire card.
Chances are that your SD card is larger than the IMG file written to it when you imaged your card. To utilize all the space on the card (unpartitioned space) you will need to expand the file system to fill the entire card. Follow the steps below to complete this. Take your time to follow the instructions clearly as you can mess up the data on your card. It is usually best to perform this step right after you have imaged the card: 1) to give you the most room right away, and 2) if you do mess this up, then you can simply reimage the card without losing any customizations.
Raspberry Pi Users (Rasbian)
For Raspberry Pi Images (Raspbian), you can simply use the menu driven raspi-config command at the command line and there is a expand file system option in there. For all other users please follow the instructions below.
With the memory card inserted in your board, boot up and SSH into your board as the root user.
Enter the following commands below to use fdisk to change the partition table.
Start fdisk for the MMC card with the following command:
fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
At the fdisk prompt, enter p to display partitions. You should see something similar to the image below.
Partition 2 should be the “Linux” partition with ORP on it. Be sure to note the start sector for use in a minute. It might be a good idea to select and copy this into your clipboard if your ssh client will allow it.
At the fdisk prompt, enter d to delete a partition and then press 2 to select the 2nd partition. You should receive confirmation that partition 2 has been deleted.
Note: Nothing will actually be deleted until you issue the write (w) command at the end.
Next at the fdisk prompt, enter n to create a new partition. Select p for a primary partition, and 2 to create partition 2. When prompted, enter the first sector amount above as the new sector amount, then when prompted for the last sector, hit Enter to accept the largest possible amount. Those results should look similar to this:
You should notice a size returned pretty close to the capacity of your card. If something doesn’t look correct, then hit q to quit without saving the chagnes. Otherwise, press w to write this information.
You will now need to reboot the system and log back in as root. If you have an active SSH session, this will be lost and you will need to reconnect after the system reboots.
reboot
The last and final step is to resize the file system. Once the system has rebooted and you are logged back in as root, issue the following command and wait until it completes.
resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2
That should be it. If you log into the OpenRepeater Web Interface and look at the disk usage, you should see you have more space now.
For development and distribution reasons, the system is pretty loose security wise: root access, simple passwords, etc. This is the responsibility of each user to lock down to their liking and requirements.