If you were able to log in again, using the fixed IP address, then the first part of the static IP configurations are completed.

Configure the wlan0 WiFi

NOTE!: As of 14-MAY-2017 and Raspberry Pi 3b; 5.0GHz Wifi IS NOT SUPPORTED.

Now.. the really fun part.. connecting the Pi to your WiFi network. Obviously I will not be displaying my own real WiFi access credentials, so you will need to find the SSID you want to connect to and the password for that network before starting.

The networking configuration that you setup in the previous step contains this setting: ‘wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf‘. The next step is to create/configure that file.

The file is fairly simple, and with the SSID and Password you already obtained for your network (you did that already.. right?). You’ll simple fill that information into the blanks named _SSID_ and _NETWORK_PASS_.

Open the file and edit:

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

Add this block below the original lines, using your settings:

network={
        ssid="_SSID_"
        psk="_NETWORK_PASS_"
}

Save this file, restart networking, signal a daemon reload, and then, reboot of the device. While it is rebooting, unplug the Ethernet cable (from eth0). Once the networking is back up, check to make sure you are able to contact the machine via it’s WiFi connection.

root@raspberrypi:~# service networking restart
root@raspberrypi:~# ystemctl daemon-reload
root@raspberrypi:~# reboot

After 2-3 Min. the Pi should have completed restarting and you should be able to verify a successful WiFi login.

Increasing Root Filesystem Space

By default, the size of the disk partitions on the image is VERY small; less than 2GB. Most of that space is used by by the base Stratux install, leaving about 400MB of space to save logs (and your replay database if you turn it on). You can see this with the ‘df’ command:

root@raspberrypi:~# df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root       1.8G  1.4G  324M  81% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M   12M  451M   3% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   60M   20M   41M  34% /boot

This just isn’t enough space, especially for the ‘/var/log’ directory where a lot of transient/logging data is written. My solution is to create a disk partition and mount it to `/var/log`.

Locate the disk device

Instructions on the web are not exactly correct, some suggest /dev/sda as the main device, however my testing shows it’s actually this named ‘/dev/mmcblk0’.

… with the following partitions:

Running fdisk

With the physical partition located.. start fdisk:

First, order of business is to increase the size of the main partition, to give it a big more room than just 1.8GB. I like to bump it up to around 4GB to leave room for installing more system updates and tools. To do this you will need to know the starting and ending blocks of the partition. That is available with the ‘print’ command:

Now delete the partition. Yes.. feels VERY dangerous.. and it is.. but as long as the starting block is maintained, and the end block number is increased.. this will end up being a safe operation. Verify that you targeted the correct partition by using ‘p’ again:

If this is correct, now recreate it with same number (2), start and type but with a bigger end (taking care not to overlap with other partitions). Try to align things on a megabyte boundary that is for end, make it a multiple of 2048 minus 1. Change the type if needed with t (for partitions holding an extX or btrfs filesystem, the default of 83 is fine). Then `w` to write and `q` to quit.

The partition table will have been modified but the kernel will not be able to take that into account as some partitions are mounted.

However, if in-use partitions were only enlarged, you should be able to force the kernel to take the new layout with:

If the command works the next step is to expand the filesystem. In my case I needed to reboot before the kernel picked up the new partition size, despite running partx to fill up this new space.

Following the restart, execute `resize2fs` and run an on-line expansion of the filesystem, and finally verify it again with ‘df -h’

The next step is to add a 3rd partition which will then be mounted to `/var/log`

Creating a dedicated filesystem for logging / database

I ended up creating 3 primary partitions, the largest of which will be mounted to `/var/log`.

Checked to make sure the device was crated by checking the `/dev` directory:

Next, put a filesystem on this new partition. Using df to determine the type of filesystem currently in use; I recommend that you stick with it for this most basic of operations:

Run mkfs to initialize the filesystem.

Once completed.. mount this where the logs and databases live. To do this the first thing that needs to happen is to check your current fstab:

My first order of business was to copy the current `/var/log` to a new location, create a new clean mount point for `/var/log` and then mount the new filesystem, and then verify it’s mounted using `df -h`

Edit the fstab file to create a mount point for the new partition where the logs used to be written (added the orange line), and ran mount to verify that it will automount on a restart.

Restart and verify

Restart the little box and verify that the mount was preserved.

Log back in, and run df to check the filesystem health. It should now has the the main filesystem has some breathing room again:

Setting Time with NTPD

If you do not have a GPS receiver attached to your Stratux, then it might not be able to determine proper system time. When this is the case, enabling ntpd will be your solution. Using national time sync services, it will keep your system clock correct. If you have your GPS plugged in, it’s getting really good timing signals already.. or the location function would not work at all! For the non GPS users:

Install ndptdate:

It should now start at bootup and resolve any timing issues you might have.

Update your Pi with the latest updates and security patches

Some might remember “Black Friday” when a worm created some serious disruption in the tech world.. including at hospitals in the UK. And it happened primarily because people are not applying their security patches! Although the risk of your Pi being botified and ransomed my not be high.. you should be updating it regardless! So, let’s do that now.

Finish up with this command to clean up some of the used disk space. Since you’ve already bumped the numbers on your partitions in the previous steps.. this is not nearly as necessary, but why leave unused stuff lying around? Your mother taught you to clean up afteryourself, right?

AND THAT DOES IT FOR THIS EPISODE!