GNet Solutions » Hardware Hacking » Raspberry Pi

• Table of contents
• Prepare the Environment
• Install PHP
• Install WiFiPi AP
• Resources

Here is a procedure on how I setup a Raspberry Pi as a wireless access point or wireless router on Arch Linux.

NOTE: The original project used Raspbian as the base Operating System, so I needed to adapt the existing code to work on Arch Linux.

WARNING: This is currently (6/4/16) a work in progress. As such some features may not work properly.

Prepare the Environment¶

• Before installation of the components, make sure everything is up to date using the following command:
  

  pacman -Syu
  

• Install a few dependencies:
  

  pacman -S sudo nginx git curl ntp dnsmasq hostapd wireless_tools
  

• Edit the sudoers file:
  

  visudo
  

  • Add the following to the end of the file:
    

    http ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/ifconfig,/usr/bin/sudo,/usr/bin/ip link set wlan0 down,/usr/bin/ip link set wlan0 up,/bin/cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf,/bin/cp /tmp/wifidata /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf,/usr/bin/wpa_cli scan_results, /usr/bin/wpa_cli scan,/usr/bin/systemctl restart wpa_supplicant@wlan0,/usr/bin/systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan0,/usr/bin/systemctl disable wpa_supplicant@wlan0,/usr/bin/systemctl is-enabled,/bin/cp /tmp/hostapddata /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf, /bin/systemctl start hostapd,/bin/systemctl stop hostapd,/bin/systemctl stop dnsmasq, /bin/systemctl stop dnsmasq,/bin/cp /tmp/dhcpddata /etc/dnsmasq.conf
    nf
    

• Start and enable ntpd:
  

  systemctl enable ntpd
  systemctl start ntpd
  

• Edit the wpa_supplicant config file:
  

  nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
  

  • And add the following:
    

    ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
    update_config=1
    

• Start and enable wpa_supplicant for wlan0 at boot:
  

  systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan0
  systemctl start wpa_supplicant@wlan0
  

---

Install PHP¶

• Install fcgiwrap
  

  pacman -S fcgiwrap php-fpm
  

• Edit the php-fpm config:
  

  vi /etc/php/php-fpm.conf
  

  • Make the following changes:
    

    listen = /run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock
    listen.owner = http
    listen.group = http
    listen.mode = 0660
    

• Create a configuration directory to make managing individual server blocks easier
  

  mkdir /etc/nginx/conf.d
  

• Edit the main nginx config file:
  

  vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
  

  • And strip down the config file and add the include statement at the end to make it easier to handle various server blocks:
    

    worker_processes  1;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx-error.log;
    
    events {
        worker_connections  1024;
    }
    
    http {
        include       mime.types;
        default_type  application/octet-stream;
        sendfile        on;
        keepalive_timeout  65;
    
        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    }
    

• Start and enable nginx, fcgiwrap, and php-fpm at boot:
  

  systemctl enable nginx
  systemctl start nginx
  systemctl enable fcgiwrap
  systemctl start fcgiwrap
  systemctl enable php-fpm
  systemctl start php-fpm
  

Install WiFiPi AP¶

• Clone the WiFiPi AP code:
  

  sudo git clone https://git.gnetsolutions.net/TokinRing/wifipi-ap.git /srv/http/wifipi.example.com
  

• Set the files ownership to the http user:
  

  sudo chown -R http:http /srv/http/wifipi.example.com
  

• Add a wifipi.example.com server block:
  

  vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/wifipi.example.com.conf
  

  • Add the following:
    

    proxy_buffer_size   128k;
    proxy_buffers   4 256k;
    proxy_busy_buffers_size   256k;
    
    server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  wifipi.example.com;
        root         /srv/http/wifipi.example.com;
        access_log   /var/log/wifipi.example.com-access.log;
        error_log    /var/log/wifipi.example.com-error.log;
    
        location / {
            index  index.php index.html index.htm;
        }
    
        location ~ \.php$ {
            fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;
            fastcgi_buffers 4 256k;
            fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /srv/http/wifipi.example.com$fastcgi_script_name;
            fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
            include fastcgi_params;
        }
    
        location ~ \.cgi$ {
            root           /srv/http/wifipi.example.com;
            fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;
            fastcgi_buffers 4 256k;
            fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
            fastcgi_pass   unix:/run/fcgiwrap.sock;
            include        fastcgi.conf;
        }
    }
    

• Add the PHP files for the site and change the ownership to the http user:
  

  chown -R http:http /srv/http/wifipi.example.com
  

• Restart nginx:
  

  systemctl restart nginx
  

Resources¶

• https://github.com/billz/raspap-webgui
• http://sirlagz.net/2013/02/06/script-web-configuration-page-for-raspberry-pi/
• http://raspberrypihq.com/how-to-turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-a-wifi-router/
• http://sirlagz.net/2012/08/09/how-to-use-the-raspberry-pi-as-a-wireless-access-pointrouter-part-1/
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Software_Access_Point