vfarm-wifi-setup

This repo is an Express server that runs on the Moz Gateway device and handles the first-time setup required to get the device working:

since the device is not on the local wifi network when it is first turned on, the device broadcasts its own wifi access point and runs the server on that. The user then connects their phone or laptop to that wifi network and uses a web browser (not a native app!) to connect to the device at the URL gateway.local. The user can select then their home wifi network and enter the password on a web page and transfer it to the web server running on the device. At this point, the device can turn off its private network and connect to the internet using the credentials the user provided.

The code is Linux-specific, depends on systemd, and has so far only been tested on a Raspberry Pi 3. It requires hostapd and dnsmasq to be installed and properly configured. Here are the steps I followed to configure and run this server. Note that the steps include instructions for Raspberry Pi and Edison, but that I have not yet been able to successfully run on Edison.

If you intend to modify this code and need to test your changes in a real device, please refer to: https://github.com/mozilla-iot/vfarm-wifi-setup/wiki/Testing-on-WoT-Base-Image

Step 0: clone and install

First, clone this repo and download its dependencies from npm:

$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla-iot/vfarm-wifi-setup
$ cd vfarm-wifi-setup
$ npm install

Step 1: Edison specific setup

If you're running this software on an Intel Edison instead of a Raspberry Pi, you'll probably need to modify the default yocto Linux build, as follows:

If you don't already have node 4.4, update your node and npm with commands like these:

# curl https://nodejs.org/dist/v4.4.7/node-v4.4.7-linux-x86.tar.xz | zcat | tar xf - -C /usr/local
# cat <<EOF >> ~/.profile
export PATH=/usr/local/node-v4.4.7-linux-x86/bin:$PATH
EOF
# source ~/.profile
# node --version
v4.4.7

If your Edison is running mdnsd, you'll probably need to disable that and install avahi instead. These software packages are both supposed to do mdns aka zeroconf aka bonjour so that you can refer to your device by the name 'hostname.local'. But the mdns package doesn't work on my Edison, so I've swapped it out for avahi, which is what Raspberry pi uses. Commands like these should work:

# systemctl disable mdns
# systemctl stop mdns
# opkg install avahi
# reboot

By default, my Edison was already running an HTTP server on port 80, so this server was not able to run. I disabled the edison_config server like this:

# systemctl disable edison_config
# systemctl stop edison_config

Step 2: AP mode setup

Install software we need to host an access point, but make sure it does not run by default each time we boot. For Raspberry Pi, we need to do:

$ sudo apt-get install hostapd
$ sudo apt-get install dnsmasq
$ sudo systemctl disable hostapd
$ sudo systemctl disable dnsmasq

Step 3: configuration files

Next, configure the software:

On Raspberry Pi, edit /etc/default/hostapd to add the line:

DAEMON_CONF="/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf"

this step is not necessary on Edison.

Copy config/hostapd.conf to /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf. This config file defines the access point name "WebThings Gateway". Edit it if you want to use a different name. On Edison /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf alread exists. You may want to rename the existing file rather than overwriting it.
On Edison (but not Raspberry Pi) edit the file /lib/systemd/system/udhcpd-for-hostapd.service and modify this line:

ExecStartPre=/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 192.168.42.1 up

changing 192.168.42.1 to 192.168.220.1. This is necessary because config/dnsmasq.conf and wifi.js use 192.168.220.1 as the local IP address when we're broadcasting an access point. This ip should match the one set on platforms/default.js at variable ap_ip.

On Raspberry Pi, copy config/dnsmasq.conf to /etc/dnsmasq.conf.

Step 4: run the server

If you have a keyboard and monitor hooked up to your device, or have a serial connection to the device, then you can try out the server at this point:

sudo node index.js

If you want to run the server on a device that has no network connection and no keyboard or monitor, you probably want to set it up to run automatically when the device boots up. To do this, copy config/vfarm-wifi-setup.service to /lib/systemd/system, edit it to set the correct paths for node and for the server code, and then enable the service with systemd:

$ sudo cp config/vfarm-wifi-setup.service /lib/systemd/system
$ sudo vi /lib/systemd/system/vfarm-wifi-setup.service # edit paths as needed
$ sudo systemctl enable vfarm-wifi-setup

At this point, the server will run each time you reboot. If you want to run it manually without rebooting, do this:

$ sudo systemctl start vfarm-wifi-setup

Any output from the server is sent to the systemd journal, and you can review it with:

$ sudo journalctl -u vfarm-wifi-setup

Add the -b option to the line above if you just want to view output from the current boot. Add -f if you want to watch the output live as you interact with the server.

If you want these journals to persist across reboots (you probably do) then ensure that the /var/log/journal/ directory exists: