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Installing Comitup

David Steele edited this page Jul 11, 2023 · 22 revisions

The easiest way to get up and running with Comitup is to download the Comitup img file and burn it to an SD card.

If you prefer, you can install the package to an existing Raspbios installation:

  1. Install the comitup package. It is included in Stretch and newer.

    sudo apt-get install comitup

    Newer(better) versions are available via the Comitup Repository, which also has important fixes to support packages. This applies particularly to those running Buster.

    Note that there is also a third-party RPM repo available.

  2. Enable the NetworkManager service

    sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

  3. Allow NetworkManager to manage the wifi interfaces by removing references to them from /etc/network/interfaces.

  4. Rename or delete /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.

  5. The systemd.resolved service should be disabled and masked to avoid contention for providing DNS service. EDIT - there is a reported alternate method to keep the service from interfering.

  6. The line dns=dnsmasq should not be in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf.

  7. Comitup uses a local configuration of the DHCP setup utility dnsmasq to handle the network configuration of devices connecting to the Comitup hotspot. If another service is camped on the DHCP port (67) for the hotspot wifi interface, Comitup's dnsmasq will not be able to start, and connected devices may not be able to negotiate a useful IP address (this contention can also happen on the DNS port, 53). If this happens, the host port needs to be freed up. This may be fixed by masking the global dnsmasq.service ("systemctl mask dnsmasq.service"), or by disabling DHCP/DNS service on the HOTSPOT interface.

  8. Enable ssh by creating the file /boot/ssh.

  9. Reboot.

TL;DR

As root:

wget https://davesteele.github.io/comitup/latest/davesteele-comitup-apt-source_latest.deb
dpkg -i --force-all davesteele-comitup-apt-source_latest.deb
rm davesteele-comitup-apt-source_latest.deb
apt-get update
apt-get install comitup comitup-watch
rm /etc/network/interfaces
systemctl mask dnsmasq.service
systemctl mask systemd-resolved.service
systemctl mask dhcpd.service
systemctl mask dhcpcd.service
systemctl mask wpa-supplicant.service
systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
touch /boot/ssh

Reboot

There is a user-submitted script to automate this process.

Another submitted script imports any defined networks from wpa_supplicant.

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