prototype-cjdns-pi

The following instructions will help you set up an encrypted mesh network on Raspberry Pi's. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a node with the Pi 3. Obviously, to have a mesh you will need more than one node.

Many board that run Armbian such as many models of Orange Pi hardware are also supported. The same installation steps can be followed, except you would flash the SD card with Armbian instead of Raspbian. See Hardware Table for the full list of supported hardware and check for board specific installation details in our Frequently Asked Questions.

Set Up

1. Make sure you have the following items:

   • Raspberry Pi Zero, 1, 2, 3 (Pi 3 recommended), or for advanced users other compatible hardware
   • An SD card that works with the Pi
   • Optional: A USB WiFi adapter:
     • For 802.11s Mesh Point wireless links (recommended), device such as the TP-LINK TL-WN722N v1, Toplinkst TOP-GS07 or another supported device.
     • For ad-hoc wireless links (experimental), any device that supports linux and ad-hoc.

2. Flash the SD card with Raspbian Stretch Lite.

3. Create an empty file named ssh to enable SSH when the Pi boots:

   $ touch /path/to/sd/boot/ssh
   

4. Plug the SD card and USB WiFi adapter into the Pi.

5. Plug the Pi into your router so it has connectivity to the Internet. SSH into the Pi with ssh pi@raspberrypi.local and password raspberry.

   Optional: There are other ways to connect, such as connecting the Pi to your computer and sharing Internet to it. If you have multiple Pi's connected to your router, find their IPs with nmap -sn 192.168.X.0/24 (where 192.168.X is your subnet) and SSH to the local IP assigned to the Pi you want to address ssh pi@192.168.X.Y.

   Note: After the install the node will be renamed to tomesh-xxxx where xxxx is the last 4 characters of your CJDNS address. Before the reboot the node will notify you of what the name is.

6. In your SSH session, run passwd and change your login password. It is very important to choose a strong password so others cannot remotely access your Pi.

7. Run the following, then let the installation complete. After about 5 minutes the Pi will reboot:

   $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tomeshnet/prototype-cjdns-pi/master/scripts/install && chmod +x install && ./install
   

   The installation script can also install many optional features such as distributed applications and network analysis tools that are useful but non-essential to run a node. You can use flags to selectively enable them, or use the following command to install all optional features:

   $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tomeshnet/prototype-cjdns-pi/master/scripts/install && chmod +x install && WITH_MESH_POINT=true WITH_AD_HOC=false WITH_WIFI_AP=true WITH_FIREWALL=true WITH_CJDNS_IPTUNNEL=true WITH_IPFS=true WITH_SSB=true WITH_SSB_WEB=true WITH_PROMETHEUS_NODE_EXPORTER=true WITH_PROMETHEUS_SERVER=true WITH_GRAFANA=true WITH_H_DNS=true WITH_H_NTP=true WITH_EXTRA_TOOLS=true WITH_YRD=true ./install
   

Optional Features

Feature Flag	HTTP Service Port	Description
WITH_MESH_POINT	None	Set to true if you have a suitable USB WiFi adapter and want to configure it as a 802.11s Mesh Point interface.
WITH_AD_HOC	None	Set to true if you have a suitable USB WiFi adapter and want to configure it as a IBSS Ad-hoc interface.
WITH_WIFI_AP	None	Set to true if you have a Raspberry Pi 3 and want to configure the on-board WiFi as an Access Point. The default configuration routes all traffic to the Ethernet port eth0.
WITH_FIREWALL	None	Set to true if you want to enable a basic firewall on your node.
WITH_CJDNS_IPTUNNEL	None	Set to true if you want to use the cjdns iptunnel feature to set up an Internet gateway for your node. To configure as a server (exit Internet traffic for other nodes), create /etc/cjdns.iptunnel.server containing a newline-separated list of cjdns public keys of allowed clients. To configure as a client (use an exit server to access the Internet), create /etc/cjdns.iptunnel.client containing a newline-separated list of cjdns public keys of the gateway servers. You can only configure as one or the other, not both.
WITH_IPFS	80: HTTP-to-IPFS gateway at /ipfs/HASH	Set to true if you want to install IPFS.
WITH_IPFS_PI_STREAM	None	Set to true if you want to install Pi stream service to live stream your camera over IPFS. Requires a Raspberry Pi with camera module. Will automatically start recording on boot by default.
WITH_SSB		Set to true if you want to install Scuttlebot (SSB) a secure scuttlebutt daemon.
WITH_SSB_WEB	80: SSB web interface at /sbot	Set to true if you want to install SSB Web Pi,which allows you to interact with the scuttlebot backend with a web interface.
WITH_PROMETHEUS_NODE_EXPORTER	9100: Node Exporter UI	Set to true if you want to install Prometheus Node Exporter to report network metrics.
WITH_PROMETHEUS_SERVER	9090: Prometheus Server UI	Set to true if you want to install Prometheus Server to collect network metrics. Requires Prometheus Node Exporter.
WITH_GRAFANA	3000: Grafana UI (login: admin/admin)	Set to true if you want to install Grafana to display network metrics. Requires Prometheus Server.
WITH_H_DNS	None	Set to true if you want to use Hyperboria-compatible DNS servers: fc4d:c8e5:9efe:9ac2:8e72:fcf7:6ce8:39dc, fc6e:691e:dfaa:b992:a10a:7b49:5a1a:5e09, and fc16:b44c:2bf9:467:8098:51c6:5849:7b4f
WITH_H_NTP	None	Set to true if you want to use a Hyperboria-compatible NTP server: fc4d:c8e5:9efe:9ac2:8e72:fcf7:6ce8:39dc
WITH_EXTRA_TOOLS	None	Set to true if you want to install non-essential tools useful for network analysis: vim socat oping bmon iperf3
WITH_WATCHDOG	None	Set to true if you want to enable hardware watchdog that will reset the device when the operating system becomes unresponsive.
WITH_YRD	None	Set to true if you want to enable yrd, a helpful command-line tool for cjdns.

If you are connected to the WiFi Access Point, all HTTP services are available via http://10.0.0.1:PORT as well as the cjdns IPv6. To connect with the cjdns address, first note your node's fc00::/8 address from status, then navigate to http://[fcaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:0000:1111:2222]:PORT from your browser.

Check Status

1. Give the Pi about 15 seconds to reboot and SSH back into it. You should find the status of your mesh node automatically printed. You can also print this anytime by running status.

2. Verify that cjdns Service is active, and Mesh Interface (if applicable). The NODE section should display a single IPv6 address, that's the identity of your Pi in the cjdns mesh. The PEERS section should indicate a list of IPv6 addresses that are active peers to your node. This list will be empty, until you have another nearby node with the same set up.

Network Benchmark

You can benchmark the network throughput with more than one node. Let's name our two Pi's Hillary and Friend.

1. SSH to Friend and note its IPv6.

2. Run iperf3 -s to start listening. Do not end the SSH session.

3. In another Terminal session, SSH to Hillary and run iperf3 -c FRIEND_IPV6. You should start seeing Hillary sending encrypted packets to her Friend. See phillymesh/cjdns-optimizations for expected throughput.

Update & Uninstall

To uninstall the services, run ./prototype-cjdns-pi/scripts/uninstall.

If you are updating, run the same uninstall script, but keep all configuration files and data directories when prompted, remove the prototype-cjdns-pi directory along with the install script, then repeat the last installation step.

Experimental Support for Other Boards

We have added support for other single board computers such as the Orange Pi family of boards. So far all the boards that have been tested support Armbian and usualy our install script needs no modification to work. To use one of these boards start with the Armbian nightly images linked in the table below, then follow the same installation steps as the Raspberry Pi. Below is a table of boards we have tested and some metrics of what you can expect from the board.

Hardware Table

List of tested hardware:

Hardware	Base OS	CJDNS Benchmark (salsa20/poly1305, switching)	iPerf3	USB	Ethernet	Notes
Raspberry Pi 3b+	Raspbian Lite	405k, 119k	~90 Mbps	2	10/100/1000	Eth only 320mbps. Cjdns speed unstable. Dual band
Raspberry Pi 3b	Raspbian Lite	350k, 100k	89 Mbps	2	10/100
Raspberry Pi 2	Raspbian Lite	145k, 55k	39 Mbps	2	10/100
Raspberry Pi 1 A+	Raspbian Lite	35k, -	~9 Mbps	1	None
Raspberry Pi 1 B+	Raspbian Lite	51k, 22k	~9 Mbps	2	10/100
Raspberry Pi Zero	Raspbian Lite	68k, 30k	~9 Mbps	1*	None	*Need OTG Cable No FPV
Orange Pi Lite	Armbian Nightly	160k, 74k	67 Mbps	2	None
Orange Pi One	Armbian Nightly	160k, 74k	67 Mbps	1	10/100
Orange Pi Zero	Armbian Nightly	160k, 74k	67 Mbps	1 (+2*)	10/100	*USB Headers
Orange Pi Zero Plus 2 H5	Armbian Nightly	190k, 130K	80 Mbps	0 (+2*)	None	*USB Headers
NanoPi Neo 2	Armbian Nightly	160k, 95K	67 Mbps	1 (+2*)	10/100/1000	*USB Headers, Gigabit Eth
Rock64	Armbian Nightly	255k, 168K	94 Mbps	3	10/100/1000	1 USB 3.0, Gigabit Eth
EspressoBin	Armbian	186k, 128K	73 Mbps	2	10/100/1000	1 USB 3.0, 3x Gigabit Eth, Sata, mPCIE. Use stable and apt-get upgrade after boot

Development

You can install from a specific tag or branch, such as develop, with:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tomeshnet/prototype-cjdns-pi/develop/scripts/install && chmod +x install && TAG_PROTOTYPE_CJDNS_PI=develop ./install

If you are developing on a forked repository, such as me/prototype-cjdns-pi, then:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/me/prototype-cjdns-pi/develop/scripts/install && chmod +x install && GIT_PROTOTYPE_CJDNS_PI="https://github.com/me/prototype-cjdns-pi.git" TAG_PROTOTYPE_CJDNS_PI=develop ./install

To add a new module, use scripts/ipfs/ as an example to:

• Create a WITH_NEW_MODULE tag
• Create scripts/new-module/install and scripts/new-module/uninstall
• Make corresponding references in the main install, install2, status, uninstall files

Notes

• We keep a list of Frequently Asked Questions. Feel free to add to this list with the issues you experienced on your boards.

• Your computer can be a node too! It will mesh with the Pi's over your router. See the cjdns repository on how to set this up.

• Original plan for this repository and early benchmark results are available in the doc folder.