Installing on Mini-Box

These are installation notes for getting the mini-box LCD appliance up and running with Ubuntu Server 32-bit 8.10 (Intrepid) wth an Atom processor and making use of the menuing system.

Ubuntu

Although we will intend to run this box without a monitor for the moment we will plug in the monitor to install Ubuntu from a USB-CDROM. Make sure the BIOS is configured to boot from the CD-ROM. Also, under Peripheral Devices you will need to enable all legacy support (or it will hang on installation).

For a flash drive, apparently Josh has had some success following these directions.

LCD Reader

Download and build the SDK. Install 'usbread' into the /home/lcdmenu/bin

LCD Menu

First create a user 'lcdmenu' that can't login:

 sudo adduser --disabled-login --gecos \'\' lcdmenu 

(those quotes should not be slashed)

This applies to LCD Menu 1.0 which is not packaged yet. Download it in whatever way makes you happy and install it to /home/lcdmenu/bin (once you have made the directory).

Now edit the "sudoers" file by running:

sudo visudo 

and add this line to grant the lcdmenu user limited access to system functions

%lcdmenu ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown, /etc/init.d/apache2, /etc/init.d/mysql, /usr/bin/mysqldump, /usr/bin/apt-get

Create a "backup" user in mysql with localhost only access and no password which can lock and select all tables

  mysql -u root -p
  mysql> GRANT SELECT,LOCK TABLES on *.* TO backup@localhost IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD \'\';
  mysql> quit;

(again no slashes)

Now we want it to setup to run periodically:

sudo crontab -u lcdmenu -e 
* * * * * /home/lcdmenu/bin/lcdmenu_check.sh

Automount

The LCD Menuing system has a "backup MySQL database to a flash drive" feature. Since we will not be using GNOME, we will need a USB automounter:

  sudo apt-get install usbmount

Then edit the file /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf and add "vfat" to the FILESYSTEMS e.g:

   FILESYSTEMS="ext2 ext3 vfat"

then make sure the FS_MOUNTOPTIONS line has at least:

   FS_MOUNTOPTIONS="gid=lcdmenu,dmask=0007,fmask=0117"

Network Status

The MAC Address, to configure your router, can be obtained from the LCD Menu:

>F1:Server Status
>F2:Network Status
>F3:MAC Address

Similarly, if you have plugged the server into a network with DHCP, you can get the IP Address:

>F1:Server Status
>F2:Network Status
>F3:MAC Address

Webmin

See me or just cut and paste:

sudo aptitude install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
wget http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin_1.441_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.441_all.deb

Browse to:

https://your-server-ip:10000/

and login as the user you created on Ubuntu installation.