Raspberry Pi - Who's gonna have a dabble?

[Church of Noise]

Nimby said:

FWIW I have my router as DHCP server, setting RPi-PiHole as primary DNS to clients and itself as secondary.
The router uses my ISP's DNS server.
PiHole uses Google DNS server. That way I can rebuild the RPi (or it can crash, as it does occasionally) without affecting clients.

Also note- if you're running Buster version of Raspbian you have to type "pi.hole/admin/" in the browser for the admin console. "pi.hole" by itself no longer works.

That would also mean that only 50% of all DNS activity goes over the RPi, as the router will use the Round Robin approach and randomly pick one of the addresses you provided. The obvious positive side of this is indeed that your network won't go down when the RPi is not working for some reason.

[Tony Angelino]

Bought one and had it delivered, my mission is to install Retropi and use it as a part of a arcade console running MAMA games. I'm a complete novice and have no experience of programming or computers so I am a little worried about how easy it is to set up and if I have bitten off more than I can chew!

So far I managed to put it together and get it showing on my TV but couldnt get it to connect to WIFI so that's tonights mission! Youtube on the laptop all night for me!

[BlueMR2]

Just finishing my install on a zero w at the moment.

Long random password for user, check.
Key use, no passwords for ssh, check.
Only allows ssh and web access to one computer on the local network to change settings and monitor, check.

Just need to get the https lookups set up now.

[Church of Noise]

Tony Angelino said:

So far I managed to put it together and get it showing on my TV but couldnt get it to connect to WIFI so that's tonights mission! Youtube on the laptop all night for me!

This requires a bit of manual editing:

https://raspberrypihq.com/how-to-connect-your-raspberry-pi-to-wifi/ said:

Configuring your WiFi network

To tell the Raspberry Pi to automatically connect to your WiFi network you need to edit a file called: wpa_supplicant.conf.

To open the file in nano type the following command:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Scroll to the end of the file and add the following to the file to configure your network:

network={
ssid="Test Wifi Network"
psk="SecretPassWord"
}

Remember to replace this with your own network name and password.

Save and close the file by pressing Ctrl+X followed by Y. At this point the Raspberry Pi should automatically connect to your network.

[Nimby]

Church of Noise said:

Nimby said:

FWIW I have my router as DHCP server, setting RPi-PiHole as primary DNS to clients and itself as secondary.
The router uses my ISP's DNS server.
PiHole uses Google DNS server. That way I can rebuild the RPi (or it can crash, as it does occasionally) without affecting clients.

Also note- if you're running Buster version of Raspbian you have to type "pi.hole/admin/" in the browser for the admin console. "pi.hole" by itself no longer works.

That would also mean that only 50% of all DNS activity goes over the RPi, as the router will use the Round Robin approach and randomly pick one of the addresses you provided. The obvious positive side of this is indeed that your network won't go down when the RPi is not working for some reason.

I was hoping it was more than 50% - maybe not on checking.
I have another Pi running a webcam - perhaps I'll use that as a backup Pihole DNS. Thanks!

Edited by Nimby on Friday 16th August 18:08

[ffc]

Church of Noise said:

That would also mean that only 50% of all DNS activity goes over the RPi, as the router will use the Round Robin approach and randomly pick one of the addresses you provided. The obvious positive side of this is indeed that your network won't go down when the RPi is not working for some reason.

Why would the router round robin DNS? It would just send both DNS servers to the client in the DHCP response surely? Then the client makes a decision about which server to use.

[Tony Angelino]

Church of Noise said:

Tony Angelino said:

So far I managed to put it together and get it showing on my TV but couldnt get it to connect to WIFI so that's tonights mission! Youtube on the laptop all night for me!

This requires a bit of manual editing:

https://raspberrypihq.com/how-to-connect-your-raspberry-pi-to-wifi/ said:

Configuring your WiFi network

To tell the Raspberry Pi to automatically connect to your WiFi network you need to edit a file called: wpa_supplicant.conf.

To open the file in nano type the following command:

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Scroll to the end of the file and add the following to the file to configure your network:

network={
ssid="Test Wifi Network"
psk="SecretPassWord"
}

Remember to replace this with your own network name and password.

Save and close the file by pressing Ctrl+X followed by Y. At this point the Raspberry Pi should automatically connect to your network.

Thanks, I've managed to work my way through that and am now currently wrestling with the install of Retropie! Appreciate your reply.

[dxg]

dxg said:

I have just realised that the square hyperpixel touch display that pimoroni sell is more or less the same size as a light switch. I now have visions of an embedded screen displaying.... Something. Would be awesome if it were to control the guess lights... Hmmm....

First step is to check that a zero and the screen will fit inside a single back box...

This didn't get any traction, but I have been exploring...



The display and the backbox are exactly the same size! It would take a bit of trimming to get the display to sit flush and a flexible cable down to the pi zero, but it's a definite possibility. Take the power off the lighting circuit in some way?

Tune in next week when I tell you the story of how I burnt my house down...

[Mattt]

Nimby said:

Church of Noise said:

Nimby said:

FWIW I have my router as DHCP server, setting RPi-PiHole as primary DNS to clients and itself as secondary.
The router uses my ISP's DNS server.
PiHole uses Google DNS server. That way I can rebuild the RPi (or it can crash, as it does occasionally) without affecting clients.

Also note- if you're running Buster version of Raspbian you have to type "pi.hole/admin/" in the browser for the admin console. "pi.hole" by itself no longer works.

That would also mean that only 50% of all DNS activity goes over the RPi, as the router will use the Round Robin approach and randomly pick one of the addresses you provided. The obvious positive side of this is indeed that your network won't go down when the RPi is not working for some reason.

I was hoping it was more than 50% - maybe not on checking.
I have another Pi running a webcam - perhaps I'll use that as a backup Pihole DNS. Thanks!

Edited by Nimby on Friday 16th August 18:08

My 2 PiHoles report 80% requests on primary and 20% on secondary.

I have two for redundancy as you mention.

[thebraketester]

Wont you need a 5-12v transformer at every light switch too?

[dxg]

A little 1amp usb plug charger stripped out of it's shell and hardwired into the lighting circuit, maybe. Fine for hue which needs a permanent supply to the light.

First attempt is going to be on a wall that I can just put power into it from the rear in a far safer way, though!!

[thebraketester]

Cool. Fun project for sure. :-)

[Nimby]

thebraketester said:

Wont you need a 5-12v transformer at every light switch too?

... and a neutral connection. Usually you just have looped live.

[dxg]

Nimby said:

... and a neutral connection. Usually you just have looped live.

Hmmm....

You can get those ZigBee switch things that are permanently wired into the lighting loop - thought it would be okay on that basis...

[MikeGTi]

dxg said:

Tune in next week when I tell you the story of how I burnt my house down...

[ajprice]

I've had a PiHut email this morning about an 8GB 4B model released for £74 (2GB is £34 and 4GB is £54)

https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model...

[Watchman]

ajprice said:

I've had a PiHut email this morning about an 8GB 4B model released for £74 (2GB is £34 and 4GB is £54)

https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model...

Interesting development but what will it give us? I've been working with the 4GB one since lockdown on two screens - one displays an internet browser (multiple tabs), and the other a Citrix client into "work".

It's not fast - all pages take a little while to load, and YouTube is a little choppy (screen tearing) but it's absolutely usable. If additional RAM would improve upon the page loading times, and YouTube quality, I would consider changing mine for one of the new ones but surely 4GB is enough to have fully loaded the OS into memory?

[Dave.]

MikeGTi said:

dxg said:

Tune in next week when I tell you the story of how I burnt my house down...

Well it's been 9 months.... how long do we have to wait 'til he's legally dead?



(ps - he's not, he's been posting elsewhere)

[rednotdead]

Anyone got a decent solution for a dashboard to view/manage multiple pis? Currently using RPI-monitor which gives the basics but it's one webpage per pi, although you can add a 'friends' link to easily get to the others. Just wondered if there's something out there to easily aggregate all pis into one display without going overboard with zabbix and the like.

[Baldchap]

Whilst it's being discussed, has anybody got a Raspberry Pi running PiHole and clients running a VPN application (Nord VPN) to work successfully?