How to use Builder to create a Node

This page is intended to formalize how to use the current Builder scripts in the PTP subversion repository.

• http://svn.personaltelco.net/svn/ptp

To build a Captive Portal Personal Telco Branded router on a computer with two ethernet cards and subversion installed on the computer used to run node-preconfig.sh

The current state of builder is a working proof of concept. In the future all of the fuctionality of these process will be part of Adhocracy.

Step One (Prepare the Hardware)

For a matter of maintaining support and stability in a rational way we have choosen to use Debian Woody (Stable) as the Linux distribution to build upon. These scripts expect to find a computer that has a minimal debian install, two ethernet cards, and a connection to the Internet.

partition the hard disk

Currently the most common hard drive size that we have been using is a 2G drive. Normally this is the way the partitions are created.

• 256M Swap 256M / 512M /var 1G /home

install Debian Woody

1. Perform a minimal stable install easily accomplished with a Debian Stable r3 or r2 netinst disk.

1. Install with a 2.4 kernel
   • boot: bf24

Do not run taskel

Do not run dselect

2. Installation will Reboot to finish installation

1. Upon Reboot
   • only create the root user
   • tell the mail subsystem to do nothing
   • enable all choices
   • for encrypting passwords
   • answer the default for most other questions (More detail later)

Do not run taskel

Do not run dselect

Step Two (Create Nodedb Entry)

1. Go to http://maps.personaltelco.net/

2. Create an entry in nodedb which contains the details of the node location.

1. Please use the naming scheme
   • 'Personal Telco - Node Name'
     1. Could this be expanded to Personal Telco - Quadrant - Neighborhood - Node Name ?
        • e.g. Personal Telco - NE - Kerns - Urban Grind
        • Personal Telco - NW - Pearl - Urban Grind

3. Document the Node number which was assigned to the location.

Step Three (Create Configuration Files)

Define Network Address Allocation

1. Go to the wiki page NetworkAddressAllocations

• define the network that will be used for the node.

• Please use network allocations that are efficient for the network you are installing

  • ie. You probably don't need to use a full /24

Create files with node-preconfig.sh

1. Create a working directory to run the builder script node-preconfig.sh

1. If you have a local copy of the ptp repository on the machine your are performing this on do this step outside of the repository tree

   • mkdir builder
   • cd builder

2. Get the script from subversion that will do the configuration

• wget http://svn.personaltelco.net/svn/ptp/code/trunk/builder/node-preconfig.sh

3. Prepare the script for execution

• chmod 755 node-preconfig.sh

4. Run node-preconfig.sh with the -s option

• ./node-preconfig.sh -s

5. Complete the following questions in a way that is applicable to your node location

• [aaronb@laptop builder]$ ./node-preconfig.sh -s
  • Node number: 608 Location (20 char. or less): Urban Grind - Pearl District

    Contact: ops@personaltelco.net Hostname: grank Domain: personaltelco.net FQDN is grank.personaltelco.net Internet IP address (or 'dhcp'): dhcp Internet DNS address 1: 64.122.195.142 Internet DNS address 2 (or 'none'): 198.107.22.251 PTPnet IP address: 10.11.47.1 PTPnet network address: 10.11.47.0 PTPnet network mask: 255.255.255.0 PTPnet broadcast address: 10.11.47.255 PTPnet DHCP server pool start address: 10.11.47.50 PTPnet DHCP server pool finish address: 10.11.47.200

• This will create and commit the configuration files for your node into the repository

Step Four (Make it all come together)

Obtain and Run node.sh builder script

From the command line on the machine that is going to be the captive portal router

• perform these steps as root in root's home directory.

1. Install wget

• apt-get install wget

2. Use wget to retreive node.sh

• wget http://svn.personaltelco.net/svn/ptp/code/trunk/builder/node.sh

3. Make the script executabe

• chmod 755 node.sh

4. Run the script

• ./node.sh [NODEID]
  • example: ./node.sh 608

And now watch it go. When this finished reboot the machine and you should now have a working Personal Telco Captive Portal Machine including all services to provide the network infrustructure at the location with all configuration files stored and managed in subversion.

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