PirateBox project status report 07/2016

Hello PirateBox people,

Sorry for long time without answering posts. I'll try to invest some time in the next days.

But I want to give you a report about the latest project status and why 1.1 still is not out of the door.

TLDR: I'm super busy, we have some small issues & I'll be away for a few weeks.

On June the 15th (2016) I published a latest beta version of 1.1 (http://beta.openwrt.piratebox.de/auto/) on our webpage and also did a checklist of things to be tested. Since then, I have got feedback from TheExpertNoob only, who directly fixed a few things. For about 6 weeks now, at work I am iterating between "super busy" and "time to relax a few days" (which is needed at that point in time), so I can't do any additional work on the project right now. In the next couple of weeks, I will be AFK until mid of September. This AFK time is the reason for not creating a new stable image *now*, because I won't have enough time left to stabilize in case of errors.
The 1.1 release still have a few issues left: [github.com]

#158 - UI Issues in 1.1.0 beta (2016-06-15) - afaik completely TBD
#157 - hostapd.conf is missing isolate parameter (Fixed but not available on latest test image)
#154 - Init: disabling chmod option to prevent errors on FAT (Fixed, not available on latest test image)

So, it is pretty close to be shipped, but the latest finalization task is missing. Also there are some changes, which need to be made in the documentation on piratebox.cc. As I don't find the time to adjust it, this is also a ship issue for 1.1. It is a bigger release and the details can be found at the end of my post.

In addition, we are facing some issues with the RPi-3 together with an external antenna. This does not work as expected and needs some debugging and script-fixing. To bad, that stylesuxx is not available for the project currently. Also we do not support meshing between RPi version and OpenWrt version; RPi doesn't have mesh support at the moment.

I am glad, that TheExpertNoob took over a bunch of work here in the forum and did major testing and developing the zsun HowTo (https://piratebox.cc/openwrt:manual:zsun). The zsun support is still experimental, but gives great opportunities. I am super happy that he & meduza sorted that out and created that howto and the scripts. The next tasks after the 1.1 release are to create some sort of official image for that.
Those guys worked out a bunch of stuff, we need to do for supporting newer OpenWrt releases.

I do not want to promise anything, but I hope, that I can spend much more time on the project end of September.

If you find coding bugs or something weird in the code, feel free to open up a ticket on github [github.com]

Please stay tuned.

best regards
Matthias
PS: I have not found time to update my personal homepage for month now, so not only PirateBox is suffering.

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Current 1.1 changelog:
* [New] Enable / Disable file provisioning for custom lighttpd directory listing
* [New] ChatBox message is now in conf/chat_init.txt
* [New] Disable the Shoutbox to prevent writing into it
* [New] PHP configuration shipped, to enable easily for modifications
* [New] Mesh implementation, technical preview
* [New] JSON config file to direct client side applications, like "share apps"
* [New] Simply python IRC Server installed and prepareable for automatic start
* [New] Shoutbox-Time via Client-Date possible
* [New] Website is now available under /content and /opt/piratebox/share
* [New] [RPi] Service files for using a RTC at PiratBox
* [New] Redirect all DNS requests to local box via firewall (custom script)
* [New] Redirect all web request option via firewall (disabled) (custom script)
* [New] [OpenWrt] Redirect all DNS requests to local box via firewall
* [New] [OpenWrt] Redirect all web request option via firewall (disabled)
* [New] [OpenWrt] Enable all wifi devices with the PirateBox SSID
* [New] [OpenWrt] AP Client isolation activated per default
* [Changed] Send HTTP-Code 204 via PHP, much cleaner
* [Changed] Update jQuery to 2.2.3, removes IE <=8 support
* [Changed] Redirect happens now always to wished domain name
* [Changed] Droopy, make chmod operation optional (prevent errors on OpenWRT)
* [Fix] License Adjustments
* [Fix] Prevent JS Injection in Shoutbox
* [Fix] Shoutbox: Missing blank between author and content
* [Fix] Fix problem when running in small display mode at direcotry listing.
* [Fix] Add xhtml mime type in lighttpd configuration

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This is only my signature.

Hey hey! Thanks! Just reporting in, I will be busy as well through the end of September as I work with the school system and they are just starting up this time of year here in the States.

My last project was building a custom zsun piratebox image that would require little configuration. However, I got stuck on BATMAN-adv compiling for its kernel. Still no fix as of now.

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PirateBox Installs:
2x Zsun's (both testing, one with serial interface)
A5-V11 (mostly for OpenWRT testing DIY)
2x RPi Zero's
(one active in car 24/7, gets a lot of hits at Walmart, movie theaters and the mall)
2x RPi3's (both home servers, one Ubuntu custom install along side a ton of other services)
1x RPi2 (currently work server)

Thank guys for the continued support, looking forward to a stable 1.1!

I think I am running PB 1.1 but when I view the Raspberry Pi 3 on a monitor it says version 1.0.7 on the header text.

So I will be running PB 1.1 (I hope) from now on, all working.

I tried this post out and it works in changinging the broadcast wifi name, I changed mine to "ShareBox".

[forum.piratebox.cc]
For the Ras Pi version:

nano /opt/piratebox/conf/hostapd.conf

And edit it to match that text file. The main line to edit is the driver line. for the Edimax adapter it should look like this:

interface=wlan0
driver=rtl871xdrv
ssid=PirateBox - Share Freely <<<---- Change this to what ever you want the WIFI network to be called
hw_mode=g
channel=1
ieee80211n=1
Exit and Save as Same file name
Restart PirateBox


Will try the SD card "hack" to run the PB on the SD card and remove the need for a USB memory stick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2016 03:08AM by dragon.