Objective

To build our own personal cloud using the Raspberry Pi and a service called ownCloud. ownCloud is a free and open source software that gives you freedom and control to manage your own data. It’s a personal cloud that runs off of your own server / Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable mini device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Python.

Description

The Raspberry Pi is connected to the television using an HDMI and to the internet through an ethernet port. Connected to the Raspberry Pi is a mouse, keyboard and 2 TB Western Digital Black HDD inside a Vantec HDD enclosure. After all packages are installed and the HDD is partition to ext4, the Raspberry Pi will act as a personal home cloud which could be useful to store files within the use of your home network without physically connecting an external HDD into your computer. The Raspberry Pi uses a service call ownCloud which allows you to create a folder, upload files, download files, delete files and share the files within the home network. You can simply access ownCloud using the Raspberry Pi ip address; in this case http://192.168.1.15/owncloud/index.php. Once you enter the link into the browser you will be prompted to enter a user name and password which you would’ve created during the setup process. Note: To access ownCloud, the computer/ devices you use to access the cloud must be connected to the same network as the Raspberry Pi.

Team Members

For the project I worked with Devindra Bramnarain, Jaime Santos and Mabel Fermin.

Contribution

My specific contribution to the project is:

Purchasing all necessary parts for the project.
Took part in installing file packages using linux commands that was necessary to make the cloud work.
Tonido Cloud
Made PowerPoint presentation

Part Used

Raspberry Pi (Model B+)
Raspberry Pi Enclosure
Micro SD (pre-installed with NOOBS)
HDMI
Ethernet
Mouse
Keyboard
Television
WD Black 2TB HDD
Vantec HDD Enclosure

Source Code/ Commands/ Scripts

Step 1. Configuring the Raspberry Pi

To configure the Raspberry Pi we use the command:

sudo raspi-config

“Expand Filesystem”

“Internationalisation Options”

Change to en_US.UTF8

“Advance Options” –> “Memory Split”

Change to 16M

“Overclock”

Select Modest

Step 2. Updating Raspberry Pi

Update and upgrade Raspberry Pi packages using the following command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

This ensure all packages on Raspberry Pi are up to date.

Step 3. Installing Packages

sudo apt-get install nginx openssl ssl-cert php5-cli php5-sqlite php5-gd php5-common php5-cgi sqlite3 php-pear php-apc curl libapr1 libtool curl libcurl4-openssl-dev php-xml-parser php5 php5-dev php5-gd php5-fpm memcached php5-memcache varnish

Step 4. Remove php5-curl

Remove or make sure php5-curl is not installed

sudo apt-get –purge remove php5-curl

Step 5. Create SSL certificate for 2 years

sudo openssl req $@ -new -x509 -days 730 -nodes -out /etc/nginx/cert.pem -keyout /etc/nginx/cert.key
sudo chmod 600 /etc/nginx/cert.pem
sudo chmod 600 /etc/nginx/cert.key

Step 6. Configure Ngnix web server

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Copy and paste below into text editor.

upstream php-handler {

server 127.0.0.1:9000;

#server unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;

}

server {

listen 80;

server_name technet.example.com;

return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri; # enforce https

}

server {

listen 443 ssl;

server_name technet.example.com;

ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/cert.pem;

ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/cert.key;

# Path to the root of your installation

root /var/www/owncloud;

client_max_body_size 1000M; # set max upload size

fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

rewrite ^/caldav(.*)$ /remote.php/caldav$1 redirect;

rewrite ^/carddav(.*)$ /remote.php/carddav$1 redirect;

rewrite ^/webdav(.*)$ /remote.php/webdav$1 redirect;

index index.php;

error_page 403 /core/templates/403.php;

error_page 404 /core/templates/404.php;

location = /robots.txt {

allow all;

log_not_found off;

access_log off;

}

location ~ ^/(?:\.htaccess|data|config|db_structure\.xml|README) {

deny all;

}

location / {

# The following 2 rules are only needed with webfinger

rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta last;

rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json last;

rewrite ^/.well-known/carddav /remote.php/carddav/ redirect;

rewrite ^/.well-known/caldav /remote.php/caldav/ redirect;

rewrite ^(/core/doc/[^\/]+/)$ $1/index.html;

try_files $uri $uri/ index.php;

}

location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {

fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;

include fastcgi_params;

fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;

fastcgi_param HTTPS on;

fastcgi_pass php-handler;

}

# Optional: set long EXPIRES header on static assets

location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|ico|png|css|js|swf)$ {

expires 30d;

# Optional: Don’t log access to assets

access_log off;

}

Step 7. Configure max upload limit in php

sudo nano /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

You can use ctrl+w to search lines and update how much you want the upload limit to be:

upload_max_filesize = 512M

post_max_size = 512M

Step 8. Configure PHP

sudo nano /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Change

listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock

listen = 127.0.0.1:9000

sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

Change

CONF_SWAPSIZE=100

CONF_SWAPSIZE=512

Step 9. Restart web server and php

sudo /etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Step 10. Installing ownCloud

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/owncloud
sudo wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-7.0.1.tar.bz2
sudo tar xvf owncloud-7.0.1.tar.bz2
sudo mv owncloud/ /var/www/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
rm -rf owncloud owncloud-7.0.1.tar.bz2

Step 11. Create user name and password

Type ip address of Raspberry Pi into browser

http://RASPBERRYPIIPADDRESS /owncloud/index.php

http://192.168.1.15/owncloud/index.php

Create a user name and password

Step 12. Partition HDD to ext4

sudo apt-get install gparted
sudo gparted

Step 13. Permanently mount HDD to Raspberry Pi

Create directory where HDD will be mounted. We named our directory extstorage

sudo mkdir /media/extstorage

Identify the correct device id for the external hard drive.

ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid/
lsblk

Update the fstab file so that this device can be mounted automatically every time we restart the Raspberry Pi.

sudo leafpad /etc/fstab

Step 14. Linking your external USB HDD as the storage instead of tiny micro SD card

The micro SD card loaded with the Raspberry Pi operating system will eventually run out of space. Using a external HDD will help us get the most out of our Cloud. We need to follow the below steps to create a directory in USB HDD to hold the ownCloud data folder.

sudo service nginx stop
sudo mkdir /media/USBHDD/OwnCloud5
sudo chown www-data:www-data /media/USBHDD/OwnCloud5
sudo mv /var/www/owncloud/data/ /media/USBHDD/OwnCloud5/

Configure USB directory path in Nginx config.php

sudo nano /var/www/owncloud/config/config.php

Change the below line

‘datadirectory’ à ‘/var/www/owncloud/data’

‘datadirectory’ à ‘/media/USBHDD/OwnCloud5/data’

sudo service nginx start

ownCloud Working

NOTE: We tried creating a VPN (Virtual Private Network) so we can extend the limits of our cloud and use it outside the home. After following numerous tutorial we failed to get the VPN up and running.

Additional Pictures

Tonido Cloud (Easier to install)

Features

Access, Share, Sync files and media from anywhere
Automatic media indexing and organization of photos, music and videos
Automatic Smartphone photos and videos backup
Automatic multi-format music streaming and playlist support (including FLAC, OGG, WMA, MP3, and more)
Native Mobile apps for all the popular mobile OS’s (iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry)
Plug- and-Play remote access. No fiddling with router settings
Easy to remember web URL access to your Raspberry PI
Available for both Raspbian and Raspbmc

Installation

sudo mkdir /usr/local/tonido
cd /usr/local/tonido
sudo wget http://patch.codelathe.com/tonido/live/installer/armv6l-rpi/tonido.tar.gz
sudo tar -zxvf tonido.tar.gz
./tonido.sh start

Open Tonido Website using the address http://<RaspberryPi IP Address>:10001 to begin the setup process.

So for example: http://192.168.1.17:10001

Audio Playback for FLAC, M4A etc

cd /usr/local/tonido
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ffmpeg ffmpeg.exe
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/ffmpeg ffmpegv.exe

Auto start on Boot

Download the init script from here: tonido init.d script
Place the file under /etc/init.d
sudo cp tonido /etc/init.d/
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/tonido
sudo update-rc.d tonido defaults

Commands Used

sudo allows you to execute commands as a superuser.
apt-get update is used to update the system package.
apt-get upgrade is used to upgrade the system package.
apt-get install is used to install a new program from the repository.
chmod is used to change a mode or permission of a file.
chmod 600 allows owner to read and write.
nano is a text editor.
mkdir is used to create a new directory.
wget is to download a file from a remote location.
tar is used for archiving files.
mv is used to move or rename files or directories.
chown is used to change the owner of a file.
rm is used when removing files or directories.
ls displays the lost of files and sub-directories of the current directory.
leafpad is an open source text editor.

Reference

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeyTyI5av6Q”
“http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Owncloud-dropbox-clone”
“http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2012/06/resize-sd-card-partitions”
http://www.tonido.com/tonido-for-raspberry-pi-2/