How to Set Up a Raspberry Pi as a Permanent Personal Server

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What is Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi (Chinese name: 树莓派, abbreviation: RPi, (or RasPi / RPI) is designed for learning computer programming education), a microcomputer the size of a credit card, with a system based on Linux. With the release of Windows 10 IoT, we can also run Windows on Raspberry Pi.

Since its launch, it has been pursued by many computer enthusiasts and makers, and it was once hard to find. Despite its small appearance, it is very powerful internally, with features like video and audio, making it a small but complete device.

1. Personal Opinion

In my understanding, Raspberry Pi is like a host machine; you can connect a monitor, keyboard, mouse, USB drive, and other peripherals to it. Its small size and numerous ports allow it to directly access many low-level hardware components.

1. Models on the Market

Most commonly available is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, which can be found on Taobao at a price of around 230+ for just the main board (without any peripherals), which is a bit expensive and exceeds my budget, so I continued searching for a cheaper option and finally discovered a Raspberry Pi priced at over 100.

1. Raspberry Pi Zero W

The Raspberry Pi Zero W is a mini version, only 1/3 the size of the 3B+. After getting it, you’ll find it really is super small and super cute. Below is a picture of my actual device, so you can see how mini it really is.

You can see that the top is a regular black pen, followed by a plug-and-play external WiFi card, then a USB card reader, and at the bottom is our main character today, the Zero W. It’s really super small, isn’t it? It perfectly illustrates the saying, “Though small, it has all the vital organs.”

The main specifications of the Zero W are as follows:

• BCM2835 processor, 1GHz main frequency, 512MB RAM
• BCM43438 WiFi / BT chip
• micro-USB power interface
• micro-USB OTG interface
• miniHDMI port
• composite video and reset extension interface
• fragile CSI camera interface
• micro-SD card slot for storing the operating system
• 40-pin GPIO expansion interface
• Dimensions: 65mm*30mm

Don’t be fooled by its single-core CPU and 512MB RAM; it can actually perform quite well, and running a website is really a small task for it.

1. More on Raspberry Pi

For more Raspberry Pi models or usage tutorials, you can visit the Raspberry Pi Lab website, which has a wealth of resources.

Installing the System on Raspberry Pi Zero W

1. Preparation

You may need to prepare the following items in advance:

• 16GB or 32GB SanDisk memory card (note that it’s the older, smaller type used in phones)
• A very ordinary USB Android data cable (not type-C)
• USB drive formatting tool (recommended: SDFormatter)
• System burning tool (Win32DiskImager)
• Raspberry Pi system (can be downloaded from the official website)

I used the Raspbian Stretch Lite system image, which is officially made, and the lite version has no desktop, only a black console, which is small in size and saves performance and memory.

The versions with ‘desktop’ in their names have a desktop UI, which may be friendlier for those unfamiliar with Linux systems, but they are larger in size and consume more resources.

1. Step 1: Download the System Image

After downloading the required system image, you will see the following:

Initially, there is only a zip compressed file, approximately 360MB in size, which you need to extract to get the folder shown above.

Then, enter the folder to find an img image, approximately 1.7GB in size.

PS: This is the official Raspbian image; if it’s another third-party image, the extracted file may not be an img image, in which case please search for a solution separately.

1. Use Win32DiskImager to Write the Image to the Memory Card

Insert the memory card into the card reader and then into the computer.

Open Win32DiskImager software, select the img image, choose your USB drive as the device, and then click write. Once completed, a success prompt will pop up.

PS: I did not select a device in the above image because it was not inserted into the card reader; it is just for demonstration.

4. Modify the Boot Partition Files

Don’t rush to remove the card reader; at this point, we can only see a boot partition on the USB drive, which may only be about 40MB. Don’t worry, because Windows does not recognize the other partitions of the Linux system on the memory card.

4.1 Create an SSH File

Since our Zero W has a mini HDMI interface, but I don’t need a screen, I need to use SSH to connect to the system on the Zero W, so I need to enable SSH functionality at the first boot.

We enter the boot partition and create a file named ssh, making sure there is no file extension and do not write anything inside it!

4.2 Create a wpa_supplicant.conf File

Since SSH connection requires an IP address, we need to make the Zero W automatically connect to WiFi on the first boot, allowing it to be in the same local area network as our computer so that we can connect to the Zero W’s system via SSH.

Similarly, in the boot partition, create a file named wpa_supplicant.conf and write the following content inside:

country=CN
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid="YourWiFiName"
psk="YourWiFiPassword"
}

1. Assemble Our Minimal Host and Connect

Remove the memory card from the card reader and insert it into the Zero W, then use a USB Android data cable to connect the power (5V1A).

Wait a few minutes; during this time, the indicator light on our Zero W will keep flashing, which is normal. When the indicator light stays on, we go to the router to check the IP address of the Raspberry Pi.

We can see that our Zero W’s IP is 192.168.0.104, then use an SSH connection tool (recommended: putty) to connect to the Raspberry Pi. The initial account is pi, and the password is raspberry.

Connection successful, as shown in the image above. Thus, our system has been installed correctly.

PS: If using a mobile phone as a hotspot router, you can download an app called Android Terminal and enter the command ip neigh to find the IP information of devices connected to your phone.

1. Optimize Our Raspberry Pi System

6.1 Modify Sources

Because the foreign sources connect slowly from within China, we need to change to domestic sources; I modified to the USTC source.

6.1.1 Modify the sources.list File

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
-- Comment out other contents and add the following:
deb http://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/raspbian/raspbian/raspbian stretch main contrib non-free rpi

6.1.2 Modify the raspi.list File

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list
-- Comment out other contents and add the following:
deb http://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/archive.raspberrypi.org/debian stretch main ui

6.1.3 Execute Update

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

6.2 Modify Time Zone

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Select Asia, then choose Shanghai.

6.3 Enable SSH on Boot

First Method:

sudo raspi-config

Enter and select Interfacing Options, then find SSH, press Enter to enable it.

Second Method:

After starting the SSH service in the terminal command line, if the system is restarted or shut down, the SSH service will be off by default. You still need to start it manually. To make it easier, you can set the SSH service to start automatically on boot by opening the /etc/rc.local file and adding before the exit 0 line: /etc/init.d/ssh start.

I recommend trying both methods; personally, both worked for me.

1. Install Nginx

# Install
sudo apt-get install nginx
# Start
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start
# Restart
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart
# Stop
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx stop

Open a browser and visit 192.168.0.104 (your Raspberry Pi IP address), and you should see the Nginx page, indicating it has been successfully installed.

I uploaded my blog, as shown in the image below.

The page can be viewed normally, but this can only be seen on the internal network (local area network). I wonder how to allow everyone to access it?

1. Intranet Penetration

Intranet penetration means exposing the web application from the local network to the public internet through NAT, allowing others to access it.

Currently, intranet penetration is mainly done through ngrok and frp, both of which are very useful. In China, free options for ngrok include ittun, sunny, and natapp. The first two allow custom domain names, while the latter requires a VIP version for custom domains.

I have tried all three and found that the sunny version of the ngrok client for ARM does not run on my Raspberry Pi. However, both the ittun and natapp versions of ngrok work, and since I need a custom domain, I used the ittun ngrok_arm version.

Each of these three has detailed instructions on their official websites, so please check them out.

This is a screenshot during normal operation; accessing http://zerow.ittun.com/ shows…

Since ngrok needs to run in the background, I used the screen session to keep it running in the background. However, starting it automatically has not been realized yet; if there is a power outage or network interruption, I have to manually run ngrok again, which is currently an unresolved pain point.

1. More

Raspberry Pi can be used not only to run a website but also has many other functions waiting for your development. You can explore more on the Raspberry Pi Lab site, where many experts have written practical tutorials.

The status information for this Zero W is as follows:

As shown above, I have started both Nginx and ngrok services, with 250MB of memory remaining, which is still comfortable. The CPU temperature is also not high, running between 37-39 degrees over two days.