Usage
| Readme |
| Improving ssh security |
| Administrating the system via an onion address (Tor) |
| Using Email |
| Syncing to the Cloud |
| Play Music |
| Microblogging (GNU Social) |
| Social Network |
| Chat Services |
| RSS Reader |
Readme
After the system has installed a README file will be generated which contains passwords and some brief advice on using the installed systems. You can read this with the following commands:
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 emacs ~/README
You should transfer any passwords to a password manager such as KeepassX and then delete them from the README file. To save the file after removing passwords use CTRL-x CTRL-s.
To exit you can either just close the terminal or use CTRL-x CTRL-c followed by the exit command.
Improving ssh security
To improve ssh security you can generate an ssh key pair on your system and then upload the public key to the Freedombone.
On your local machine:
ssh-keygen
For extra security you may also want to add a passphrase to the ssh private key. You can show the generated public key with:
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Log into your system and open the control panel.
ssh username@domain -p 2222 sudo control
Select Manage Users then Change user ssh public key. Copy and paste the public key here, then exit.
It's a good idea to also copy the contents of ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to you password manager, together with the private key password if you created one.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using ssh keys for logins. The advantage is that this is much more secure than a memorised password, but the disadvantage is that you need to carry your ssh keys around and be able to install them on any computer of mobile device that you use. In high security or hostile infosec environments it may not be possible to carry or use USB thumb drives containing your keys and so memorised passwords may be the only available choice.
If you wish to only use ssh keys then log in to the Freedombone, become the root user and open the control panel with the 'control' command. Select Security Settings then keep hitting enter until you reach the question about allowing password logins. Select "no" for that, then apply the settings. Any subsequent attempts to log in via a password will then be denied.
Administrating the system via an onion address (Tor)
You can also access your system via the Tor system using an onion address. To find out what the onion address for ssh access is you can do the following:
ssh username@freedombone.local -p 2222 sudo control
Then select "About this system" and look for the onion address for ssh. You can then close the terminal and open another, then do the following:
sudo apt-get install tor connect-proxy echo 'Host *.onion' >> ~/.ssh/config echo 'ProxyCommand connect -R remote -5 -S 127.0.0.1:9050 %h %p' >> ~/.ssh/config ssh username@address.onion -p 2222
Subsequently even if dynamic DNS isn't working you may still be able to administer your system. Using the onion address also gives you some degree of protection against corporate or government metadata analysis, since it becomes more difficult to passively detect which systems are communicating.
Syncing to the Cloud
Initial install
Within a browser go to your owncloud domain, then create an administrator account. The username and password can be anything, and ideally should be generated from a password manager.
You will also need to enter database details:
| Owncloud database user | owncloudadmin |
| Owncloud database password | See the Readme file |
| Owncloud database name | owncloud |
After creating an administrator account then create a user account via the Users dropdown menu entry on the right hand side and log the details in a password manager. Give the user a quota suitable for the size of your microSD card or other storage.
Log out from the administrator account and then log back in as the user you just created.
On Android
Within F-droid search for owncloud and install the client. Also install CalDAV Sync Adapter.
Open the owncloud app and enter your owncloud domain name (including the https prefix) and login details for the user you created.
Open the calendar app (S planner) and under settings select Calendars then Add account then CalDAV Sync Adapter. Enter your owncloud username and password and the following URL:
https://myownclouddomain/remote.php/caldav/principals/myowncloudusername
You will also be prompted to enter login details. Your Android and Owncloud calendars should now be synchronised.
On Linux
Open your software center and search for "owncloud client". Enter your owncloud domain name (with the https prefix) and login details.
You can now drag files into the ~/owncloud directory and they will automatically sync to your server. It's that easy.
Play Music
With the DLNA service
An easy way to play music on any mobile device in your home is to use the DLNA service. Copy your music into a directory called "Music" on a USB thumb drive and then insert it into from socket on the Beaglebone.
ssh into the system with:
ssh myusername@mydomain.com -p 2222
Then mount the USB drive with:
su attach-music
The system will scan the Music directory, which could take a while if there are thousands of files, but you don't need to do anything further with the Beaglebone other than perhaps to log out by typing exit a couple of times.
If you have an Android device then go to F-Droid (if you don't already have it installed then it can be downloaded here) and search for ControlDLNA. On running the app you should see a red Debian icon which you can press on, then you may need to select "local". After a few seconds the list of albums or tracks should then appear and you can browse and play them.
The DLNA service will only work within your local home network, and isn't remotely accessible from other locations via the internet. That can be both a good and a bad thing. Another consideration is that there are no access controls on DLNA services, so any music or videos on the USB drive will be playable by anyone within your home network. If you need to restrict access to certain files then it may be better to use the music player within Owncloud.
With Owncloud
The main advantage of playing music via Owncloud is that you can do that from anywhere - not only within your home network.
By default a music player is installed into Owncloud, so all you need to do is to visit your Owncloud web site, select the music directory and then upload some music files. Afterwards you can select the music icon from the top left drop down menu and albums will then appear which can be played. If you want to share music with other users then you can select the share option from within the files view to make the tracks available.
Microblogging (GNU Social)
Initial configuration
To log into your GNU Social site first obtain your username and password from the "microblogging" section of the readme file.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222
cat README
exit
Navigate to your site and log in. You may then want to select Admin and check or change the details. You may also wish to change the license for the site to be either Creative Commons or private.
Social Network
Domains
Both Hubzilla and GNU Social try to obtain certificates automatically at the time of installation via Let's Encrypt. This will likely mean that in order for this to work you'll need to have obtained at least one "official" domain via a domain selling service, since Let's Encrypt mostly doesn't seem to work with free subdomains from sites such as freeDNS.
Initial install
On first visiting your Hubzilla site you'll see the login screen. The first thing you need to do is register a new user. The first user on the system then becomes its administrator.
Chat Services
IRC
IRC is useful for multi-user chat. The classic use case is for software development where many engineers might need to coordinate their activities, but it's also useful for meetings, parties and general socialising.
Irssi
The easiest way to use irssi is to connect to your system, like this:
ssh myusername@mydomain -p 2222
Then select IRC from the menu. Irssi is automatically set up to connect to your server and route its messages through the Tor network. Some popular systems such as Freenode reject connections coming from Tor (as a very crude attempt to stop trolls) and so if you want to use those you can exit to the command line from the menu and then just type "irssi" to use the system without Tor.
XChat
If you are using the XChat client:
Within the network list click, Add and enter your domain name then click Edit.
Select the entry within the servers box, then enter mydomainname/6697 and press Enter.
Uncheck use global user information.
Enter first and second nicknames and check auto connect to this network on startup.
Check use SSL and accept invalid SSL certificate.
Enter #freedombone as the channel name.
Click close and then connect.
XMPP/Jabber
Managing users
To add a user:
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 su freedombone-addxmpp -e newusername@newdomainname exit exit
To change a user password:
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 su freedombone-xmpp-pass -e username@domainname exit exit
To remove a user:
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 su freedombone-rmxmpp -e username@domainname exit exit
Report the status of the XMPP server:
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 su prosodyctl status exit exit
Using with Jitsi
Jitsi is the recommended communications client for desktop or laptop systems, since it includes the off the record (OTR) feature which provides some additional security beyond the usual SSL certificates.
Jitsi can be downloaded from https://jitsi.org/
On your desktop/laptop open Jitsi and select Options from the Tools menu.
Click Add to add a new user, then enter the Jabber ID which you previously specified with prosodyctl when setting up the XMPP server. Close and then you should notice that your status is "Online" (or if not then you should be able to set it to online).
From the File menu you can add contacts, then select the chat icon to begin a chat. Click on the lock icon on the right hand side and this will initiate an authentication procedure in which you can specify a question and answer to verify the identity of the person you're communicating with. Once authentication is complete then you'll be chating using OTR, which provides an additional layer of security.
When opening Jitsi initially you will get a certificate warning for your domain name (assuming that you're using a self-signed certificate). If this happens then select View Certificate and enable the checkbox to trust the certificate, then select Continue Anyway. Once you've done this then the certificate warning will not appear again unless you reinstall Jitsi or use a different computer.
You can also see this video as an example of using OTR.
Using with Ubuntu
The default XMPP client in Ubuntu is Empathy. Using Empathy isn't as secure as using Jitsi, since it doesn't include the off the record feature, but since it's the default it's what many users will have easy access to.
Open System Settings and select Online Accounts, Add account and then Jabber.
Enter your username (username@domainname) and password.
Click on Advanced and make sure that Encryption required and Ignore SSL certificate errors are checked. Ignoring the certificate errors will allow you to use the self-signed certificate created earlier. Then click Done and set your Jabber account and Empathy to On.
Using Tor Messenger
Tor Messenger is a messaging client which supports XMPP, and its onion routing enables you to protect the metadata of chat interactions to some extent by making it difficult for an adversary to know which server is talking to which. You can download Tor Messenger from torproject.org and the setup is pretty simple.
Using with Android
Install F-Droid
Search for and install Orbot and Conversations.
Add an account and enter your Jabber/XMPP ID and password.
From the menu select Settings then Expert Settings. Select Connect via Tor and depending on your situation you might also want to select Don't save encrypted messages.
From the menu select Manage accounts and add a new account.
Jabber ID: myusername@mydomain Password: your XMPP password Hostname: mydomain Port: 5222
Then select Next. When chatting you can use the lock icon to encrypt your conversation. It's also going through Tor, so passive surveillance of the metadata should not be easy for an adversary.
Tox
Tox is an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging system and so should work without Freedombone. It uses a system of nodes which act as a sort of directory service allowing users to find and connect to each other. The Tox node ID on the Freedombone can be found within the README within your home directory. If you have other users connect to your node then you will be able to continue chatting even when no other nodes are available.
Using the Toxic client
Log into your system with:
ssh myusername@mydomain -p 2222
Then from the menu select Tox Chat. Tox is encrypted by default and also router through Tor, so it should be reasonably secure both in terms of message content and metadata.
VoIP (Voice chat)
Using with Ubuntu
Within the software center search for "mumble" and install the client then run it. Skip through the audio setup wizard.
Click on "add new" to add a new server and enter the default domain name for the Freedombone, your username (which can be anything) and the VoIP server password which can be found in the README file on the Freedombone. Accept the self-signed SSL certificate. You are now ready to chat.
Note: if you don't know the default domain name and you did a full installation then it will be the same as the wiki domain name.
Using with Android
Install F-Droid
Search for and install Plumble.
Press the plus button to add a Mumble server.
Enter a label (which can be any name you choose for the server), the default domain name of the Freedombone, your username (which can also be anything) and the VoIP server password which can be found in the README file on the Freedombone.
Selecting the server by pressing on it then connects you to the server so that you can chat with other connected users.
Note: if you don't know the default domain name and you did a full installation then it will be the same as the wiki domain name.
SIP phones
Freedombone also supports SIP phones The username and domain is the same as for your email address, and the SIP password and extension number will appear within the README file in your home directory. Various SIP client options are available, such as CSipSimple on Android and Jitsi on desktop or laptop machines. Ideally use clients which support ZRTP, which will provide the best level of security.
RSS Reader
The way that RSS reading is set up on Freedombone gives you strong reading privacy. Not only is there onion routing between you and the server but also between the server and the source of the RSS feed. The only down side is that many RSS feeds are still http only, and so could be vulnerable to injection attacks, but it's expected that more of this will go to https in the foreseeable future due to a combination of growing recognition of security issues and systems like Let's Encrypt which make obtaining certificates much easier.
See the control panel for the RSS reader onion address.
ssh username@domainname -p 2222 sudo control
Then select the About screen.
The RSS reader is accessible only via an onion address. This provides a reasonable degree of reading privacy, making it difficult for passive adversaries such as governments or corporations to create lists of sites which you are subscribed to.
To set up the system open http://rss_reader_onion_address/ and log in with username admin and the password obtained either at the beginning of the install or from the README file in your home directory. You can then select the Actions menu and begin adding your feeds.
To access the RSS reader from a mobile device you can install a Tor compatible browser such as OrFox. It will try to automatically change to the mobile version of the user interface, but if that doesn't work then navigate to http://rss_reader_onion_address/mobile. Remember to add the site to the NoScript whitelist, and you may also need to turn HTTPS Everywhere off.