#+KEYWORDS: freedombox, debian, beaglebone, friendica, email, web server, home server, internet, censorship, surveillance
#+DESCRIPTION: Turn the Beaglebone Black into a personal communications server
#+BEGIN_CENTER
*How to turn the Beaglebone Black into a FreedomBox-like personal communications server*
#+END_CENTER
#+BEGIN_CENTER
[[[[file:images/freedombone.jpg]]]]
#+END_CENTER
#+BEGIN_CENTER
Copyright (C) 2014 Bob Mottram
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the [[https://gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html][GNU Free Documentation License]], Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Source for this web site in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Org-mode][Emacs org-mode]] format is available [[/beaglebone.txt][here]]. Comments or patches may be submitted via [[https://github.com/fuzzgun/freedombone][Github]].
/If you look at it from an engineering perspective, an iterative perspective, it’s clear that you have to try something rather than do nothing./
-- Edward J. Snowden
#+END_VERSE
** What is FreedomBone?
Today many of us rely upon "free" services in the cloud, such as Gmail, Facebook, Google+ and so on. It might appear that these services are indispensible infrastructure of the modern internet, but actually they're not strictly needed and the amount of value which they deliver to the average internet user is very marginal. It is possible to be a citizen of the internet and yet not use those things - to disintermediate the most well known companies and cut out their prurient or merely cringeworthy business models.
FreedomBone is a personal home communications server based upon the BeagleBone Black hardware. It's small and cheap and will allow you to use email, have your own web site and do social networking in a federated way without needing to rely upon any intermediary companies other than your ISP.
** Do I need any prior knowledge?
In these instructions only a minimal level of familiarity with Linux is assumed. It's assumed that you know the basics of the /nano/ and /emacs/ editors, but it would be simple to also use other editors if you prefer.
** Why should I do this?
You should consider doing this if you are a freedom-oriented sort of person and you want to maintain sovereignty over your information. Laws in many places in the world consider you to have relinquished any property rights over data which you put onto a server not owned by youself (i.e. owned by a third party, such as Google or Facebook).
If you don't like the idea of having all your communications intercepted and investigated by the Surveillance State then you should consider running a FreedomBone. If your profession involves maintaining confidentiality as an essential feature, such as legal or medical services, counselling, teaching or any sort of activism then you should consider running a FreedomBone.
As Eben Moglen noted in his now famous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA]["Freedom in The Cloud"]] talk the simple fact of you keeping your own internet logs (found in the /var/log directory) puts a certain amount of power in your hands and takes it away from parties who would otherwise sell that information without your knowledge or permission to advertisers or other shady outfits who may not have your best interests at heart.
** After it's installed will it need a lot of maintenance?
So long as the hardware is ok the amount of maintenance needed should be very small. Unlike on Windows based systems you don't need to defragment drives or mess about with anti-virus programs. I ran a similar Sheevaplug system between 2010 and 2013 with only occasional software updates or reboots, and uptime was probably 99% or better.
** Is it secure?
Nothing is totally secure or infallible. You could have the most secure technology and yet still use easy to guess passwords. This system will not defend you from an attacker who is actively trying to block or corrupt your communications, but I assume that doesn't apply in the majority of cases. Another thing to be aware of is that running a FreedomBone could make you more vulnerable to traffic analysis, since the server is associated with your home address and isn't a giant aggregation of users somewhere in the cloud. You need to weigh this alongside the additional legal protection which owning the server and having it in your own home gives you.
FreedomBone should be far more secure than using popular cloud-based services which have spying built into them as a core feature (although not one which is typically advertised), but it is not necessarily an impenetrable information fortress.
** Will running a server all the time affect my electricity bill?
Hardly at all. The BeagleBone Black consumes very little power - less than 5W. It would even be potentially possible to run it from a solar panel.
* Inventory
These instructions assume that you have the following ingredients.
** A BeagleBone Black (BBB)
It should come with a suitable USB cable for the initial setup. To make things look nicer you may also want to get a case for it.
** An internet connection
It is assumed that the most common situation is via a router installed at home. The router should have ethernet sockets on it and a web interface which allows you to forward ports (sometimes under the "firewall" settings), so that you can forward ssh and web traffic to the BBB.
** microSD card
To use as the main storage for the BBB. 16 or 32GB is fine, and can be obtained quite cheaply. Try to use Sandisk (class 10 or better) where possible and avoid cheaper cards which often have poor performance.
You may also need an SD card adaptor or USB card reader in order to flash the operating image to the microSD card. For instance, many laptops have an SD card slot but not a microSD slot.
** 5V/1A power supply
With a plug suitable for powering the BBB. If you have some device with a USB socket nearby you may also be able to just use that for electrical power. However, powering from the USB cable alone might result in crashes when the system is under load, depending upon how many milliamps can be supplied by the USB hub/socket. If the system crashes due to running out of power then you will see that the LEDs on the BBB are continuously on, rather than flashing.
** An ethernet patch cable
Just an ordinary cat5 or cat6 cable that you can get from most electrical/computer stores.
* Installing Debian onto the microSD card
The Debian Linux OS will be installed onto a small flash drive. It's a good idea to do this rather than using the internal flash, because it will allow you to easily create backups of the entire system if necessary using the dd command.
tar xJf debian-7.2-console-armhf-2013-11-15.tar.xz
cd debian-7.2-console-armhf-2013-11-15
#+END_SRC
Create the disk image, where sdX is the name of the flash drive (probably it will be sdb or sdc).
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
sudo apt-get install u-boot-tools
sudo ./setup_sdcard.sh --mmc /dev/sdX --uboot bone --swap-file 1024
#+END_SRC
Once completed then safely remove the microSD card via your file manager (usually right click and "safely remove" or "eject").
* Setup
#+BEGIN_VERSE
/Build the tools for a future you would want to live in/
-- Kurt Opsahl
#+END_VERSE
** Things to be aware of
*** A note on ssh
When using ssh to log into the BBB if you get warnings of the type "/the ECDSA host key for domain differs from the key for the IP address/" then run the command:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
ssh-keygen -R <IP address>
#+END_SRC
*** Passwords
It's highly recommended that you use a password manager, such as KeepassX, and make all your passwords long random strings. It's also a good idea to use different passwords for different pieces of software, instead of one or two passwords for the whole system. That compartmentalises the security such that even if an attacker gains access to one system they can't necessarily get access to others.
** Initial
Plug the microSD card into the BBB and Connect the USB cable to your laptop/desktop, then login via ssh.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
ssh debian@192.168.7.2
#+END_SRC
The default password is /temppwd/
Then log in as root:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
su
#+END_SRC
The default password is /root/
The first thing to do is to change the passwords from their defaults.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
passwd
#+END_SRC
Then you will need to change the network interfaces. The main task here is to comment out the stuff related to usb0. That will enable you to plug the BBB into the back of a router and for it to be detectable on the network.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
nano /etc/network/interfaces
#+END_SRC
The resulting interfaces file should look like this:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.60
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
dns-nameservers 213.73.91.35 85.214.20.141
# Example to keep MAC address between reboots
#hwaddress ether DA:AD:CE:EF:CA:FE
# WiFi Example
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
# wpa-ssid "essid"
# wpa-psk "password"
# Ethernet/RNDIS gadget (g_ether)
# ... or on host side, usbnet and random hwaddr
# Note on some boards, usb0 is automaticly setup with an init script
# in that case, to completely disable remove file [run_boot-scripts] from the boot partition
#iface usb0 inet static
# address 192.168.7.2
# netmask 255.255.255.0
# network 192.168.7.0
# gateway 192.168.7.1
#+END_SRC
CTRL-O followed by ENTER to save, then CTRL-X to exit.
In the above example "address 192.168.1.60" is a static IP address for the BBB, which will allow incoming network traffic to be directed from the router in a reliable manner. It should be outside of the DHCP range set up on the router.
"gateway 192.168.1.254" should be the IP address of the router.
Note that setting the DNS servers with dns-nameservers is important because some home routers do not allow you to change the DNS settings.
Edit resolv.conf.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
nano /etc/resolv.conf
#+END_SRC
It should look something like the following:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
domain localdomain
search localdomain
nameserver 213.73.91.35
nameserver 85.214.20.141
#+END_SRC
CTRL-O followed by ENTER to save, then CTRL-X to exit.
Now disconnect the BBB from your computer and plug it into the router. You'll need an ethernet patch cable and you may also need a 5V/1A power supply for the BBB.
If you go to the web administration screen for your internet router (often it's on 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.1.254) then after a few minutes you should see the BBB appear on the network. It's name will be "arm".
** Add a user
Ssh back in to the BBB and login as root. In this example the BBB's IP address is 192.168.1.60.
Then make a new user. It's a bad idea to add users to the sudo group, because that then means that an attacker potentially only needs to know one password in order to get administrator access to the system. With no sudoers an attacker needs to know, or be able to obtain, two separate passwords to be able to really compromise the system.
Exit from the ssh login by typing "exit" a couple of times, then ssh back in as the new user. Make sure you use a difficult to guess password/phrase, or ideally a randomly generated password used together with a password manager such as KeepassX.
Remove the default debian user.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
userdel -r debian
#+END_SRC
** Text editor
For an editor which is less erratic than vi when used within a remote console such as Terminator.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
apt-get update
apt-get install emacs
#+END_SRC
** Alter ssh configuration
Altering the ssh configuration will make it a little more secure than the standard Debian settings.
CTRL-X CTRL-S to save, then CTRL-X CTRL-C to exit.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
service ssh restart
#+END_SRC
To test the new settings log out by typing "exit" a couple of times, then log back in again with:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
ssh -vvv myusername@192.168.1.60
#+END_SRC
and check that some number of bits are set within a 4096 bit sized key:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
debug2: bits set: */4096
#+END_SRC
** Set the host name
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
emacs /etc/hostname
#+END_SRC
CTRL-X CTRL-S to save, then CTRL-X CTRL-C to exit.
also issue the command
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
hostname /myhostname/
#+END_SRC
You may also need to assign the same hostname separately via your router's web interface.
** Install NTP
To synchronise time.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
apt-get install ntp
#+END_SRC
** Install fail2ban
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
apt-get install fail2ban
#+END_SRC
** Getting onto the web
Create a subdomain on [[http://freedns.afraid.org][freeDNS]]. You may need to click on "/subdomains/" a couple of times. FreeDNS is preferred because it is one of the few domain name providers which supports genuinely free (as in beer) accounts. So if your budget is tiny or non-existent you can still participate as a first class citizen of the internet. If you do have money to spend there is also a premium option.
Select "/dynamic DNS/" then click "/quick cron example/"
Edit /etc/crontab and append that to the end of the file.
Via your router's firewall settings you should now open port 22 (secure shell). This will allow you to ssh into your BBB from any location - not just your own local network.
** install Email
#+BEGIN_VERSE
/If you knew what I know about email, you might not use it/
-- Ladar Levison
#+END_VERSE
Email is not very secure, but its usefulness and ubiquity mean that it's likely to continue as a primary communications method for many years to come. You can encrypt the contents of email using PGP/GPG, but very few people do that and even for those that do the metadata (the From/To/CC/BCC) is always transmitted in the clear as a fundamental aspect of the protocol, allowing an attacker to easily construct detailed models of people's social network and life patterns even without knowing the content.
Exim4 seems much easier to install and configure than Postfix.
echo "[*] Done generating self signed certificates for exim!"
echo " Refer to the documentation and example configuration files"
echo " over at /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/ for an idea on how to enable TLS"
echo " support in your mail transfer agent."
#+END_SRC
Save and exit
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
chmod +x exim-gencert
./exim-gencert
#+END_SRC
This will generate the certificate used for email authentication. You will be asked for various details, the most important of which is the server name, which should be your domain name.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
emacs /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template
#+END_SRC
Append the following:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
login_saslauthd_server:
driver = plaintext
public_name = LOGIN
server_prompts = "Username:: : Password::"
# don't send system passwords over unencrypted connections
macro index S "<tag-prefix><save-message>=.learn-spam<enter>" "move to learn-spam"
macro pager S "<save-message>=.learn-spam<enter>" "move to learn-spam"
macro index H "<tag-prefix><copy-message>=.learn-ham<enter>" "copy to learn-ham"
macro pager H "<copy-message>=.learn-ham<enter>" "copy to learn-ham"
#+END_SRC
Save and exit.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
emacs /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
#+END_SRC
Uncomment *use_bayes*, *bayes_auto_learn*
Save and exit, then run:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
service spamassassin restart
#+END_SRC
Now to add an address book:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
emacs ~/.muttrc
#+END_SRC
Append the following:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
set alias_file=~/.mutt-alias
source ~/.mutt-alias
set query_command= "abook --mutt-query '%s'"
macro index,pager A "<pipe-message>abook --add-email-quiet<return>" "add the sender address to abook"
#+END_SRC
Then save and exit.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
touch ~/.mutt-alias
#+END_SRC
Finally you can then type *mutt* to get access to your email. Hence as a fallback, or if you prefer as the primary way of accessing email, you can ssh into the BBB and use the mutt command line email client. Ssh clients are available for all operating systems, and also you should be reasonably protected from passive surveillance between wherever you are and the BBB (although not between the BBB and the wider internet), which can be useful if you are for example using an Android tablet from a cafe or railway station.
To use the address book system open an email and then to add the sender to the address list press the A key. It will ask you for an alias which may be used the next time you want to send a mail. Alternatively you may just edit the *~/.mutt-alias* file directly to add email addresses.
Some useful keys to know are:
| ESC / | Search for text within message contents |
| "/" | Search for text within headers |
| * | Move to the last message |
| TAB | Move to the next unread message |
| d | Delete a message |
| u | Undelete a mail which is pending deletion |
| $ | Delete all messages selected and check for new messages |
| a | Add to the address book |
| m | Send a new mail |
| S | Mark a message as spam |
| H | Mark a message as ham |
** K9 email client
*** Incoming server settings
* Select settings/account settings
* Select Fetching mail/incoming server
* Enter your username and password
* IMAP server should be your domain name
* Security: SSL/TLS (always)
* Authentication: Plain
* Port: 993
*** Outgoing (SMTP) server settings
* Select settings/account settings
* Select Sending mail/outgoing server
* Set SMTP server to your domain name
* Set Security to SSL/TLS (always)
* Set port to 465
** Setting up a web site
Edit the apache configuration so that it doesn't run out of memory if there are a lot of connections.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
su
emacs /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
#+END_SRC
Search for MaxClients and replace the value with 20 then save and exit.
In the examples below replace mydomainname.com with your own domain.
Enter some trivial password for the key file. The password will be removed as part of the makecert script. Note that leaving a password on the key file would mean that after a power cycle the apache server will not be able to boot properly (it would wait indefinitely for a password to be manually entered) and would look as if it had crashed.
If all has gone well then there should be no warnings or errors after you run the service restart command. After that you should enable ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) on your internet router/firewall, such that they are redirected to the BBB.
** Social Networking
#+BEGIN_VERSE
/Facebook is not your friend, it is a surveillance engine./
Now visit the URL of your site and you should be taken through the rest of the installation procedure. If you have trouble with "allow override" ensure that "AllowOverride" is set to "all" in your Apache settings for the site (within /etc/apache2/sites-available) and then restart the apache2 service.
Install the poller.
#+BEGIN_SRC
emacs /etc/crontab
#+END_SRC
and append the following, changing mydomainname.com to whatever your domain is.
#+BEGIN_SRC
*/10 * * * * root cd /var/www/mydomainname.com/htdocs; /usr/bin/php include/poller.php
Make sure that the database gets backed up. By using cron if anything goes wrong then you should be able to recover the database either from the previous day or the previous week.
To get to the admin settings you will need to be logged in with the admin email address which you specified at the beginning of the installation procedure. Depending upon the theme which you're using "/admin/" will be available either as an icon or on a drop down menu.
Under the *plugins* section the main one which you may wish to enable is the NSFW plugin. With that enabled if a post contans the #NSFW tag then it will appear minimised by default and you will need to click a button to open it.
Under the *themes* section select a few themes, including mobile themes which are suitable for phones or tablets.
Under the *site* section give your Friendica node a name other than "/my friend network/", you can change the icon and banner text and set the default mobile theme typically to /frost-mobile/. If you don't want your node to host a lot of accounts for people you don't know then you may want to set the register policy to "/requires approval/". For security it's probably a good idea only to host accounts for people who you actually know, rather than random strangers. Also be aware that the Beaglebone does not have a great deal of computational power or bandwidth and will not function well if there are hundreds of users using your node. If you're not federating with Diaspora or other sites then you may wish to select "/only allow Friendica contacts/". That improves the security of the system, since communication between Friendica nodes is always encrypted separately and in addition to the usual SSL encryption layer - which makes life interesting for the Surveillance State and at least keeps those cryptanalysts employed.
It's probably a good idea to enable "/private posts by default for new users/" and also "/don't include post content in email notifications/". Since traditional email isn't a secure system and is easily vulnerable to attack by systems such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore][Xkeyscore]].
**** Settings
Each user has their own customisable settings, typically available either via an icon or by an entry on a drop down menu.
Under *additional features* enable "/richtext editor/", "/post preview/", "/group filter/", "/network filter/", "/edit sent posts/" and "/dislike posts/".
Under *display settings* select your desktop and mobile themes.
Once you have connected to enough friends it's also a good idea to use the "/export personal data/" option from here. This will save a file to your local system, which you can import into another friendica node if necessary.
Open a browser on your device and go to https://f-droid.org/ then download and install the F-Droid apk. If you then open F-Droid you can search for and install the Friendica app.
If you are using a self-signed certificate then at the login screen scroll down to the bottom, select the SSL settings then scroll down and disable SSL certificate checks. You will then be able to log in using https, which at least gives you some protection via the encryption.
More information about the Friendica app can be found on http://friendica-for-android.wiki-lab.net/
**** Mobile Theme
Another way to access Friendica from a mobile device is to just use the web browser. If you have selected a mobile theme within your settings then when viewing from an Android system the mobile theme will be displayed.
** Install a Blog
Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform, but in practice I found it to be high maintenance with frequent security updates and breakages. More practical for a home server is Flatpress. Flatpress doesn't use a MySql database, just text files, and so is easy to relocate or reinstall.
Now visit your blog and follow the setup instructions, which are quite minimal. Various themes and addons are available from the Flatpress web site, http://www.flatpress.org
** Install a VoIP server
#+BEGIN_VERSE
/Our core principles, whether in software or sovereignty, have always been about freedom and dignity, for all people, on an equal basis/
Sipwitch is like an introduction service or phone book for SIP VoIP clients. Once introduced the clients can then talk directly, and this means that sipwitch is very lightweight and can run on low power systems such as the BBB.
to see available supporting applications and plugins. Again, the columns will indicate if the package is installed, which version and a description of each of these.
Gopher is an old internet protocol which originated a few years before the web and is purely text based. It can be quite fun to build a gopher site and browse the gopherverse. One thing to keep in mind is that there is no security with gopher, so any text transmitted is trivially interceptable by systems such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore][Xkeyscore]] or deep packet inspection.
Your content should be placed within /var/gopher with the index page being named index.gph. The Gopher format is very simple - simpler than HTML - so creating pages is not much more difficult than editing a text file.
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
emacs /etc/init.d/gopher
#+END_SRC
Enter the following:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: gopher
# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Gopher daemon
# Description: Gopher daemon
### END INIT INFO
# Do NOT "set -e"
# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
On your internet router change the firewall settings to route port 70 to the BBB, then provided that you have a gopher plugin installed within your browser then you should be able to navigate to your gopher site with:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
gopher://mydomainname.com
#+END_SRC
There is a browser addon for Gopher called "overbite". Installing that should enable you to view your site.
** Install a Wiki
Dokuwiki is based upon flat files, and so is easy to move from one server to another without a lot of database complications.
First create an apache configuration for your Owncloud site. You will need to create a new subdomain via FreeDNS. See the earlier section on [[Setting up a web site]] for details.
Tripwire will try to detect any intrusions into your system. It's a good idea to install it after you have installed all of the other programs which you intend to use.
If you're connected to other friends via Friendica then the preferred way to send private messages is via Friendica's built-in messaging system. This is a lot more convenient than using GPG with ordinary email and yet still provides a similar level of protection from unwarranted interception.
** Restrictive/hostile user environments
If you are typically operating within a restrictive of hostile environment where using ssh is not an option because everything other than web ports are blocked then you may wish to try installing oterm:
http://www.coralbits.com/oterm/
https://github.com/davidmoreno/onion
** Moving Domains
If you're moving servers and using a different domain name or path then you can search and replace URLs within files in the following way:
#+BEGIN_SRC: bash
find /var/www/mynewdomain/htdocs -type f -exec sed -i 's@myolddomain@mynewdomain@g' {} \;
