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Home Preparation for the Beaglebone Black Checklist Interactive Setup Non-Interactive Setup Post-Setup Keydrives On Client Machines

Preparation for the Beaglebone Black

This section is specific to the Beaglebone Black hardware. If you're not using that hardware then just skip to the next section.

To get started you will need:

  • A Beaglebone Black
  • A MicroSD card
  • Ethernet cable
  • Optionally a 5V 2A power supply for the Beaglebone Black
  • Access to the internet via a router with ethernet sockets
  • USB thumb drive (for backups or storing media)
  • One or more domains available via a dynamic DNS provider, such as https://freedns.afraid.org/
  • A purchased domain name and SSL certificate (only needed for Red Matrix)
  • A laptop or desktop machine with the ability to write to a microSD card (might need an adaptor)

You will also need to know, or find out, the IP address of your internet router and have a suitable static IP address for the Beaglebone on your local network. The router should allow you to forward ports to the Beaglebone (often this is under firewall or "advanced" settings).

You can either install from a debian package or manually as follows:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git dialog build-essential
git clone https://github.com/bashrc/freedombone
cd freedombone
sudo make install

Plug the microSD card into your laptop/desktop and then run the freedombone-prep command. For example:

freedombone-prep -d /dev/sdX --ip freedombone_IP_address --iprouter router_IP_address

where /dev/sdX is the device name for the microSD card. Often it's /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc, depending upon how many drives there are on your system. The script will download the Debian installer and update the microSD card. It can take a while, so be patient.

When the initial setup is done follow the instructions on screen to run the main freedombone command.

Checklist

Before running the freedombone command you will need a few things.

  • Have some domains, or subdomains, registered with a dynamic DNS service
  • System with a new installation of Debian Jessie
  • Ethernet connection to an internet router
  • It is possible to forward ports from the internet router to the system
  • If you want to set up a social network or microblog then you will need SSL certificates corresponding to those domains
  • Have ssh access to the system

Interactive Setup

The interactive server configuration setup is recommended for most users. On the system where freedombone is to be installed create a configuration file.

ssh myusername@freedombone_IP_address
su
sudo apt-get update
apt-get install git dialog build-essential
git clone https://github.com/bashrc/freedombone
cd freedombone
make install

Now the easiest way to install the system is via the interactive setup.

freedombone menuconfig

You can select which variant you wish to install and then enter the details as requested. A video of the install sequence can be seen here.

Non-Interactive Setup

If you don't want to install interactively then it's possible to manually create a configuration file as follows:

On the system where freedombone is to be installed create a configuration file.

ssh myusername@freedombone_IP_address
su
sudo apt-get update
apt-get install git build-essential
git clone https://github.com/bashrc/freedombone
cd freedombone
make install
nano /home/myusername/freedombone/freedombone.cfg

Add the following, and set the values as needed. DEFAULT_DOMAIN_NAME is where your email/xmpp/irc/voip will be accessed from. It could be the same as one of your other domains, or separate.

MY_USERNAME=myusername
DEFAULT_DOMAIN_NAME=mywikidomain
SYSTEM_TYPE=full
INSTALLING_ON_BBB=no
DDNS_PROVIDER=default@freedns.afraid.org
DDNS_USERNAME=ddnsusername
DDNS_PASSWORD=ddnspassword3471326
MY_NAME=MyFullNameOrNick
MY_EMAIL_ADDRESS=myusername@mywikidomain
LOCAL_NETWORK_STATIC_IP_ADDRESS=192.168.1.60
ROUTER_IP_ADDRESS=192.168.1.254
ENABLE_CJDNS=no
DEBIAN_REPO=ftp.us.debian.org
NAMESERVER1=85.214.73.63
NAMESERVER2=213.73.91.35
WIKI_TITLE=my wiki title
WIKI_DOMAIN_NAME=mywikidomain
MY_BLOG_TITLE=my blog
FULLBLOG_DOMAIN_NAME=myblogdomain
MICROBLOG_DOMAIN_NAME=mymicroblogdomain
REDMATRIX_DOMAIN_NAME=myredmatrixdomain
OWNCLOUD_DOMAIN_NAME=myownclouddomain
HWRNG_TYPE=haveged
ENABLE_SOCIAL_KEY_MANAGEMENT="no"

Both of the IP addresses are local IP addresses, typically of the form 192.168.x.x, with one being for the system and the other being for the internet router.

Save the configuration file and exit from your editor.

Now you can begin the installation. If you are doing this on a Beaglebone Black:

freedombone -c freedombone.cfg

The above command should be run in the same directory in which your configuration file exists.

Also see the manpage for additional options which can be used instead of a configuration file.

Social Key Management

If you are using the interactive installer then you will be aked if you wish to import GPG keys. If you don't already possess GPG keys then just select "Ok" and they will be generated during the install. If you do already have GPG keys then there are a few possibilities

You have the gnupg keyring on an encrypted USB drive

If you previously made a master keydrive containing the full keyring (the .gnupg directory). This is the most straightforward case, but not as secure as splitting the key into fragments.

You have a number of key fragments on USB drives retrieved from friends

If you previously made some USB drives containing key fragments then retrieve them from your friends and plug them in one after the other. After the last drive has been read then remove it and just select "Ok". The system will then try to reconstruct the key. For this to work you will need to have previously made three or more Keydrives.

You can specify some ssh login details for friends servers containing key fragments

Enter three or more sets of login details and the installer will try to retrieve key fragments and then assemble them into the full key. This only works if you previously were using remote backups and had social key management enabled.

Post-Setup

Setup of the server and installation of all the relevant packages is not quick, and depends upon which variant you choose and your internet bandwidth. Allow about three hours for a full installation on the Beaglebone Black. On the Beaglebone installation is in two parts, since a reboot is needed to enable the hardware random number generator and zram.

When done you can ssh into the Freedombone with:

ssh myusername@domain -p 2222

Any manual post-installation setup instructions or passwords can be found in /home/username/README. You should remove any passwords from that file and store them within a password manager such as KeepassX.

On your internet router, typically under firewall settings, open the following ports and forward them to your server.

Service Ports
HTTP 80
HTTPS 443
SSH 2222
DLNA 1900
DLNA 8200
XMPP 5222..5223
XMPP 5269
XMPP 5280..5281
IRC 6697
IRC 9999
Git 9418
Email 25
Email 587
Email 465
Email 993
VoIP 64738

Keydrives

After installing for the first time it's a good idea to create some keydrives. These will store your gpg key so that if all else fails you will still be able to restore from backup. There are two ways to do this:

Master Keydrive

This is the traditional security model in which you carry your full keyring on an encrypted USB drive. To make a master keydrive first format a USB drive as a LUKS encrypted drive. In Ubuntu this can be done from the "Discs" application. Then plug it into the Freedombone system, then from your local machine run:

ssh myusername@mydomainname -p 2222
su
freedombone-keydrive -u myusername -d sdb --master yes
exit
exit

If you are on a Beaglebone Black then use sda rather than sdb for the drive parameter.

Fragment keydrives

This breaks your GPG key into a number of fragments and randomly selects one to add to the USB drive. First format a USB drive as a LUKS encrypted drive. In Ubuntu this can be done from the "Discs" application. Plug it into the Freedombone system then from your local machine run the following commands:

ssh myusername@mydomainname -p 2222
su
freedombone-keydrive -u myusername -d sdb
exit
exit

Fragments are randomly assigned and so you will need at least three or four keydrives to have enough fragments to reconstruct your original key in a worst case scenario. You can store fragments for different Freedombone systems on the same encrypted USB drive, so you can help to ensure that your friends can also recover their systems. This might be called "the web of backups" or "the web of encryption". Since you can only write a single key fragment from your Freedombone system to a given USB drive each friend doesn't have enough information to decrypt your backups or steal your identity, even if they turn evil. This is based on the assumption that it may be difficult to get three or more friends to conspire against you all at once.

On Client Machines

You can configure laptops or desktop machines which connect to the Freedombone server in the following way. This alters encryption settings to improve overall security.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git dialog haveged build-essential
git clone https://github.com/bashrc/freedombone
cd freedombone
sudo make install
freedombone-client
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