PC Engines APU2

Hardware requirements

Storage Module

The APU can boot from an SD card or an m-SATA SSD. These instructions are written assuming you will use an SD card because they are easier to flash from another machine. However, we do frequently build Paradrop routers with SSDs to take advantage of the higher storage capacity and read/write speeds. The 4GB pSLC module listed above is known to be very reliable, but you may also prefer a larger SD card.

Preparing the SD card

  1. Download the latest build of the Paradrop disk image

  2. Insert the SD card into the machine you used to download the image and find the device node for the card. This is often “/dev/sdb”, but please make sure, as the next command will overwrite the contents of whatever device you pass.

  3. Copy (“flash”) the Paradrop image to the SD card.:

    xzcat paradrop-amd64.img.xz | sudo dd of=<DEVICE> bs=32M status=progress; sync

  4. Remove the SD card and proceed to assemble the router.

Please note that in order to make the SD card bootable, it is not enough to copy the disk image file to an existing filesystem on the SD card. Instead, one must overwrite the contents of the SD card including MBR, partition table, and data with the provided disk image. In Linux, you can do this with the dd command. If you are using Windows, we suggest using the win32-image-writer tool. Follow the Sourceforge link to download the installer.

First Boot

If you know the IP address of the router, e.g. because you have access to the DHCP server upstream from the router, then you can skip this step and proceed with activating the router as described in the section Quick Start.

The first time you boot the Paradrop router, you can optionally connect a serial cable to complete the Ubuntu Core setup process. The default configuration is 9600 8N1. If you are using PuTTY under Windows, make sure that you have entered the correct COM port for your serial cable. It may not be “COM1”. You can use the chgport command or open the Windows Device Manager tool to find the correct COM port.

After the router boots, press Enter when prompted and follow the instructions on the console to configure Ubuntu Core. If you have an Ubuntu One account, you can enter the email address here. For consistency with the rest of the instructions, we recommend using the address info@paradrop.io. You will be able to manage your router and install chutes through paradrop.org either way, but using our email address ensures consistency with the instructions.

Take note of the IP address displayed in the console. You will need this address for the next step, activating the router. For example, the message below indicates that the router has IP address 10.42.0.162.

Congratulations! This device is now registered to info@paradrop.io.

The next step is to log into the device via ssh:

ssh paradrop@10.42.0.162