Burngreave Pebble Wireless Router version 0.7
AKA PlexusAP,
Installation Hints 23-September-2003


The Burngreave Pebble Wireless Router is a customised version of Pebble Linux - see http://www.nycwireless.net/pebble and http://www.burngreave.net/~aland/it/bcan/bcanpresentation_files/frame.htm

It takes up about 42Mb of hard disk space and requires only a low spec of 
hardware to run.  
I've successfully ran it on Pentium 1 with a 75Mhz processor and 32Mb RAM.  It may go lower.

Its designed for Prism 2 wireless cards and 3C905 NIC's, though it shouldn't be
to much of a headache to make it support any wired NIC.  
On the wireless side though its currently limited to the prism 2 cards as it 
uses hostap - hostap.epitest.fi -  to function as a wireless access point and 
create the wireless distribution system (WDS) links between other Burngreave 
Pebbles. 

To build a Burngreave Pebble using these instructions you need.  
( I'll put some hints on other building techniques at the end)
1.  A PC with Hard Disk size greater than 42Mb in size, Floppy Disk, PCI Prism 2
Wireless Card, 3C905 NIC, CDROM.
2.  A copy of tomsrtbt disk.  
This is an all purpose mini linux build available at http://www.toms.net 
3.  A copy of the Burngreave Pebble.  
You can download this from http://www.burngreave.net/~aland/it/bcan/bcanpebble
4.  gunzip the bcan-vx.x.tar.gz and burn the tar to CD

Assuming you've got the PC components 1 above working in some sort of sensible fashion.  
I'll assume that the hdd is /dev/hda and the cd is /dev/hdb

1. Boot the PC with tomsrtbt disk
2. fdisk /dev/hda1 and create a single partition, /dev/hda1, 
large enough to fit a bcan pebble on( ie greater than 42Mb)

3. create an ext2 filesystem using the command
# mke2fs /dev/hda1

4.  set the file system not to ever be checked  using the command
# tune2fs -c -1 /dev/hda1

5.  make 2 mount points 
# mkdir /mnt/cf
# mkdir /mnt/pebble

6. mount the hda1  and the cdrom at the mount points
# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/cf
# mount /dev/hdb /mnt/pebble

7.  Change directory /mnt/pebble and untar the files there
# cd /mnt/pebble
/mnt/pebble# tar xvf bcan*.tar

8.  After the files are unpacked cd to /mnt/cf and run the script 
pebble.update.bcan.  
This will ask you some questions about ssh keys.  Say yes to them.  
It'll ask for a root password.  Give it one.  If you don't type it in correctly
twice you'll need to run the script again.
/mnt/pebble#cd ../cf
/mnt/cf# ./pebble.update.bcan

9. unmount the disk drives and reboot
/mnt/cf# cd /
/# umount /dev/hda1
/# umount /dev/hdb

10.  Remove the tomsrtbt floppy and reboot.

When the PC reboots its a Burngreave Pebble.

11.  Log on as root with the password you just gave it and edit the file 
/etc/pebblemesh.conf with the values that represent your network.

By default it runs a DHCP server on eth0 and eth1, and the values there are 
(if not quite sane) ones from my networks.
The scripts perform no error checking so you'll need to get the entries correct.


TEST1:~# remountrw
TEST1:~# vi /etc/pebblemesh.conf


12.  run the script /usr/local/sbin/pebbleconf.  
This will copy the values in the /etc/pebblemesh.conf to the actual 
configuration of the pebble, and reboot to make them live.
TEST1:~# pebbleconf
TEST1:~# fastreboot 

You now have a fully functioning Wireless AP that will connect with others and 
automatically build routing tables and other such funky things.


Other ways to install
----- ---- -- -------

Obviously a CDROM and Floppy drive are a bit over the top for a dumb wifi router

You can create the disks on another pc and then transfer them to the actual 
router afterwords.  

I tend to use NFS to mount the installation media rather than a cdrom.  
The process is exactly analogous though.