Create a RACHEL server on a PC

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#1

I tried searching the forums but was not able to find a ressource about installing RACHEL on a laptop to share with the community here in rural Zambia. We have laptops but not access to buying Pior the RACHEL hotspot.

Can any of you point me to a ressource on howto install RACHEL on a laptop?

#2

Tutorial and installer are at https://ftp.worldpossible.org/installers/

#3

Thanks. I will look into using the Rasperry Pi 4 instead as it seems to more portable in the long run. Also really considering buying the Plus 4 device. However, shipping and taxes will probably be very expensive to Denmark (where I live) and Zambia (where they should be used).

#4

Thank you for your time,

Has anyone had any luck getting Rachel working under Windows WSL (Linux Subsystem)
I attempted this but get the following error

RACHEL: Looking for wired network interfaces
RACHEL: Found network interface eth0
RACHEL: Found network interface eth1
RACHEL: Found network interface lo
RACHEL: Found network interface wifi0
RACHEL: Found network interface wifi1
RACHEL: Found network interface wifi2
RACHEL: Using wired interface
RACHEL: Building install arguments
RACHEL: Beginning installation.
RACHEL: Parsing command line arguments
RACHEL: Successfully parsed command line arguments.
RACHEL: Checking arguments
ERROR: No LAN interface provided. A LAN interface is required for this installation
john@DESKTOP-JGS8271:~/linux_10_05_2022/installer$

I amended the ‘rachel’ bash file (below) in an attempt to force it to use the eth0 adapter (my primary adapter if Im hardwired) but no luck

# Wifi settings
#wifi_hotspot=0
#wifi_ssid=“RACHEL”
#wifi_channel=“0”
#wifi_iface=""

# Lan settings
lan_iface=“eth0”

# Service settings
install_kiwix=0
install_kolibri=0

# Misc settings
homepage=“rachel.com”

function log(){

  • echo “RACHEL: $1”*
    }

# Update the system
function system_update(){

  • echo “RACHEL: Updating system”*

  • apt-get update -y*

  • apt-get upgrade -y*

  • if (whiptail --title “System Update” --yesno “System successfully updated. Do you want to reboot now?” 8 78); then*

  •   log "Successfully updated system. Rebooting now."*

  •    reboot*

  • fi*
    }

function get_wired_settings(){

  • declare -a en_ifaces*

  • log “Looking for wired network interfaces”*

  • for entry in “/sys/class/net”/**

  • do*

  •  entry="$(basename $entry)"*

  •  log "Found network interface $entry"*

  •  if [[ $entry =~ "en" ]];*

  •  then*

  •      log "Adding $entry to wired interfaces"*

  •      en_ifaces+=("$entry")*

  •      en_ifaces+=("eth0")*

  •  fi*

  • done*

  • #if [ “${#en_ifaces[@]}” -eq 0 ]; then*

  • whiptail --title “Installation Error” --msgbox “No wired network interfaces found. A wired network interface is required for installation.” 8 78*

  • log “No wired network interfaces found. A wired network interface is required for installation.”*

  • exit*

  • fi*

  • sel_iface=eth0*

#5

hi @JohnWilliams

I haven’t tried this yet. It has been some time since I’ve looked at this installer but the code around the interface listing in the whiptail bash script was always a bit tricky on different linux distros so it’s not surprising WSL is showing issues. You might have more luck with a VM which you can follow along in this post.

You can also skip the bash installer entirely and run the python script directly, It just provides arguments to it. The basic installation without wifi should be

python3 installer.py --kiwix --kolibri --lan-iface=eth0

If you want to try WIFI ( likely won’t work )

python3 installer.py --kiwix --kolibri --lan-iface=eth0 --wifi-hotspot --wifi-ssid=SSID --wifi-channel=6 --wifi-iface=wlan0

James