Raspberry Pi Catch-All

Very nice deal on a Raspberry Pi Starter Kit at Amazon today. Use code D9UXNAIL to get it for $57.

I've been thinking about trying out this whole Raspberry Pi craze and building a emulator/Media Center/Steam Machine for my TV. This might be the deal to get me to give it a go.

This might be a really dumb question. If using this with retropie/emulation station, how do I turn on/off the raspberry pi? Do I have to plug/unplug the power?

Rykin wrote:

Very nice deal on a Raspberry Pi Starter Kit at Amazon today. Use code D9UXNAIL to get it for $57.

Bought, thank you!

Not a fan of the clear case, but this all in one with that discount means I don't much care.

Also purchased. Now I'm one of the cool kids!

pizzaddict wrote:

This might be a really dumb question. If using this with retropie/emulation station, how do I turn on/off the raspberry pi? Do I have to plug/unplug the power?

Not sure but I assume you can at least ssh into the Pi and execute a shutdown. That's what I do, but I don't have any emulation running. Right now it's just for iptables.

pizzaddict wrote:

This might be a really dumb question. If using this with retropie/emulation station, how do I turn on/off the raspberry pi? Do I have to plug/unplug the power?

There is a shutdown command in one of the menus.

Does it shut down the power or just shut down the OS?

pizzaddict wrote:

Does it shut down the power or just shut down the OS?

I imagine it is exactly the same as if you issued the shutdown command in the OS. RetroPi is based off of Raspbian I believe. Video stops being sent from the output. Other than that I can't say. In order to turn it back on I have to unplug and replug the USB power (would like to find a power button solution).

Doing some quick research it looks as though you can get a IR sensor for the Pi that will let you turn on/off your Pi via a remote.

http://www.msldigital.com/pages/more...

Once I get my system up and running I'm considering getting a remote like this one and I'd imagine I could then turn it on/off with the remote.

Rykin, thanks for posting that Pi deal. I picked it up and it arrived yesterday. I'm excited to get going, but need to pick a project first. I have been browsing Instructables.com. Anyone have any other recommendations of places to look for inspiration?

I use pis for a research project and am teaching a two-week summer class to kids using them. It's been interesting and enlightening, to say the least, and makes me wish for more time to do my own project with one.

The Raspberry Pi Org. site has some ideas, along with fantastic lesson plans if you are working with kids. If you're interested in picking up fun peripherals, I'm a fan of Adafruit and Sparkfun. Adafruit also has really good tutorials for how to use the components and some full-project instructions. (N.B.: be sure to double-check whether a kit will need to be soldered together before purchase - the Adafruit kits are easy once you get the hang of the soldering iron, but if you don't have one that doesn't do you much good.)

I'm starting a RPi project to turn one into a VPN gateway, so that it can maintain a connection to a VPN service and I can selectively point devices on my home network to route their traffic through it.

That part should be pretty easy, but I also want to cook up an easy way to switch what VPN endpoint the gateway is pointing at.

ActualDragon wrote:

Adafruit also has really good tutorials for how to use the components and some full-project instructions. (N.B.: be sure to double-check whether a kit will need to be soldered together before purchase - the Adafruit kits are easy once you get the hang of the soldering iron, but if you don't have one that doesn't do you much good.)

Second the Adafruit tutorials, but be sure what you read is for the version of the Pi you have. Made a couple of mistakes following along with a tutorial that was written for a Pi 2 on my Pi 3. Oops!

*Legion* wrote:

I'm starting a RPi project to turn one into a VPN gateway, so that it can maintain a connection to a VPN service and I can selectively point devices on my home network to route their traffic through it.

Definitely doable, but keep in mind that the RPi will be a slow gateway. Even the RPi3 really isn't very fast. A $200 PC, probably with a Pentium G3258, would be WAY way faster. That said, you can always work out the scripting on the Pi, and then transfer over to x86 with little effort.

That part should be pretty easy, but I also want to cook up an easy way to switch what VPN endpoint the gateway is pointing at.

Well, if you're careful to choose OpenVPN providers (Cryptostorm is a good example), then that shouldn't be that difficult. Just modify their config files to all use the same device, perhaps tun0. That way, you can't have more than one up.

You'd also want to use firewalling to block all other packets from that box. You want packets going outbound to your VPN provider, and nothing else. In general, it would be safest to firewall away any client you might use, to help ensure that they can only talk through the VPN gateway. Otherwise, you're almost certain to 'leak' packets, revealing where you really are, which can be catastrophic with some uses for a VPN. If leakage worries you, it's particularly important to block DNS queries, although by default you shouldn't be allowing ANY traffic from VPN machines.

What I use is a separate network, using a VLAN at layer 2, and a separate, bog-standard IP range. (my normal internal network numbers are fairly distinctive.) The thinking is that, since VPN machines are directly exposed to the outside world, they're prone to compromise. My goal is to leave as little as possible there, to deprive an attacker of the ability to figure out where they are, or to leverage the exploit further. To that end, the VPN network can connect to precisely two machines, on precisely one UDP port; all other traffic is blocked. All internal connections from my distinctive IP space are internally NATted to the same standard range as the VPN... the connections look like they're coming from the firewall. Even if an attacker is sitting on the box with a root shell, they should be stymied. Even determining where the machine physically is wouldn't be easy, and it wouldn't be able to see any of my other internal traffic. They'd have to figure out how to hack a firewall that's refusing all packets from them; I'm sure that's not impossible, but it would be challenging.

Basically: keep in mind that are significant security implications to using a VPN properly. Think about both packet leakage and attack profile; realize that at least the VPN gateway will be sitting directly on the Internet with no protection at all. Putting it in a position of least possible trust would be a very good idea.

edit: oh, also, it's safest to firewall the VPN gateway with a separate device. Running a local firewall is a good idea, but if the box is compromised, a firewall on that same machine will be no protection at all.

Received my raspberry Pi kit and am going to work on getting Retropi setup tonight.

My SD card came preinstalled with NOOBS. Is this something I would use along with Retropi or should I format the card and just use the Retropi image?

Also, will I have issues initially using a wireless 360 controller? Do I need to install some type of drivers for it, or will retropi/emulation station recognize it as soon as I boot up the first time?

Ended up just reformatting the SD card and installing retropie on it. I have run into some issues getting my 360 controller to be recognized but I didn't have much time to mess with it last and I'm guessing some quick Internet research tonight will result in success.

pizzaddict wrote:

Ended up just reformatting the SD card and installing retropie on it.

Well, it's not like getting another image is difficult. The cards are cheap as potato chips these days, so you can have several on standby. One of the really cool bits of the Pi is that it has almost no firmware, so you can't screw it up permanently. Plug in a new card, and off you go. (you can blow one up with hardware, but AFAIK, it's impossible to damage one with software.)

Can't help with the Bluetooth stuff, though. I have only the 1 and 2, and haven't tried using either for emulation.

Wait are you trying to use a wireless 360 controller with or without the usb dongle for using them with PC? The 360 controller doesn't use Bluetooth so it won't work without the dongle and I have no idea if the dongle is supported either (I have no idea what I did with mine so I can't test it).

With dongle, judging by online videos it looks like it should work fine. Unfortunately, somehow while trying to get it to run I've fried my dongle. It wouldn't light up when plugged into the Pi and now it won't work with my PC either.

I'm going to end up ordering a decently rated knockoff brand from Amazon to replace it.

Other than that, I've got the emulation side of things working really nice with retropie and have also gotten Kodi installed for my media center needs. The last thing I want to do is get moonlight installed on it so I can stream my steam games to my Pi.

Those dongles have fuses on the circuit board. You can actually take a little solder and bypass the fuse. You should look into it. I found a guide really quick when I repaired mine.

Bypassing fuses is usually not a very good idea.

Malor wrote:

Bypassing fuses is usually not a very good idea.

You are correct, but in this case that fuse protects the device from overloading on a USB circuit, which carries very little power. Not only that but apparently the fuses were terrible and failed way more often the they should have. My dongle has been running with the bypassed fuse for years.

Having said that, do this at your own risk.

True, but the RPi is a tiny, low-power device, so a failing USB device could do a hell of a lot of damage, overwhelming its tiny power supply. A full-size computer supply might not even notice.

Has anybody used the Pi as a VNC client before? I'm trying to get it setup so I can mirror my PC monitor onto the tv that is hooked up to the Pi. I just tried using a program called ssvnc that was recommended but it keeps giving me an error when I try to run it. Are there any other good ones to try?

What about the default xvnc4viewer?

I'm getting an error with that one too, "unable to open viewer". I'm new to the linux and it just occurs to me, do I need to have an OS like Raspian installed in order to use these programs? I currently only have Retropie installed.

RetroPie is Raspbian. It's just a Raspbian build with emulation software installed by default.

Oh, shows you what I know

Well, you did just get your first Pi.