Setting up a Raspberry Pi Piku Server from Scratch

Warning

These instructions are correct as of April 1st 2016. Quite a bit has changed since then in Raspberry Pi land, so you may need to adjust them accordingly.

Start by flashing a SD card with the latest Raspbian Jessie Lite image.

Do this in your Raspberry Pi as 'pi' user

Boot it, launch raspi-config to perform (at least) the following configuration:

# as 'pi' user
sudo raspi-config

1) expand filesystem
2) change default user password
3) set up memory split as you wish (for a headless server, 16MB for GPU)

Optionally:

4) set up over-clocking.

Secure your install

Delete the existing SSH keys and recreate them (why? read this).

# as 'pi' user
sudo rm -v /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
sudo dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server
sudo reboot

This will recreate the server keys. Next, update your system:

# as 'pi' user
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install required packages

As of April 2016, the shipping versions with Raspbian are recent enough to run piku:

# as 'pi' user
sudo apt install -y python-virtualenv python-pip git uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python nginx
sudo pip install -U click
sudo reboot

Meanwhile, go get the goodies while Raspberry Pi is rebooting

(We assume you know about ssh keys and have one "at hand", you'll need to copy it)

Clone the piku repo somewhere and copy files to your Raspberry Pi

# as yourself in your desktop/laptop computer
scp piku.py uwsgi-piku.service nginx.default.dist pi@your_machine:/tmp
scp your_public_ssh_key.pub pi@your_machine:/tmp

Back to the Pi

Prepare uWSGI (part one):

# as 'pi' user
sudo ln -s `which uwsgi` /usr/local/bin/uwsgi-piku
sudo systemctl disable uwsgi
sudo cp /tmp/uwsgi-piku.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable uwsgi-piku

Prepare nginx:

sudo apt-get install nginx
# Set up nginx to pick up our config files
sudo cp /tmp/nginx.default.dist /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
# Set up systemd.path to reload nginx upon config changes
sudo cp ./piku-nginx.{path, service} /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable piku-nginx.{path,service}
sudo systemctl start piku-nginx.path
# Check the status of piku-nginx.service
systemctl status piku-nginx.path # should return `Active: active (waiting)`
# Restart NGINX
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Create 'piku' user and set it up

# as 'pi' user
sudo adduser --disabled-password --gecos 'PaaS access' --ingroup www-data piku
sudo su - piku
# this is now done as 'piku' user
mkdir ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
cp /tmp/piku.py ~/piku.py
python piku.py setup
python piku.py setup:ssh /tmp/id_rsa.pub
# return to 'pi' user
exit

Prepare uWSGI (part two):

# as 'pi' user
sudo systemctl start uwsgi-piku
sudo systemctl status uwsgi-piku.service

If you're still here, odds are your Pi is ready for work

Testing

Go back to your machine and try these commands:

# as yourself in your desktop/laptop computer
ssh piku@your_machine

Usage: piku.py [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  The smallest PaaS you've ever seen

Options:
  --help  Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  apps              List applications
  config            Show application configuration
  config:get        Retrieve a configuration setting
  config:live       Show live configuration settings
  config:set        Set a configuration setting
  deploy            Deploy an application
  destroy           Destroy an application
  disable           Disable an application
  enable            Enable an application
  logs              Tail an application log
  ps                Show application worker count
  ps:scale          Show application configuration
  restart           Restart an application
  setup             Initialize paths
  setup:ssh         Set up a new SSH key
Connection to your_machine closed.

If you find any bugs with this quickstart guide, please let Luis Correia know ;)