Set up Arch Linux on Cubieboard 2

May 16, 2015

Install Arch Linux

Update to new kernel

pacman -Syu linux-armv7

Change hostname

hostnamectl set-hostname myhostname

Set up user account

Create an user account and add it to wheel group (an administration group, commonly used to give access to the sudo and su utilities)
```
 useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash <username>
```
Specify the new user account’s password:
```
 passwd <username>
```
Edit sudoers list by typing visudo, look for the below line and uncomment it to allow wheel group to execute commands.
```
 %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
```

Allow only users in the group wheel to login to root using su command by edit /etc/pam.d/su and uncomment the line:

 # Uncomment the following line to require a user to be in the "wheel" group.
 auth    required  pam_wheel.so use_uid

Deny SSH login to root account: edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config, change #PermitRootLogin yes to no and uncomment the line:
```
 PermitRootLogin no
```
Restart the SSH daemon:
```
 systemctl restart sshd
```
Now we can only log in with the created user account and use su or sudo to do system administration.
More details: Users and Groups, Security, Secure Shell

Set up Access Point on wlan0 interface

Install hostapd package
```
 sudo pacman -S hostapd
```

Create file /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

 interface=wlan0
 bridge=br0
 driver=nl80211
 ssid=cubie1
 hw_mode=g
 channel=11
 macaddr_acl=0
 auth_algs=1
 ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
 wpa=3
 wpa_passphrase=cubiepass
 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
 wpa_pairwise=TKIP
 rsn_pairwise=CCMP

If you have a card based on RTL8192CU chipset, install hostapd-8192cu in the AUR and replace driver=nl80211 with driver=rtl871xdrv and remove bridge=br0. See Install hostapd-8192cu package
Install dnsmasq package for DHCP server
```
 sudo pacman -S dnsmasq
```

Edit /etc/dnsmasq.conf to:

 # disables dnsmasq reading any other files like /etc/resolv.conf for nameservers
 no-resolv
 # Interface to bind to
 interface=wlan0
 # Specify starting_range,end_range,lease_time
 dhcp-range=10.0.0.3,10.0.0.20,12h
 # dns addresses to send to the clients
 server=8.8.8.8
 server=8.8.4.4

Initial wlan0 configuration

 sudo ifconfig wlan0 up 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

Run dnsmasq
```
 sudo dnsmasq
```

Run hostapd as background

 sudo hostapd -B -P /var/run/hostapd.pid /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf 1> /dev/null

More details: Software Access Point, hostapd

Connect to a Wi-Fi on wlan1 interface

Install wpa_supplicant package
```
 sudo pacman -S wpa_supplicant
```

Configure wpa_supplicant.conf

 sudo wpa_passphrase "<ssid>" "<password>" | tee /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan1.conf > /dev/null

Turn on wlan1 interface
```
 sudo ip link set dev wlan1 up
```

Initialize wpa_supplicant

 sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan1.conf

Obtain IP Adress
```
 sudo dhcpcd wlan1
```

Enable systemd services for connecting Wi-Fi at boot

 sudo systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan1
 sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd@wlan1

To customize start up script or look for more details, see: Wireless Network Configuration and WPA Suppliant

Install hostapd-8192cu package

Install base-devel group package
```
 sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel
```
Create a build directory, for example ~/builds
```
 mkdir ~/builds
 cd ~/builds
```

Download hostapd-8192 tarball and extract it

 curl -L -O https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ho/hostapd-8192cu/hostapd-8192cu.tar.gz
 tar -xvf hostapd-8192cu.tar.gz
 cd hostapd-8192cu

Make the package
```
 makepkg -s
```
A tarball should have been created with name hostapd-8192cu-<application version number>-<package revision number>-<architecture>.pkg.tar.xz

Install the created package using pacman:

 sudo pacman -U hostapd-8192cu-0.8_rtw_r7475.20130812_beta-3-armv7h.pkg.tar.xz

More details: Arch User Repository, hostapd-8192cu

Discussion, links, and tweets

Follow @luugiathuy