[[!meta title="Webconverger for Raspberry PI 2 & 3"]]
A curated auto-updating Archlinux Arm (alarm) rootfs https://github.com/webconverger/rpi2 using webkit2gtk based surf2 and a new Websocket based updater allowing for instant updates to the configuration and better visibility if the device is actually online.
Currently this port is designed for DOOH / Signage applications. It can be used as a kiosk, though it
will not have a "chrome", i.e. [[user interface options|kiosk]] is set to chrome=webcfullscreen
.
A >= 4GB microSD card is recommended.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K54BDqJcYsA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Only a limited subset of the [[API]] is implemented. The webc-config is the best documentation.
instantupdate
is enabled by default, see this video demo with two
rpi2s. This allows instant
updates to the homepage without rebooting.
You can override the browser binary surf2
with the webck
variable. For
example webck=omxplayer%20-r
with
homepage=http://techslides.com/demos/sample-videos/small.mp4
makes
Webconverger loop and play back an MP4 file.
You can power down the rpi2 with poweroff
and reboot with reboot
. This is
actually good practice since unfortunately the rpi2 boots from a vfat
partition that can easily
get corrupted.
To rotate the screen, you can use
rpi2config=http://prefs.webconverger.com/2015/90-degrees.txt
.
[[xrandr|display]] commands do not work with the rpi2's framebuffer powered
display. You may need to patient rebooting the device a couple of times as this
configuration is only embedded at boot via
webc-upgrade.
Begin with the canonical config.txt when making your changes. Other examples:
rpi2config=http://prefs.webconverger.com/2015/disable-overscan.txt
if your screen isn't fullscreen
You must have your HDMI screen on as the rpi2 boots since it does some sort of HDMI negotiation only at boot.
Video showing the possibilities of hardware motion detector integration
Useful for saving power when no one is in the vicinity.
Here is an example configuration I use for testing:
boot_append=debug
homepage=https://google.com
wpa-ssid=SINGTEL-F726
wpa-psk=0011466534
instantupdate
This is naively implemented at the bottom of https://github.com/Webconverger/rpi2/blob/master/usr/bin/webc-config. On rpi2 your WEBCID will stay on the eth0's mac address.
You need to have an initial wired internet setup to provision the wireless settings.
Triggered with boot_append=debug
. In debug mode sshd is
enabled
and you can log in with a ssh public configured like so ssh=http://hendry.iki.fi/hendry.pub
.
Removing the API because of [[blog/2015/Why_a_shell_API_would_be_insecure]].