Raspberry Pi on the road

Raspberry Pi for the road?

Running a RasPi in the car connected to the Starlink internet. Not that its really required, but I always find that I want access to information and sort of processed real time information.. so why not.

Well, so what am I running on it?

Whilst I have Starlink on the car, there are the odd occasion where you do not have internet access. You might be parked in a location where there is no visibility to the sky and you either don’t have internet access or something that is very spotty. So my thinking was then to have a local networked Raspberry Pi running a media server, and given I have run Plex Media Server for years and am a Lifetime Plexpass subscriver that was the natural choice. Got that installed and using then local media content, music etc. on a usb stick. Simple. With the Starlink mini having its own access point, which I have extended connectivity to a small 5-port ethernet switch, I can be on wifi but have access to my devices on the network easy. Pretty cool.

Equipment I am using

There’s a few things going on..

• Codan smartlink. I have a Codan HF X2 Envoy with a 3040 auto tune antenna in the car, which can be accessed also via wifi.
• Victron Cerbo GX. I have a Victron 48/240v system which is controlled via a Cerbo GX. I have been annoyed with the lack of wifi performance on that system, so it was the obvious choice to hardwire that.
• Starlink mini. Main access point, but have extended an ethernet cable to a 5-port Netgear switch so can have wired lan on the back for the primary devices.
• Netgear 5-port switch (GS105AU). I bought this one from Amazon and it takes 12v straight in, so that was an easy connect.
• Raspberry PI 2+. One of the ‘brains’ in the system and what I am going through a bit on this page. Old but still going.
• Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 MK3 Touchscreen with GPS. Using that mounted in the cabin for maps, browsing etc. Old tablet style pc but managed to get Windows 11 installed and running. Will run this one to the ground and then replace the whole system at some point.

Raspverry Pi Remote Connectivity

The Raspberry Pi has a remote connectivity solution, which works great. That can be found here.

Tailscale

I was not aware of Tailscale as a project before, but it looks awesome. Seems to be putting up a secure network across your ‘conencted devices’. Have to install it on your different devices, log in and you can reach each of the systems via private network ip’s. Once installed and logged in, you can get to your admin page

Apache web server

Not really running a web server, but installed Apache to have a front landing page with information that’s relevant for the RaspPi. I find just bringing up the IP with the information for it is a simple way that I can always remember…

So using a landing page generated via Hugo. Just a single page with relevant information, but its quite an effective way to store access and information for simple use later.

Additional things I potentially could do with it

• Build a weatherstation with it.

Links & URL’s

There’s a range of reference material that I probably have used in setting up the RasPi for the cruiser. Some might be in this list below.

• Raspberry Pi Connect for Remote Control. There is documentation for how this works and is being set up here.
• http://<Local_IP>:8081/live.html
• Plex Media Server
• http://<Local_IP>:32400/web/
• Hamclock
• DX Cluster UK

Plex media server

jskogsta@valhalpi:~ $ sudo apt install -y plexmediaserver
Installing:                      
  plexmediaserver

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 1, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 0
  Download size: 75.6 MB
  Space needed: 177 MB / 8,758 MB available

Get:1 https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public/main armhf plexmediaserver armhf 1.42.2.10156-f737b826c [75.6 MB]
Fetched 75.6 MB in 10s (7,197 kB/s)                                                                                                                              
Selecting previously unselected package plexmediaserver.
(Reading database ... 127679 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../plexmediaserver_1.42.2.10156-f737b826c_armhf.deb ...
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation.
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation complete.
Unpacking plexmediaserver (1.42.2.10156-f737b826c) ...
Setting up plexmediaserver (1.42.2.10156-f737b826c) ...
PlexMediaServer install: PlexMediaServer-1.42.2.10156-f737b826c - Installation starting.
PlexMediaServer install: 
PlexMediaServer install: Now installing based on:
PlexMediaServer install:   Installation Type:   New
PlexMediaServer install:   Process Control:     systemd
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex User:           plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex Group:          plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Video Group:         video
PlexMediaServer install:   Metadata Dir:        /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support
PlexMediaServer install:   Temp Directory:      /tmp 
PlexMediaServer install:   Lang Encoding:       en_US.UTF-8
PlexMediaServer install:   Processor:           ARMv7 Processor rev 5 (v7l)
PlexMediaServer install:   Intel i915 Hardware: Not found
PlexMediaServer install:   Nvidia GPU card:     Not Found
PlexMediaServer install:  
PlexMediaServer install: Completing final configuration.
Created symlink '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/plexmediaserver.service' -> '/usr/lib/systemd/system/    plexmediaserver.service'.
PlexMediaServer install: PlexMediaServer-1.42.2.10156-f737b826c - Installation successful.  Errors: 0, Warnings: 0
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.28-1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-3) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.74) ...
jskogsta@valhalpi:~ $