Updated Raspberry Pi Wheezy Image

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I’ve updated my Raspberry Pi Minimal Wheezy image to fix the problem with udev and network interfaces:

wheezy-mini-2012-05-11.img.gz (113MB)

The root password is unchanged from last time: raspberrypi

Change Log

  • Removed my Raspberry Pi’s eth0 from /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Please note: If you used my 2012-05-08 image and have fixed the rules file there is no need to upgrade.

Some notes about SSH

I’ve had quite a few questions about why I haven’t included openssh-server in my image, and plenty of requests to add it in, so I’ve decided to explain why I haven’t included it. The reason boils down to SSH host keys, which get generated when you install the package. SSH host keys are generated for every SSH server installation and uniquely identify your server to clients, such that no two servers should have the same keys. This is a defence against man-in-the-middle attacks, as your client knows the identity of the machine you are connecting to and can thus detect attempts to redirect you to another machine, potentially sniffing your passwords and other sensitive information. The official Raspberry Pi Debian image hosted on raspberrypi.org suffers from this problem. To most people this may not matter much, but to me it’s a big issue.

Many people suggested I could install the openssh-server package but remove the keys, forcing the boot process to regenerate the keys the first time it boots with a script in /etc/rc.local. My point of view is that I want to leave as much in its unedited state as possible, so adding fragments to rc.local is something I want to avoid.

Besides, it’s really easy to get the SSH server installed, and you can do it either on your monitor/TV with the HDMI output and a keyboard, or over the serial console with something like an FTDI cable. Just login as root and run: apt-get install openssh-server. See, that wasn’t hard.

13 thoughts on “Updated Raspberry Pi Wheezy Image”

  1. Pingback: Chris's Digital Realm » Raspberry Pi

  2. Pingback: Chris's Digital Realm » Raspberry Pi Serial Console

  3. Hi Chris,

    I’m trying out this build on the Pi but I’m starting to experience ‘soft’ crashes after about 30 minutes of use. Have you experienced this? Any pointers on how I might debug?

    ps. I’m running the Pi headless and connecting only via ssh.

    Rgds, Nick.

    • Nick,

      I haven’t experienced any crashes that I haven’t caused myself (by experimenting with drivers and other kernel stuff). Next time it locks up are you able to plug it into a monitor/TV to see if there is any output like a kernel panic? I’ve had one other report of crashes with a RPi and my kernel but in that case it may sound like a dicky power supply or otherwise overloading the PSU with lots plugged-in to the USB. If you suspect similar you may want to try an external powered USB hub and see if that improves the situation.

      Cheers,
      Chris

  4. Forgot to say – thanks for the hard work pulling this build together!

  5. Thank you for the image. It seems a lot cleaner than the official Squeeze one.

    A tip for those who, like me, want to use it headless and have neither the hardware for a serial port, nor a spare HDMI monitor. All you need is a USB keyboard and a working ‘net connection.

    Boot the Pi with the card in it. Then type the following:

    root
    raspberrypi

    apt-get update

    apt-get install openssh-server
    y

    and then after about another 30 seconds you should be able to ssh into it.

    It was the need for the “apt-get update” first which had me stumped for a while, that and the very long time it takes.

    One other note – the default keyboard layout is American so if you need to type any special characters you need to reprogram your fingers accordingly.

    John

  6. Two crucial bits of my comment above seem to have disappeared in the posting. After typing the password you need to wait about 5 seconds, and after typing “apt-get update” you need to wait 15 minutes (yes, seriously). I did type those bits but perhaps my punctuation upset the system.

  7. This looks very promising – you image is a lot more compact than most. However the kernel seems to have issues with newer/faster SD cards.

    mmc0: Timeout waiting for hardware interrupt

    Same card works with the letest version of the squeeze kernel so the problem can be fixed – is there an update..?

    Thanks

  9. Having played about with it for a while I find your minimal image is much more like I’d expect a minimal install to be – I feet right at home, and will be checking for any updates regularly.

    Rather than mess about with the boot files I dug out a slower card and had no problem adding a minimal set of packages for xfce but can’t get it to work – it may be nothing to do with your image but right after the X server starts I get an expected dialog from xfce but then the keyboard and mouse both lock up and I couldn’t do anything at all locally. Found the only way to reboot was to connect via ssh.

    Running out of time today but will try to install twm and xterm to see if I can narrow down where the problem is…

    (Also found that gpm doesn’t work – no usb mouse support..?)

    Hope feedback is useful.

  10. X server worked fine with TWM and xTerm – looks like an XFCE problem. Really like the image it makes a great starting point for a headless server.

  11. Pingback: Building a new kernel for the raspberry pi, including support for i2c, spi and working version of the driver rtl8192cu. at Dominique Gallot's weblog

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