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Table of Contents

Introduction

The VSM Express Raspberry Pi appliance can be used as an alternative to the Software Client or Hardware Appliance.
The Raspberry pi appliance RaspberryPi collector is built upon a Customer or Business Partner supplied 'Raspberry Pi 2 Model B' or 'Raspberry Pi 3 Model B' device (http://www.raspberrypi.org/products).
Virsae will provide the software image to be loaded onto a micro SD MicroSD card of 8GB capacity. As the Raspberry Pi is purchased as a bare circuit board you will also need a suitable full enclosure case and Micro USB power supply for the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Appliance will obtain its IP address configuration via DHCP. 

System Requirements

System requirements for the Raspberry Pi appliance are listed below:

...

Item

Specification

CPU

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B or Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Power supply

5V micro USB power supply 1.2A (1200mA) minimum

Micro SD Card

8gb 16gb class 8 or higher

Case

Specific fully enclosed case for Raspberry Pi

...

Burning the ISO Image to Micro SD

Insert your 8GB Micro SD card into a card reader attached to your PC (You may need to use an adaptor to full size SD card for this). Browse to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Virsae Group\VSM Express Tool\Win32DiskImager directory and run Win32DiskImager.exe

You may receive a User Account Control dialogue, if so check the program name is correct and then select Yes:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Account Control Dialogue


Win32 Disk Imager should now have opened:

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Raspberry Pi Disk Imager
Click the folder icon and browse to the desired disk image:

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Raspberry Pi Select Disk Image


Click open.

Check that the ‘Device’ Selected is the Micro SD card you inserted and then select ‘Write’

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Select Device


You may be prompted to confirm overwriting, if you are sure that you selected the correct drive in ‘Device’ then click Yes.

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Confirm Overwrite


If you receive a ‘Write Error’ either you have a Micro SD card of a lesser capacity than 8GB required or it already contains some data:

Raspberry Pi Write Error


If your Micro SD Card came pre-loaded with any software or was not new you may need to format the card first.

Go to My Computer, identify the card and right click the drive, select Format from the options. Format the card as fat32 and quick format:

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Raspberry Pi Format SD Card


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Raspberry Pi Format Boot


Once the format is complete go back to Win32 Disk Imager and click Write. The software image will then be written to the MicroSD Card, this may take up to 30 minutes to complete:

Raspberry Pi Disk Imager


When complete click ‘OK’ on the Write Successful Dialogue and close Win32 Disk Imager by clicking Exit:

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Raspberry Pi Disk Image Complete


Click OK.

Connecting to the customers network and customer configuration

...

On your PC, find the VSM Express Management tool (The VSMExpressManagementTool.exe application from C:\Program Files (x86)\Virsae Group\VSM Express Tool directory) right Click and select ‘Run As Administrator’.

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Management Tool


You may receive a Windows Security Alert popup if so check the details refer to Virsae Group Ltd and Virsae.com click Allow Access:

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Raspberry Pi Management Tool Security Alert


The VSM Express Tool will then open and will automatically detect the Raspberry Pi:

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Raspberry Pi Management Panel


Right click on the Detected Raspberry Pi and select ‘Set Customer and Location ID’s via the Web’:

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Raspberry Pi Management via Web


The Virsae Setup window will open, you will need to enter your Virsae credentials and click Login:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Virsae Setup


Once logged in you will need to select the Customer and Location that you setup earlier in the VSM Web Portal:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Virsae Setup Customer and Location


Click Setup Customer/Location Id.

The Customer and Location Id Setup window will close. The Customer and location fields will now be populated correctly in the VSM Express Tool:

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Raspberry Pi Customer and Location Populated

Static IP address setup

To set a Static IP address on the Raspberry Pi you can either reserve its address via DHCP or you can set a static IP address and configure it manually on the Raspberry Pi.

...

To configure the IP address manually right click on the Raspberry Pi in the VSM Express Tool and select Connect Via SSH:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi Connect via SSH


VirsaeTTY will launch and you should receive a login prompt to the Raspberry Pi operating system, use the following credentials (They are case sensitive):

...

Username

Password

administrator

Administrator


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Raspberry Pi SSH Login


After entering the credentials you will be given the Debian command prompt:

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Raspberry Pi Debian Command Prompt


Info
At this point, the commands for Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B differ. Ensure you follow the correct instructions in the guide.

...

Enter the command ‘sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces’ and hit enter:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 2 Model B Network Interfaces Command


The Nano text editor will open with the Interfaces file.

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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Network Interfaces File


This file needs to be edited to change the ‘iface eth0 inet dhcp’ line to ‘iface eth0 inet static’.

...

Line

Value

address

The IP address you want VSM Express to assume (in the proper range for you network).

Note: Pay attention to not use an IP already used by another device in your LAN or that can be assigned to another device by your router via DHCP

netmask

255.255.255.0

network

Same format as your IP address but usually ends in .0

Note: If for example your LAN is configured to have IP addresses in the range x.x.x.1 to x.x.x.255, you will put x.x.x.0 in the network line.

broadcast

Same format as your IP address but ends in 255

gateway

This is usually your router IP


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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Network Interfaces Example


Once complete press ‘ctrl-X’ to exit the nano editor

You will be prompted to save the modified buffer, if you are happy with your changes press y if not press n:

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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Network Interfaces Save Changes


If you press 'y' you will be prompted for the file name to save as, Check that this is /etc/network/interfaces and then press enter:

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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Network Interfaces Save As


You will drop back to the Debian command prompt.

To set the DNS server we will need to edit the /etc/resolv.conf, to do this enter the command ‘sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf’ and hit enter:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 2 Model B DNS


Change the ‘nameserver’ IP address to your DNS server, then press ‘ctrl-X’ to exit the nano editor:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 2 Model B DNS NameServer


You will be prompted to save the modified buffer, if you are happy with your changes press y if not press n:

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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Save Changes


If you press y you will be prompted for the file name to save as, check that this is /etc/resolv.conf and then press enter:

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Raspberry Pi 2 Model B DNS Save As


You will drop back to the Debian command prompt.

Info
At this point, the commands for Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B are again the same. Go to Restart the Raspberry Pi7046210.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Enter the command ‘sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf’ and hit enter

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Network Interfaces Command


The Nano text editor will open with the dhcpcd.conf file:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 3 Model B Network Interface File


Scroll all the way to the bottom of the file and add one, or both of the following snippets. Depending on whether you want to set a static IP address for a wired connection or a wireless connection eth0 = wired, wlan0 = wireless.

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Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Network Interfaces Snippets


You’ll need to edit the numbers in the snippet so they match your network configuration.e.g.

Wired Ethernet

Code Block
languagetext
interface eth0

static ip_address=192.168.0.10/24
static routers=192.168.0.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1

...

Once complete press ‘ctrl-X’ to exit the nano editor:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 3 Model B Exit Nano Editor


You will be prompted to save the modified buffer, if you are happy with your changes press y if not press n:

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Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Network Interfaces Save Changes


If you press y you will be prompted for the file name to save as, Check that this is /etc/network/interfaces and then press enter:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 3 Model B Network Interfaces Save As


Anchor
Restart the Raspberry Pi
Restart the Raspberry Pi

...

You need to restart your Raspberry Pi for the changes to take effect. Type the command ‘sudo reboot’ and hit enter:

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Raspberry Pi Reboot


The Raspberry Pi will restart and your session will be dropped, you will receive an error message, click OK to this and then close the VirsaeTTY application:

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Raspberry Pi Session Dropped


Give your Raspberry Pi a couple of minutes to restart and then discover it using the VSM Express Tool. If everything is fine you will see your VSM Express listed with its new Static IP address. If not, you will need to find where you have gone wrong, or diagnose why it cannot communicate with its static IP details. You may need to start back with burning a fresh image to the MicroSD card:

Image ModifiedRaspberry Pi 3 Configuration Complete