Display

1.44" 128x128 pixel colour LCD TFT display

Top menu bar

• Time

• Internet status globe

• Wireless interface status

Main page

• Operating mode

• Ethernet IP address

• Link connection speed

• Additional interface IP addresses (mode dependant)

Footer

• WLAN Pi hostname - Where did the last 3 characters come from? Here is the correct answer.

Physical Inputs

To the left of the display you should find a 5-way joystick (J)

To the right of the display you will find 3 action buttons:

• Button A cycles between wired network troubleshooting tools:

  • Reachability

  • LLDP neighbour

  • eth0 IP configuration

• Button B is a shortcut to activate Hotspot mode - useful for wall attenuation measurements

• Button C allows you to shutdown or restart the unit

What can I do with this display and buttons?

Explore the menu options and feel free to experiment.

• System > About

• System > Date & Time

• System > Summary

• System > Reboot

Navigation to the link local address http://wlanpi-xxx.local will bring you to the WLAN Pi landing page. Here you'll find several tabs, we'll reference these later on during the labs.

LibreSpeed - Local speed test

Lightweight speed test implemented in Javascript that runs in a web browser

Profiler

Displays 'profiled clients' results

Network

WLAN Pi network information dashboard

Admin (Cockpit)

Web based graphical interface for managing Linux

Terminal

Direct link to the Cockpit Web Terminal

Finally, In the lower right hand corner of this page

You will see your WLAN Pi:

• Hostname

• System version

RF Regulatory Domain

WLAN Pi does not ship with a default RF regulatory domain. Note the warning message shown on the display.

Since we are in Prague, apply Czech regulatory domain. This unlocks the permitted channels and enforces limits and DFS rules defined by the Czech Telecommunication Office.

1. Go to Menu > System > RF Domain

2. Select Set Domain CZ

Set time zone

If you haven't updated the WLAN Pi's timezone to Prague, let's do it now:

• Select Menu > System > Date & Time > Set Timezone > Europe > Prague

• Finally, select Confirm & Reboot

There are several ways to interact with your WLAN Pi:

• Display and buttons (FPMS)

• WebUI

• Ethernet

• Wi-Fi

We will explore each of these.

Powering On

There is no power button, the WLAN Pi M4 has built-in PoE.

1. Connect the Ethernet cable present on your desk

2. Red LED indicates that the unit has been powered on

3. Look for the activity LED blinking, this means the OS has been initiated

4. Then the screen will come to life

Basic Cursor Navigation

Use the following shortcuts to quickly move the cursor around the current line while typing a command.

Ctrl+A or Home: Go to the beginning of the line

Ctrl+E or End: Go to the end of the line

Ctrl+xx: Move between the beginning of the line and the current position of the cursor. This allows you to press Ctrl+xx to return to the start of the line, change something, and then press Ctrl+xx to go back to your original cursor position.

To use this shortcut, hold the Ctrl key and tap the X key twice.

Windows:

Ctrl+ <-: Go left (back) one word

Ctrl+ ->: Go right (forward) one word

macOS:

Esc+B / Esc+ <- / Alt+ <- : Go left (back) one word

Esc+F / Esc+ -> / Alt+ -> : Go right (forward) one word

Check operating system version

Check the WLAN Pi OS version:

wlanpi-stats

Show me the version of Linux you are running:

lsb_release -a

What Linux kernel are we using:

uname -r

View Interface IP Addresses

View all your interfaces and IP addresses

ip address

View IP address for a specific interface

ip address show eth0

ip address show wlan0

View IP neighbor table (ARP cache)

ip neighbor

View IP routing table

ip route

View wireless devices

iw dev

View wireless device capabilities

iw list

You'll get a lot of info printed to the terminal. View it page by page with less:

iw list | less

Exit by pressing q key

Command history

View a list of your previously executed commands with:

history

Re-execute a command from the history, use exclamation mark followed by x, which represents the desired command list number:

!x

Sudo bang bang

When you enter a command that requires sudo (like reboot), but you forgot! No need to retype the command. Just do this instead:

sudo !!

Tab complete

Complete commands and file paths by starting to type them out, then using the tab key to auto-complete:

hi<tab>

Which becomes:

history

When there are multiple possibilities, double tapping the tab key will list all the possibilities. Try this to see all the wlanpi custom commands:

wlanpi<tab><tab>

pwd

Print working directory, ever feel lost as to where you are?

pwd

Enumeration commands

whoamiode

hostname

wifichannel

wifichannel -h

You can quickly:

• Convert between channel number <--> centre frequency

• List all Wi-Fi channels in a specific band

passwd

You can change your password from the terminal (but only if you want to):

passwd

This is how you can change your password at a later date.

Linux Cheat Sheet

Useful Linux commands, if you have time / want to go deeper.

What is Cockpit?

It is a web-based graphical interface for Linux machines. It simplifies management, and allows CLI access to the WLAN Pi without requiring an SSH client.

How to access Cockit?

1. Go to http://<IP-address-of-your-WLAN-Pi> and click on ADMIN.

   If you get a connection failure try using a different browser.\

   We do not have an SSL cert in place yet, please continue past the security warning

2. Login using the default 'first time boot' credentials username: wlanpi password: wlanpi\

3. You will be prompted to change your password this is NOT optional. YOU MUST do this to proceed.

4. The first time you login to Cockpit you will be in limited access mode. Look to the top-right corner of the WebUI interface. Click on limited access enter password, to get full access to WLAN Pi

5. Now please have a poke around, explore what functionality is exposed by Cockpit GUI.

Terminal

The menu option at the bottom of the left side panel is Terminal.

For the duration of the Cookbook this web based terminal is going to be our default method for accessing the WLAN Pi terminal.

Does our WLAN Pi have internet connection?

Execute command reachability in the Terminal window within Cockpit.

Does it?

When is re-imaging of the SD card required?

System level updates will be made occasionally that may require re-imaging your microSD card.

If you choose to re-image your SD card with the latest release of WLAN Pi OS, this will come with the latest version of all the default packages. To update packages to their latest versions, you can use CLI command sudo wlanpi-update. Or you can navigate to the Software Updates section in Cockpit.

Configure correct time zone

If you have not already done so (via FPMS) you can configure / double check the timezone from Cockpit.

Open Overview and click on System time 'Sep 19, 2022 5:46 PM' - highlighted in green below**.** You can figure out the rest 😉

Software updates

The beauty of WLAN Pi OS and the new way of distributing WLAN Pi features as Debian packages, is that your WLAN Pi can be easily upgraded without the need for re-imaging the SD card. Having said that, occasional re-imaging might be required, mainly because some code changes need to be applied to the actual low-level system files and services.

Update from Terminal

You can check for available updates to packages by

sudo apt update

After this process finishes, the updates can be installed with:

sudo apt upgrade

Update using the display and buttons

You can navigate to Menu > System > Software Update > Check for Updates. This checks for newly available WLAN Pi only packages (they all start with wlanpi- prefix), without touching any other Linux packages.

To perform the actual installation of these latest WLAN Pi only packages Menu > System > Software Update > Install Updates.

You are strongly encouraged to 'gracefully' shutdown your WLAN Pi!

This can be done via:

• FPMS (screen & buttons): Menu > System > Shutdown

• CLI command (either)

  • sudo poweroff

  • sudo shutdown now

• Cockpit web GUI

Primary Components

The 3D printed case is made up from 7x primary components.

Secondary Components

Accessory Mounting Options

On the rear face of the case:

1x 1/4" - 20 thread

4x M3 threaded mount points

M3 threaded mount points are available 40 and 80 mm apart on the back, top and bottom faces of the case. The 4x mount points on the back of the unit are provided by 3D printed slugs of plastic with an M3 threaded hole in the centre.

Removable magnet accessory

< pics of attach mount magnet disc >

Permanently installed magnet accessory

The 4x threaded slug inserts may be replaced with Neodymium bar magnets.

Suggested convention is to install magnets with North pole facing upwards, this convention would be used to make any future magnetically attached accessories compatible.

Feedback

Do you have ideas on how to improve WLAN Pi? Please do let us know:

Documentation

WLAN Pi documentation:

Default Credentials

Wi-Fi SSIDs

We use WPDD 5 GHz APx and WPDD 6 GHz APx SSIDs in this Deep Dive. Connect your laptop to the least utlised AP. Your laptop should stay conected to this SSID for the whole duration of this session.

Network Interfaces

Connect To Your Pi By Its mDNS Address

Common Ports

Linux Command Cheat Sheet

WLAN Pi M4 Overview

Specifications / Technical Details

LED Status Indicators

A brief look under the hood