Raspberry Pi Network Attached Storage

PiFi

(Fall 2018)

Project Goal:

To create a Raspberry Pi Network Attached Storage Drive. This project was made for a Computer Networking class.

Uses/benefits:

The NAS would be used in the students dorm room to hold files and students can place large files such as school work, backups and music on the drive.
It would be cheaper than getting a cloud subscription to amazon

Disadvantages:

The NAS is only accessible within a certain radius from the device, but since the intended use is for a dorm room it gets the job done.

Technology Aspects:

Secure Shell (SSH)
SAMBA/ Server Message Block networking protocol
802.11g (2.4GHz)
NTFS
Drive Mapping and Mounting
IP ranges

Materials used:

Raspberry Pi B+ with built in wifi
32GB sd card for OS
16GB flash drive for storage drive
Mobaxterm (macs have built in ssh)

There were two phases to the project:

mounting the drive and creating an smb server
turning the Pi into a standalone wifi hotspot

Phase 1:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin

$ sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

$ sudo mkdir /EXTERNAL //Making folder for External drive

$ lsblk

$ sudo umount /dev/sda1

$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /EXTERNAL/

$ sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf // Here we modify the properties of the external file

(inside the file)

[EXTERNAL]

comment = external Files

browseable = yes

path = /EXTERNAL

writeable = Yes

create mask = 0777

directory mask = 0777

browseable = Yes

public = yes

$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Phase 2:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

$ sudo apt-get install dnsmasq hostapd

$ sudo systemctl stop dnsmasq
$ sudo systemctl stop hostapd

$ sudo reboot

$ sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf

interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.4.1/24
nohook wpa_supplicant

$ sudo service dhcpcd restart

$ sudo mv /etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/dnsmasq.conf.orig
$ sudo nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf

interface=wlan0 dhcp-range=192.168.4.2,192.168.4.20,255.255.255.0,24h // the ip ranges available to be assigned every 24 hours

$ sudo nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

//The actual settings for the access point

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid= PiFi

hw_mode=g //2.4Ghz
channel=7
wmm_enabled=0
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
wpa=2
wpa_passphrase=****** // your password
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP
rsn_pairwise=CCMP

$ sudo nano /etc/default/hostapd

DAEMON_CONF=”/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf” //this line was commented out it took us an unfortunately long time to figure that out.

sudo systemctl start hostapd
sudo systemctl start dnsmasq

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

$ sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

$ sudo sh -c “iptables-save > /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat”

iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat

$ sudo reboot

ssh pi@192.168.4.1 //whatever IP You set earlier

After these steps you should be able to connect to the Pi’s wifi, map the external drive, and ssh to the PI.