Network registration

Before the Pi can gain full network access, it needs to be added as a Hallnet device using the university’s web service. You’ll need the Pi’s MAC address, which should be shown if you boot the Pi with no bootable media and connect it to a display.

Of course, if you are deploying this setup outside of university accommodation, you can skip this step.

OS Installation

  1. Flash the latest version of Ubuntu Server onto a microSD card using Raspberry Pi Imager. Add the following customization options:
    • Hostname: pi5 (or another hostname)
    • Username: mish (or another username) and a password of your choice
    • Set time zone and keyboard layout
    • Enable SSH with public-key authentication only
  2. Insert the microSD card into the Pi, connect power and network cables
  3. SSH into the Pi to perform the rest of the setup

Update packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

More than likely, apt will prompt you to reboot:

sudo reboot

Install useful packages

sudo apt install micro btop fastfetch lazygit

Install nice-to-have packages

sudo apt install iperf3

Allow iperf3 to start as a daemon because why not.

You can also perform a bandwidth test using iperf3 -c.

Set up Tailscale

Install Tailscale

See https://tailscale.com/download/linux/ for instructions.

Connect to the tailnet

Connect the Pi to the mmk21hub.github tailnet (use Github OAuth to sign in to Tailscale).

sudo tailscale up

Check that the host has appeared on the Tailscale dashboard. Then,

  1. Disable key expiry for the device
  2. Set its IPv4 address to something memorable like 100.64.2.10 (the 2 represents it being at uni, and the 10 is because I use multiples of 10 for Pis)