Purpose
The purpose of this article is to describe how to install CentOS 7 on the Raspberry PI 3 B for use as a starting point to install light-weight services such as DNS, NTP, DHCP, Apache, etc. This guide has been tested using CentOS 7.4.1708.
Raspberry PI 3
At the cost of $35 and an additional $20 to $30 in accessories the PI3 is a steal for a server providing reasonably light-weight services or workloads.
PI3 Specifications
- A 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU
- 802.11n Wireless LAN
- Bluetooth 4.1
- Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
- 1GB RAM
- 4 USB ports
- 40 GPIO pins
- Full HDMI port
- Ethernet port
- Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video
- Camera interface (CSI)
- Display interface (DSI)
- Micro SD card slot (now push-pull rather than push-push)
- VideoCore IV 3D graphics core
Install CentOS 7
General information
The default root password is centos.
Media
Begin, by obtaining the CentOS media from:
http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/isos/armhfp
I will be using:
CentOS-Userland-7-armv7hl-Minimal-1708-RaspberryPi3.img.xz
Create
There are number of methods, and I found this web page on xmodulo.com to be very good.
http://xmodulo.com/write-raspberry-pi-image-sd-card.html
README
There is a /root/README file that describes remaining steps to complete the Raspbery PI 3 setup including how to expand the root (/) partition to capacity of the media. Follow the instructions to expand the root filesystem using /usr/bin/rootfs-expand.
== CentOS 7 userland ==
If you want to automatically resize your / partition, just type the following (as root user):
/usr/bin/rootfs-expand
Results
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# /usr/bin/rootfs-expand
Extending partition 3 to max size ....
CHANGED: partition=3 start=2074624 old: size=4194304 end=6268928 new: size=60477407,end=62552031
Resizing ext4 filesystem ...
resize2fs 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)
Filesystem at /dev/mmcblk0p3 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 4
The filesystem on /dev/mmcblk0p3 is now 7559675 blocks long.
Done.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# df -h /
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 29G 765M 27G 3% /
Services
Immediately after installation, execute systemctl and note the two failing services network and kdump. To fix, I did the following:
network.service
Executing systemctl start network resulted with an error like “Failed to start LSB: Bring up/down networking.” Not terribly helpful. The solution was pretty simple, however. Execute echo "NETWORKING=yes" > /etc/sysconfig/network for the “network” file is absent.
kdump.service
Executing systemctl start kdump then journalctl -xe shows the message “Kdump not supported on this kernel.” Disable the service by executing systemctl disable kdump.
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
Periodically, I saw an error with systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service. It would come and go, so I ignored it. Further research is needed.
Disable Wifi/BT
I have no use for the wireless adapter nor bluetooth. Disabling the devices will increase security and reduce electrical / heat if not significantly.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# vi /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blklst.conf
Add
#wifi
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmutil
#bt
blacklist btbcm
blacklist hci_uart
Since I have no intention of using wireless, disable the wpa_suplicant service using systemctl disable wpa_supplicant.service. Using 7.4.1708 this service was not enabled.
Reference:
NetworkManager & firewalld
I am not a fan of NetworkManager nor firewalld on CentOS Minimal installations, so they have to go! However, we will need iptables-services to manage iptables in the absence of firewalld.
Disable NetworkManager & firewalld
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# systemctl stop NetworkManager firewalld
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# systemctl disable NetworkManager firewalld
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.fedoraproject.FirewallD1.service.
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service.
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service.
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/firewalld.service.
Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/NetworkManager.service.
Uninstall NetworkManager & firewalld
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# yum remove NetworkManager NetworkManager-libnm firewalld
Results
Dependencies Resolved
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Removing:
NetworkManager armv7hl 1:1.8.0-11.el7 @updates 4.3 M
NetworkManager-libnm armv7hl 1:1.8.0-11.el7 @updates 5.4 M
firewalld noarch 0.4.4.4-6.el7 @centos-base_rbf 1.8 M
Removing for dependencies:
NetworkManager-team armv7hl 1:1.8.0-11.el7 @updates 44 k
NetworkManager-tui armv7hl 1:1.8.0-11.el7 @updates 199 k
NetworkManager-wifi armv7hl 1:1.8.0-11.el7 @updates 122 k
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Remove 3 Packages (+3 Dependent packages)
Installed size: 12 M
Is this ok [y/N]:
Install iptables-services
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# yum install iptables-services
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
base | 3.6 kB 00:00
centos-kernel | 2.9 kB 00:00
extras | 2.9 kB 00:00
ovirt-4.1 | 3.0 kB 00:00
updates | 2.9 kB 00:00
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* ovirt-4.1: resources.ovirt.org
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package iptables-services.armv7hl 0:1.4.21-18.0.1.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
iptables-services armv7hl 1.4.21-18.0.1.el7 updates 50 k
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total download size: 50 k
Installed size: 25 k
Is this ok [y/d/N]:
Enable iptables-services.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# systemctl enable iptables ip6tables
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/basic.target.wants/iptables.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/iptables.service.
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/basic.target.wants/ip6tables.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/ip6tables.service.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# systemctl start iptables ip6tables
If you reboot at this point without completing the next step, execute dhclient to obtain an IP address.
Network Interface
I use static IP addresses for infrastructure related services. As such, we need to update ifcfg-eth0.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
Update to reflect your IP address topology:
DEVICE=eth0
TYPE=Ethernet
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.1.101
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.254
Reboot or restart the network service for changes to take effect.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# systemctl restart network
Name Resolution
Update resolv.conf.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# vi /etc/resolv.conf
Results
search myhost.mydomain.net
nameserver 64.6.64.6 # Verisign: Reston, Virginia
nameserver 64.6.65.6 # Verisign: Reston, Virginia
Host Name
Use hostnamectl to set host name.
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# hostnamectl set-hostname myhost.mydomain.net
[root@centos-rpi3 ~]# hostnamectl
Static hostname: myhost.mydomain.net
Icon name: computer
Machine ID: c86851c595a149019a820550c3ccec08
Boot ID: 9d27034c55c84cbda2d7dcf8f7f229e2
Operating System: CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:centos:centos:7
Kernel: Linux 4.9.50-v7.1.el7
Architecture: arm
Restarting the network service will not suffice, so reboot to verify changes using ping -c3 www.google.com.
Results
[root@myhost ~]# ping -c3 www.google.com
PING www.google.com (172.217.5.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from sfo03s07-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.5.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=26.6 ms
64 bytes from sfo03s07-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.5.100): icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=26.7 ms
64 bytes from sfo03s07-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.5.100): icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=26.5 ms
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 26.594/26.682/26.765/0.201 ms
Time & Date
Use timedatectl to set time, timezone, and/or date.
[root@myhost ~]# timedatectl list-timezones | grep -i angeles
America/Los_Angeles
[root@myhost ~]# timedatectl set-timezone America/Los_Angeles
[root@myhost ~]# timedatectl
Local time: Mon 2017-11-24 19:44:45 PDT
Universal time: Tue 2017-11-25 02:44:45 UTC
RTC time: n/a
Time zone: America/Los_Angeles (PDT, -0700)
NTP enabled: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: yes
Last DST change: DST began at
Sun 2016-03-13 01:59:59 PST
Sun 2016-03-13 03:00:00 PDT
Next DST change: DST ends (the clock jumps one hour backwards) at
Sun 2016-11-06 01:59:59 PDT
Sun 2016-11-06 01:00:00 PST
yum
Check for yum update using yum update yum, then install preferred packages. For example, I install yum related packages and tmux.
[root@myhost ~]# yum install yum-utils deltarpm tmux
Results
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
deltarpm armv7hl 3.6-3.el7 base 81 k
tmux armv7hl 1.8-4.el7 base 211 k
yum-utils noarch 1.1.31-42.el7 base 117 k
Installing for dependencies:
libevent armv7hl 2.0.21-4.el7 base 189 k
libxml2-python armv7hl 2.9.1-6.el7.3 base 233 k
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 3 Packages (+2 Dependent packages)
Total download size: 832 k
Installed size: 2.9 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]:
Update the system. tmux is an alternative to screen. It allows reconnecting to a tmux session with ease when using SSH using tmux attach.
[root@myhost ~]# tmux new -s update
[root@myhost ~]# yum update -y && reboot
Done!?
At this point, you are ready to add repositories and install packages.
Please star to let me know you found this article useful or open an issue with questions or comments.
Have fun!
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