Running Docker on Raspberry Pi 3 with Hypriot 1.12

I’ve recently decided to start self hosting a few services for myself and whilst I’m likely to use cloud services for this kind of stuff in future, I wondered if I could do anything with my dust-covered RPi3. Turns out: yes, I could. Read on for more!

I looked into running Docker on the Pi a few years ago, and at the time, docker-engine didn’t run on ARM processors. When I looked recently, I found Hypriot - a pared-back version Raspbian, which runs docker-engine out of the box.

I’m putting to record the steps I took, as initially I stumbled a few times with wifi connectivity. If I never need to do this again, at least it’ll be there to help someone else.

Steps

Download image and unzip curl -O https://github.com/hypriot/image-builder-rpi/releases/download/v1.12.0/hypriotos-rpi-v1.12.0.img.zip && unzip hypriotos-rpi-v1.12.0.img.zip

Write image to SD card (assuming /dev/sdc):

dd if=hypriotos-rpi-v1.12.0.img of=/dev/sdc bs=1M

Generate an encrypted WPA passphrase for wifi network: wpa_passphrase <my_ssid> <my_passphrase> This will return the encrypted passphrase:

network={
     ssid="my_ssid"
     #psk="my_passphrase"
     psk=4ca2ade13a230e81b52f011c83ee4d7ac3602cf29908ce239fe2dcc37b345f0e
   }

On the SD card’s boot partition (named HyriotOS), edit the file user-data
Uncomment the Wifi section

Set the ISO country code appropriately, remove any non-essential network settings and add the WPA info from step 3:

    write_files:
      - content: |
          allow-hotplug wlan0
          iface wlan0 inet dhcp
          wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
          iface default inet dhcp
        path: /etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0
      - content: |
          country=GB
          ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
          update_config=1
          network={
          ssid="virginmedia0643874"
          psk=4ca2ade13a230e81b52f011c83ee4d7ac3602cf29908ce239fe2dcc37b345f0e
          key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
          }
        path: /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Ensure the wifi is activated - uncomment the section at the end:
```
  - 'ifup wlan0'
```
Remove the SD and plug it into the Pi
Log on to the pi with the default credentials
```
user: pirate
password: hypriot
```

The above steps were loosely based on this page on Hypriot’s site.