Raspberry Pis Everywhere

5 August 2021 - 3 minutes read - 503 words

Ever since the Raspberry Pi was released in 2012, I’ve been fascinated with single board computers. As I have dived deeper into the Linux rabbit hole and the open source support for Raspberry Pi’s has grown they have transformed from interesting learning tools to highly functional every day devices.

Lets take a look at what my collection is currently being used for.

Model 3B+ – OSMC Media Player

I have a NAS which I use to store TV shows and Films. OSMC is an exceptionally well optimized bit of software which allows the Pi to play high bit rate 1080p content no problem. It can be remote controlled from a phone app or through the TV remote. Unlike Plex, OSMC can just present a network share as is, meaning it can play incorrectly named files. This is used almost daily.

Model 2B – PiHole and DDclient

Possibly the most heavily used Pi, but in the background without anyone really knowing it is there. Pi Hole is a fantastic bit of software, acting as a DNS server and using public lists of advertising and nefarious domains, when devices asked it for the IP address of a blacklisted site, they get returned 0.0.0.0 (AKA, nothing).

Even better, it can also be setup as a DHCP server (normally handled by the router your ISP provides). This means there is no configuration needed for devices on your network, they should automatically pick it up as a DNS server and won’t get any more ads.

This Pi also runs DDclient, which updates Cloudflare with my home IP address (since it isn’t static), useful for my VPN!

Model 1B+ – Wireguard VPN

Originally I was using OpenVPN, but Wireguard is lightweight, which is handy for such a low power device.

Having a home VPN not only allows me to use a trusted connection if I’m out and about, I can also remotely fix most problems on my home network. Unfortunately the Pi struggles to push more than about 12Mb/s, so I have a faster server running another Wireguard connection. The server is used as a dev box though, so things could go wrong wit it. The Pi only does VPN so it’s rock solid if I ever need it.

Model 1B – Remote Finger

While working remotely during Covid I needed to simulate a hardware error I was investigating by grounding a data line. This would have needed me going into the office, possibly for a while. Instead I went in for half a day and attached a wire to the hardware and connected that to a Pi GPIO pin. Then I could remotely ground the data line, simulating an error and implement some mitigation code until a proper hardware fix could be rolled out.

BeagleBone Black – Unloved

My poor unloved BeagleBone Black sits on the network not really doing anything. I have plans, but no time to work on them. Occasionally I use it for testing stuff before I run it for real on a ‘proper’ device.