Recently I was intrigued by the possibility of booting my Raspberry pi 3b+ off an ssd. After reading multiple online documents and forums I decided to give it a try. What follows is the process I used to create a Hassio installation that boots off an ssd connected to my Raspi 3b+ running Raspbian Stretch Lite. This same process should also work for any media such as an sd card or thumb drive, if you like.
I currently boot off a Kingston 120G SSD plugged into one of the USB ports. In addition to Hassio, I run the following add-ons: Caddy, Dnsmasq, DHCP server, DuckDNS, IDE, Samba share, Portainer, ESPHome, and Backup Hassio to Google Drive. Typical CPU usage is 3-5%. Iâve had no observed performance issues to date.
The update process for this systemâs add-ons and Hassio is no different than for the typical Hassio environment. I suppose one caveat is Docker and Raspbian need to be maintained separately. On the other hand, I got rid of the sd card, I can mount USB drives, and I have control over the OS.
All the information below is available in bits and pieces on the web. At times Iâve cited where I got the information. Towards the end, this process jumps between su mode and not. This is because I patched several different processes together. You can likely just stay in su mode through the end of the process and modify commands appropriately.
Bonus: I have a Chromebook which added to the challenge as all processes I found use Windows or Mac machines. This process uses Chrome OS tools to create the image. Obviously substitute your systemâs tools in place.
So letâs start.
Wipe the media (optional unless your media has a previous attempt at a system on it. In my research I made several attempts before getting a final process that worked )
Prepare the media for formatting. This is especially important if the media contains a previously installed OS. The Chromebook will be unable to format the drive unless it is wiped first. Enough said.
- Plug in media to the Chromebook USB port
- Open Chromebook Recovery Utility (available in the Google Chrome Web Store)
- Click on the gear icon at the top of the window
- Erase recovery media (your media)
- Eject the media from the Chromebook
Format the drive
- Plug your media back into the USB port on your Chromebook. The media will be recognised by the system.
- Next, open up the Files app (the blue folder icon). In the navigation sidebar find your media (if you have more than one connected make sure that itâs the correct one before proceeding).
- Right-click on the media you wish to format and select the âFormat Deviceâ option from the menu.
- Chrome OS will prompt you to confirm that you wish to format. To proceed click âOKâ. The OS will then do its thing. Formatting on a 2GB USB drive happened in no time at all, but be patient if formatting something larger, such as an external USB drive. When formatting has completed you will see a small toast appear in the lower right hand corner. Devices are formatted to a FAT32 file system.
Install Raspbian
- Download 32-bit Raspbian Stretch Lite from the Raspberry Pi website
- Return to the Chromebook Recovery Utility to write the image to your media
- Select the gear icon at the top of the window
- Select âUse local imageâ and follow the app directions.
- Now add a zero length file named âsshâ to the boot partition to enable SSH capability.
- Eject the media from the Chromebook
Boot Raspi from USB
The following assumes the pi is hardwired to the network. This is not a requirement but itâs how mine is configured. There is nothing you need to do to a Raspi 3b+ to make it boot from one of itâs USB ports other than remove any sd card loaded in the slot. USB boot is enabled out of the box.
- Connect the media to a Raspi USB port and it power up. (remember no sd card in the slot) The nice thing is that if youâre having problems anywhere in the process, you can always unplug the media from the USB port and reinsert the sd card and youâre back to a working system.
- Get the Raspi IP address via the router device table or some other method.
- Now SSH into the Raspi via Chromebook Secure Shell Utility (available from the Google Chrome Web Store). The following needs to be loaded into the Utilityâs window:
name = pi@raspberrypi
port = 22
login username=pi
password = raspberry
Hint: The two following commands are helpful in the Chromebook Secure Shell Utility. It was a time consuming search to locate these gems.
To get to the java script shell type: ctrl+shift+j
To erase all keys use: term_.command.removeAllKnownHosts();
-
Now change the Raspiâs password by typing the command below and following the prompts:
$ sudo raspi-config -
Set a static IP address. Type the following at the command prompt to invoke the nano editor:
$ sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf -
The file contains commented out lines. Uncomment the appropriate lines and fill in the specifics for your system). Edit the config file to say the following:
interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.1.xxx/24 // your IP address replaces at least xxx
static routers=192.168.1.1 // your router IP
static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8 // your choice
-
Then close the file and save it using ^x and pressing y, etcâŠ
-
Now reboot the Raspi using the following command:
$ sudo shutdown -r now
Install utilities required by Hassio
-
Once it reboots, SSH in again, hopefully at the same IP address as last time, as long as the static IP assigned is the same as the old IP address.
-
Probably a good time to make sure the latest and greatest is on the media so type the following commands at the prompt:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade -
The following is out of âAlternative: install on generic Linux hostâ from Home Assistant website instructions. Install utilities needed by Hassio with the following commands:
$ sudo -i
# apt-get install software-properties-common
# apt-get update
# apt-get install -y apparmor-utils apt-transport-https avahi-daemon ca-certificates curl dbus jq network-manager socat
Install Docker
Getting near the end of the process now. It is time to install Docker on the Raspi. I read somewhere that you need to install Docker via their convenience script for a Raspi (ARM). So thatâs what I did. The following is from the Docker site:
This example uses the script at get.docker.com to install the latest release of Docker CE on Linux. To install the latest testing version, use test.docker.com instead. In each of the commands below, replace each occurrence of get with test.
Warning:
Always examine scripts downloaded from the internet before running them locally.
$ curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
$ sudo sh get-docker.sh
<output truncated>
If you would like to use Docker as a non-root user, you should now consider adding your user to the âdockerâ group with something like:
$ sudo usermod -aG docker your-user // insert pi for your-user
Remember to log out and back in for this to take effect!
Warning:
Adding a user to the âdockerâ group grants them the ability to run containers which can be used to obtain root privileges on the Docker host. Refer to Docker Daemon Attack Surface for more information.
Docker CE is installed. It starts automatically on DEB-based distributions.
Finally install Hassio
-
After rebooting update everything because⊠why not!
$ sudo su
# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade -
Now start the Hassio installation (the following is one long command⊠line wrapping happens)
# curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/home-assistant/hassio-installer/master/hassio_install.sh | bash -s -- -m raspberrypi3 -
Then, reboot using
# shutdown -r nowThe Raspi will take ~10-20 minutes to reboot as it downloads HassIO and installs it.
-
Verify that HassIO Has Been Installed
The default HassIO location is hassio.local:8123, but since we installed it atypically, we need to access it via raspberrypi.local:8123. You may also use the IP address. â Finished â
Comments or questions welcome.
