docker-kiosk-raspberry

Kiosk mode

1. Download Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) Buster lite

Raspberry Pi OS Buster image that I downloaded from Raspberry Pi OS

2. Burn the Raspberry Pi OS image to the SD card

To burn an image to the SD card you can use Balena Etcher

3. Enable ssh to allow remote login and WiFi network info

Open folder ssh_wifi, and add this two files in /Volumes/boot

4. Eject the micro SD card

Remove the mini-SD card from the adapter and plug it into the Raspberry Pi

5. Login remotely over WiFi

This part assumes that ssh is enabled for your image and that the default user is pi with a password of raspberry.

• Boot the Raspberry Pi and open up a terminal window
• Run the following commands:

ssh-keygen -R raspberrypi.local
ssh [email protected]

6. Get the latest updates

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

7. Install minimum GUI components

Before you can run the Chromium browser on a lite version of Raspberry Pi OS, you will need a minimum set of GUI (Graphical User Interface) components to support it.

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg x11-xserver-utils xinit openbox

8. Install Chromium Web browser

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends chromium-browser

9. Edit Openbox config

• Open up autostart in an editor:

sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart

• First, add commands to turn off power management, screen blanking and screen saving. We don’t want those features in a kiosk.

xset -dpms # turn off display power management system
xset s noblank # turn off screen blanking
xset s off # turn off screen saver

• Next if Chromium crashed it may pop up error messages next time it starts. This is another feature that we don’t want in a kiosk.

# Remove exit errors from the config files that could trigger a warning
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/' ~/.config/chromium/'Local State'
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/; s/"exit_type":"[^"]\+"/"exit_type":"Normal"/' ~/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

• Finally, update autostart to run the Chromium browser in kiosk mode. Pass in an environment variable ($KIOSK_URL) that contains the URL of the Web app to launch.

# Run Chromium in kiosk mode
chromium-browser  --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --kiosk $KIOSK_URL

10. Setup the environment

• Edit the Openbox environment file:

sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/environment

• Add the KIOSK_URL to the file:

export KIOSK_URL=https://google.com

11. Start the X server on boot

• See if ~/.bash_profile already exists:

ls -la ~/.bash_profile

• Add this line to start the X server on boot. Because I am using a touch screen I’m passing in the flag to remove the cursor and save the file:

[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && startx -- -nocursor

• Reboot your pi

sudo reboot

Troubleshooting

Xorg

• if your screen is not found, past this on /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf:

Section "Device"
# WaveShare SpotPear 3.5", framebuffer 1
Identifier "uga"
driver "fbdev"
Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
Option "ShadowFB" "off"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
# Primary monitor. WaveShare SpotPear 480x320
Identifier "WSSP"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "primary"
Device "uga"
Monitor "WSSP"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "default"
Screen 0 "primary" 0 0
EndSection

Screen Waveshare 3.5inch RPi LCD (A)

1. Install the touch driver

• Then open the terminal of Raspberry Pi to install the touch driver.

git clone https://github.com/waveshare/LCD-show.git
cd LCD-show/

• and:

chmod +x LCD35-show
./LCD35-show lite

Docker

1. Download the Convenience Script and Install Docker on Raspberry Pi

• Move on to downloading the installation script with:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh

• Execute the script using the command:

sudo sh get-docker.sh

2. Add a Non-Root User to the Docker Group

• The syntax for adding users to the Docker group is:

sudo usermod -aG docker [user_name]

• To add the Pi user (the default user in Raspbian), use the command:

sudo usermod -aG docker Pi

3. Check Docker Version and Info

• Check the version of Docker on your Raspberry Pi by typing:

docker version

4. Run Hello World Container

• The best way to test whether Docker has been set up correctly is to run the Hello World container. To do so, type in the following command:

docker run hello-world

5. Download and install node.js 14

• Install node.js 14 by first installing the required repository:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x | sudo bash -

• The script above will create apt sources list file for the NodeSource Node.js 14.x repo:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list
deb https://deb.nodesource.com/node_14.x focal main
deb-src https://deb.nodesource.com/node_14.x focal main

• Once the repository is added, you can begin the installation of Node.js 14 on Ubuntu & Debian Linux:

sudo apt -y install nodejs

• test your version:

node -v

6. Download and run your app

• run cd Documents and past this following:

git clone https://github.com/JulienChapron/covid19-leaflet-docker.git

• run cd covid19-leaflet-docker, install dependencies and build your app:

npm install
sudo docker build -t covid19-leaflet-docker .

• Create a script file

touch /home/pi/docker.sh

• Past this following:

#!/bin/bash

#run your app
docker run --rm -d  -p 8080:8080/tcp covid19-leaflet-docker:latest

• open /etc/rc.local and pas this following:

...
sudo bash /home/pi/docker.sh &
exit 0