Raspberry Pi : Free Digital Library on Raspberry Pi

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Overview

The Digital Free Library is a fun project that will allow you to create your own electronic library to share with others. Similiar to a Little Free Library but digital.

I decided to create this project so I could share my favorite digital magazines and projects with my neighborhood. Hopefully this will get others interested in electronics by showing them stuff they might not have know about.

We will be using a Raspberry Pi Zero W so that others can connect to and browse the digital books offered.

 




Parts Needed

Get your kit :
/|\


Preparation

-Prepare Micro SD Card


We will be using Raspbian Jessie Lite, the version I use is September 2016. To find older releases we can go to http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/

You may also want to try a more recent version if that's available and 9/28/2016 isn't working



-Enabling SSH

In order to do this, open LX Terminal on your Pi and enter the following command to start Raspi Config:

sudo raspi-config



Scroll down to the “ssh” option, it might be under Interfaces or Advanced (they move it around)



Hit the Enter key and then select “Enable”



A script will run and then you will see the following as confirmation:



You will need to reboot your Pi to make the change permanent




-SSH under Windows


If you use windows, then you will need to download a free program called “PuTTY” from here: http://www.putty.org/.

Having downloaded and installed PuTTY (it's a single file called putty.exe), run the program.



Enter the IP address that you found earlier and click “Open”. This will give you a warning (the first time) and then prompt you for the user (“pi”) and password (“raspberry”).



The ssh window will then be ready for use.



For a good example of how to use ssh to remotely configure a raspberry Pi, take a look at this tutorial:

http://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-e-mail-notifier-using-leds/overview

-Test & Configure


Try exploring your files system by using 'ls' to list the files in the current directory and 'cd' followed by a directory name to change the current directory.

You can edit files using 'nano' followed by the file name and also install software using the 'apt-get' command, as described in some of the earlier tutorials in this series.


When finished with your ssh session, close the client application/window or simply type in exit into the shell window.


-Change Hostname

Currently the Hostname is at the default of raspberrypi, we want something more suited for this project. I will be using library, you could use any name you want or keep it at the default.

To change the hostname we will type


sudo raspi-config


Then select Advanced Options



Then select Hostname



Now you can enter in the Hostname you want to use.



Once you exit the config it will ask if you would like to reboot. Select yes.

When you connect using SSH you will need to enter the new hostname library.local



Now we can connect to the Raspberry Pi using SSH. The hostname we will be connecting to is raspberrypi.local


Now is also a good time to change the default password to something more secure. Enter passwd and follow the prompts.



Before moving to the next step we need to make sure we can connect to the internet. We will ping google.com


ping -c 5 google.com


-Install Apache



We will be using Apache for the Web Server. These install instructions were taken from the Raspberry Pi Foundation website. Their guide can be found at www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/web-server/apache.md

We will start with installing apache using the following command in terminal. This will take about 5 minutes to install.


sudo apt-get install apache2 -y



Next we will navigate to where this was just installed.


cd /var/www/



Currently we do not have permissions to the folder html. We will need permissions so we can change the index page and add our files. To do this we will enter this in.


sudo chown pi: html



To test that Apache installed correctly we will open a web browser and go to


http://raspberrypi.local/





      We now want to leave this folder and go back to the main directory. We will have issues later in the guide if we stay in /var/www, to exit just enter


      cd


      -Setting up the Webpage



      I have made a simple website that can be uploaded to the Raspberry Pi and show the media to download - digitallibrary.zip

      Once you have the file downloaded you can open the index.html file in a word editing program such as WordPad and edit the links for the images and files if you want to add or remove books.

      Each book has this piece of code in the file - Download file


      <div class="responsive">
  <div class="img">
  <a target="_top" href="issues/coloringbook_1-23-2014.pdf">
    <img src="images/rforrobot.jpg" >
  </a>
  <div class="desc"><p>Ladyada's R is for Robotics is a coloring book adventure with robots, their inventors and more.</p>
<p>Makers of all ages can learn, color and share their favorite robots and roboticists.</p>
<a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/1936" target="_blank">https://www.adafruit.com/products/1936</a></div>
</div>
</div>


      To add aditional books to the page paste the code shown above before the 

      tag in the html file.


      If you want to target a different file change the section



      <a target="_top" href="issues/coloringbook_1-23-2014.pdf">


      Files are placed in the issues folder. 


      For changing the image that shows you would change the line with


      <img src="images/rforrobot.jpg" >



      For images we named the folder images


      You change either folder to any name, but just make sure the code is pointing to the right folder.


      To change the description under the image we would edit this part of the code from earlier.



      <div class="desc"><p>Ladyada's "E is for Electronics" is a coloring book adventure with electronic components and their inventors.</p>
<p>Makers of all ages can learn, color, and share common parts and historical figures throughout history. Explore the world of electronics with Ladyada as your guide!</p>
<a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/1000" target="_blank">https://www.adafruit.com/products/1000</a></div>

      -Transferring The Files



      To get our html page and files to the Raspberry Pi we will be using WinSCP - Download WinSCP


      Once WinSCP is installed we will open it up and put in raspberrypi.local for the Host name. You can also enter the username and password now or it will prompt you for that info later.



      Now we will click Login.



      Once we are connected and logged in we will be put in the /home/pi directory. The left side window is your pc and the right side window is the Raspberry Pi



      We need to go up two directories. So double-click on the folder with the up arrow twice.



      Now we are in the root folder. We need to get to /var/www/html, Double-click on the folder labeled var, then double-click on the folder labeled www, and finally double click the folder labeled html



      We first need to delete the index.html file currently there. Then drag the files downloaded previously to this directory.
      The library.local link works for most web browsers that I tested except Microsoft Edge. On the Edge browser you need to put in the IP adress. From an earlier step we set that to 192.168.42.1

      raspberry_pi_webpage.jpg


      ________________________________________________________________________________
      Thanks for reading, make sure to keep an eye on OkInteresting.com for more posts.
      You can ask me questions here or @sanmansp on Twitter or fb.com/okinteresting

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