Installing Puomi

Puomi is Internet router software for home and small office use. It consists of Debian with a custom configuration to enable use of a PC as a router.

To use Puomi you need:

• A PC with at least two Ethernet ports and UEFI. Below, we call it “the router PC”.
  • a USB-Ethernet adapter is fine for the second port
• A USB drive to hold the installer image.
• A second machine to provision the router. Below, we call it the “laptop”, but it can be any machine.
• Some Ethernet cables.

To install, short version:

• Download a v-i installer image.
  • v-i is a custom installer for Debian
• Write the image to a USB drive.
• Configure the USB drive.
• Copy the Puomi specification file and playbook to USB drive.
• Boot your router PC from the USB drive.
• Install Puomi on the PC.
• Boot the PC.

These steps will be covered in more detail below.

Get installer image

• Download the latest release image and helper scripts, using any download tool you like.

  • https://files.liw.fi/v-i/

• Decompress the image.

  • unxz v-i.img.xz

• Create an empty installer configuration file. Below we call it your.yaml, but you can call it anything. If you want, you can add content, see v-i documentation for details.

  touch your.yaml

• Insert the USB drive to a USB port, and find out the device name. (GNOME Disks is a good tool for this. Kernel messages will also tell you.) Below, we call it /dev/sdx.

• Write the installer to the USB drive and configure it.

  sudo bash write-and-config.sh your.yaml /dev/sdx v-i.img

• Create a “specification” file to describe the installation you want to do. Below we call it x220.yaml. You can pick any host name. The drive must be the drive from which the PC boots. You may want to check what it is called when the installer runs: it may change when the installer USB drive is plugged in.

  drive: /dev/sda
  hostname: x220
  extra_playbooks:
    - puomi-playbook.yml
  ansible_vars:
    user_pub: |
      YOUR SSH PUBLIC KEY GOES HERE

  The user_pub variable will be put into the root user’s authorized_keys file. This will allow you to maintain the installed Puomi router from another machine using Ansible.

• Copy the spec file and the Puomi initial playbook to the installer drive, to root user home directory.

  sudo mount /dev/sdx2 /mnt
  sudo cp x220.yaml puomi-playbook.yml /mnt/root/
  sudo umount /mnt

• Make sure everything is written to the drive, then remove it.

  udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdx

• You may want to label the physical drive so you remember which one is the installer.

Install on your router PC.

• Connect the router PC’s main Ethernet port to your home Internet connection. This can be directly to the external network, or to your existing router.

  • the main port is the one known to Linux as eth0
  • you may have to boot into the installer and experiment to find out which one it is

• Insert the installer USB to the router PC and boot off it. This may involve telling your BIOS which drive to boot from. Every BIOS is different about this.

• Log in via the virtual console as root (no password required) and run the installer. Note that logging in as root without a password only works on the virtual console, not via SSH.

  v-i --verbose x220.yaml

  This may take several minutes.

• Reboot the router PC. Depending on your BIOS, you may need to remove the installer USB drive, but wait until the installer kernel has unmounted it. To be entirely sure, power off, then remove the drive, then power on again.

The router PC should now boot into a Debian system that has been configured as an Internet router. If you connect your laptop to the router (any Ethernet port except eth0), it should be able to access the Internet normally. The router provides hosts on the LAN addresses via DHCP.

The router implements NAT, which means that your laptop won’t be accessible directly from the public side of the router PC: any connections must be initiated by the laptop. There is, however, no firewall, unless you set it up yourself.

Configure the router as you wish

You have root. You can configure the router as you wish. The puomi Ansible role in the Puomi source tree may be useful, if Ansible is your kind of thing. You can also use any other configuration management tooling you prefer.