Main goal is to create a guide with detailed instructions to turn any SBC that runs Armbian or Raspbian into a wireless router with full security, that will allow you to use your home lan to route traffic to the internet.

Main focus is on Armbian, but instructions for Raspbian are included when needed.

A notice: all the Raspberry Pis that use Raspbian need to do some extra steps, I will point that extra steps along the way; of curse if you has a Raspberry Pi with no WiFi you can always add a USB WiFi dongle.

You will need the following to complete this guide:

• Single Board Computer that supports Linux, Armbian or Raspbian.
  • Tested on Orange Pi Prime & Raspberry B+ plus USB WiFi dongle.
• uSD card, at least 8 GB and class 10 recommended.
• USB keyboard.
• HDMI cable and a monitor to connect to.
• Power adapter for the Orange Pi Prime SBC.
  • Adapter of 5.0 V @ 2A or more for the Orange Pi Prime.
  • USB cable and charger of 1A or more for the Raspberry Pi.
• A ethernet cable and a free port on your home router with internet access to connect it to.

I will assume that your local network has a DHCP server, this DHCP server will serve wifi users as well as we will bridge the LAN and WIFI networks (LAN & WiFi will function as a single network)

Get armbian for your SBC from the official site pick the non desktop one as we will require not UI.

If you use a Raspberry go to the official site and download the Raspbian lite version, aka non desktop one.

Once you have the images un-compress the file and flash it to a uSD card, you can find a lot of guides about how to do it over the internet.

Insert the uSD card into the SBC, connect the ethernet cable from your local lan, the monitor and the usb Keyboard; at the end connect the power cable.

You will see the system boot and will be presented with a login prompt, use armbian default credentials

user: root
password: 1234

Once there you will be asked change the default root password, this is a sample output of the process:

[  OK  ] Reached target Multi-User System.
[  OK  ] Reached target Graphical Interface.
         Starting Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes...
[  OK  ] Started Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes.

Debian GNU/Linux 9 orangepiprime ttyS0

orangepiprime login: root
Password: 
You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
Changing password for root.
(current) UNIX password: 
Enter new UNIX password: 
Retype new UNIX password: 
  ___                               ____  _   ____       _                
 / _ \ _ __ __ _ _ __   __ _  ___  |  _ \(_) |  _ \ _ __(_)_ __ ___   ___ 
| | | | '__/ _` | '_ \ / _` |/ _ \ | |_) | | | |_) | '__| | '_ ` _ \ / _ \
| |_| | | | (_| | | | | (_| |  __/ |  __/| | |  __/| |  | | | | | | |  __/
 \___/|_|  \__,_|_| |_|\__, |\___| |_|   |_| |_|   |_|  |_|_| |_| |_|\___|
                       |___/                                              

Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.65 stable Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 4.14.78-sunxi64
System load:   0.29 0.16 0.06   Up time:       1 min
Memory usage:  3 % of 2002MB    IP:            192.168.100.23
CPU temp:      22°C
Usage of /:    8% of 15G

[ General system configuration (beta): armbian-config ]

New to Armbian? Check the documentation first: https://docs.armbian.com


Thank you for choosing Armbian! Support: www.armbian.com

Creating a new user account. Press <Ctrl-C> to abort

Please provide a username (eg. your forename): 

This is a prompt to create a new user, do it so if you like but please notice that you can abort it by hitting Ctrl+C and simply use root account, this is may recommended option.

Either option (Ctrl+C to exit or create the user) you will be kicked out and login prompt will be presented again for you.

Note: Please observe that network manager has already configured your eth0 interface, see the sample output above.

You are ready to go, skip to step 3.

Log into the system, the default user credentials are this:

user: pi
passwd: raspbian

Once there change the password of user pi, just type in the console:

sudo passwd pi
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

Warning: From this point forward users of Raspbian must make a sudo bash to switch to root and run all following commands as root.

We will start tinkering with the network now, in the process we may lose connectivity so we will get all needed files prior to that, do this on the console:

cd /root
git clone http://github.com/stdevPavelmc/armbian-hostpot-bridge.git

At the end you will have a folder named armbian-hostpot-bridge in your /root folder with all the data you will need, including this instructions.

For the Raspberry Pi you need to install some extra packages, run on the console

apt update
apt install hostapd bridge-utils -y

This is a armbian only step, if you are using Raspbian, skip to step 5

By default all interfaces in armbian are handled by NetworkManager, but for the simple bridge we don't need it, so we will disable it & remove it from the system. Just type this commands on the console as root:

systemctl stop network-manager
systemctl disable network-manager
systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online
apt purge network-manager -y

With this commands we are disabling & removing the services, at this point our network connection may not work.

Just copy the template file we have already downloaded with this command:

cd /root/armbian-hostpot-bridge
cp -f interfaces /etc/network/interfaces

If you use the default WiFi on the Orange Pi Prime (Or other with onboard WiFi) you are set and there is no need to edit the file, but if you use a USB dongle like in the case of the old Raspberry Pis you have to tweak it, type this on your console to see what is the name of the new USB WiFi dongle:

ifconfig -a

You will get something like this:

eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 02:01:55:da:4c:95  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 1536  bytes 146188 (142.7 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 283  bytes 29946 (29.2 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 25  

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::e8c:24ff:fe2c:50be  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 0c:8c:24:2c:50:be  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 442  bytes 57130 (55.7 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan1: flags=56163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet6 12af::a105:eff:feaa:5011e  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 80:e1:00:16:e1:92  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 642  bytes 157130 (155.7 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

There you can spot a wlan0 and wlan1 devices (this is for a Orange Pi Prime + USB WiFi Dongle), the wlan0 is the onboard and the wlan1 is the USB dongle

Now use nano to setup your wifi device to wlan1, in the console use:

nano /etc/network/interfaces

An editor will open with the file content, now sweep trough it and change any wlan0 to wlan1, then save it (F2) (tip, there are 4 places to change, one of them is a comment)

Now if all gone ok you can call the bridge up and test the connection:

ifup br0

If all worked you enabled the ethernet connectivity again, try to ping a host in your net or the internet to test it.

Just copy the template file we have already downloaded with this command:

cd /root/armbian-hostpot-bridge
cp -f hostapd /etc/default/
cp -f hostapd.conf /etc/hostapd/

Now is time to edit the WiFi hotspot details, in a console run this to bring up a editor:

nano /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

In there you need to change just three lines, the ones to refers to:

• Wireless device interface=wlan0
• Wireless SSID ssid=OPP-hotspot
• Wireless Password wpa_passphrase=123password

The interface option refers to the device you identified, if it's a SBC with onboard WiFi like the Orange Pi Prime you are set, in other cases you need to check it against the detected wlan interfaces (see step 5)

The SSID is the name of the wireless network, in this case "OOP-hotspot" and "123passwd" is the password as you may guessed at this time, change at your will.

Warning: You need to get sure that there is no spaces around the equal sign or it will no work.

If you care of RF spectrum usage and good links, you can move the WiFi channel by changing the [channel=6] option to a clear one.

Some curious ones may spot also the option of the WiFi network type hw_mode=g if your device support other modes you can play with that, for example the 5GHz WiFi (802.11a) you can switch the hw_mode to it hw_mode=a to change to 5GHz, or force mode 802.11b for old devices hw_mode=b.

Some types of network may need tweaks on other options to make it work, take a peek on hostapd tutorials online to know what you need.

Power cycle the SBC and enjoy your new bridged hotpot.

Use the Issues tab of this repo to rise bug reports or ask questions.