Preparing a Raspberry Pi

A Raspberry Pi is a small, inexpensive computer that serves as a USB interface at the multifunction printer. It lets users plug a USB stick in at the printer itself and print files from it or save scans to it — all controlled from the printer’s display. These instructions describe how to prepare the Raspberry Pi for use with Docuflair.

Docuflair supports Raspberry Pi mini computers as an interface for connecting USB sticks and SD cards where a direct connection to the Docuflair server is not possible or not wanted. With this function you provide the user with a USB port at the printer itself, which any storage medium can be connected to in order to print from it or scan to it — straight from the multifunction printer’s display. Through the device registration you then assign one Raspberry Pi permanently to each multifunction printer. Docuflair does in theory support the multifunction printers’ built-in interfaces as well, but experience so far shows that various file systems are either not supported or supported only inadequately, or that some hardware is not recognised.

Docuflair can use almost any computer, with any operating system, as this interface. Using a Raspberry Pi does offer the following advantages, however:

• Inexpensive hardware
• A straightforward installation
• Mount points that can be defined

Note that connecting to external mini computers requires the corresponding Docuflair licence to be acquired. Where you assign a Raspberry Pi to a printer, the corresponding tiles are shown on the printer’s display and under Storage locations: printing and Storage locations: scanning.

Downloading and installing Raspbian

Using Raspbian is not strictly necessary. Alternatively you can use any other Linux/Unix with support for SCP. Raspbian is used in these instructions because the manufacturer provides various tools for setting the SD card up with the operating system easily.

To install it, open a web browser and go to the following page:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

Depending on the operating system in use, various software packages are offered for download.

Download the package that suits, start it and install it. Then run the Raspberry Pi Imager and make the following settings:

• Operating System: choose Raspbian lite (lite is sufficient, since no graphical interface is needed on this Raspberry Pi)
• SD-Card: choose the SD card to be written to
• Write: having checked the settings carefully, start writing to the card

Once the installation has finished, a message appears on screen telling you that you can now remove the card from the system.

Configuring Raspbian

A few further configuration steps are needed for use with Docuflair. To configure Raspbian, put the SD card back into the computer or card reader. At least one partition (boot) then becomes visible in Windows Explorer.

Open the drive named boot. Where the Raspberry Pi is to be given a static IP address, edit the file cmdline.txt.

To add a static IP address, open the file cmdline.txt in Notepad and append the parameter ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to the end of the first line, where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx stands for the static IP address you want. Save the changes and close Notepad.

To switch ssh (remote access) and scp (secure copy) on, create the following file in the root of the boot partition (with no file extension):

• ssh

Now remove the card (by ejecting the medium) and put it into the Raspberry Pi. Connect that to the network cable and the power supply; it boots automatically. The first start can take a few minutes (creating the certificate and so on) — please do not interrupt it.

Remote access to the Raspberry Pi

Once the start has finished after a few minutes, establish a connection to the Raspberry Pi with Putty: start Putty and enter the Raspberry Pi’s IP address as the host name. Where the IP address is not known, because no static IP address was set for example, network scanners such as Fing for Android or iOS help in finding the Raspberry Pi.

The first time a connection to the Raspberry is established, a security warning appears telling you that the host key is unknown and has not been stored yet. You can ignore that security warning (click Yes).

The Raspberry Pi now asks for a user name and password:

• User name: pi
• Password: raspberry

To install the services Docuflair needs, now enter and run the following commands one after another:

• sudo apt-get update
  Downloads the list of current software packages
• sudo apt-get upgrade
  Brings the software currently installed up to date
• sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
  Installs support for exFAT, for large USB media and memory cards (optional)
• sudo apt-get install usbmount
  A full description of usbmount can be found here.
• sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/systemd-udevd.service
  Replace the line PrivateMounts=yes with PrivateMounts=no
• sudo nano /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf
  Replace the line FS_MOUNTOPTIONS=“” with
  FS_MOUNTOPTIONS=“-fstype=vfat,iocharset=utf8”
• sudo reboot
  Restarts the system

After the restart, connect again with Putty and enter the following commands:

• sudo raspi-config
  The Raspberry configuration — carry it out according to your own requirements
• sudo reboot
  Restarts the system

The Raspberry is now ready for use. For security reasons, changing the default password as well is recommended:

• passwd
  Enter a new password and confirm it once more after pressing Enter.