Introduction

piccolo is a linux operating system based on raspios-lite and aims at running personal cloud services on a raspberry-pi device.

Compared to raspios-lite/pi-gen, piccolo:

Deactivates audio, bluetooth and wifi capabilities to reduce CPU and memory footprints
Activates ssh
Creates an admin profile based on the values of a configuration file that must be customized before the system is booted the first time in order to improve security
Installs the software packages cloud-init, docker.io, cockpit-dashboard
Implements a daily (at 03:00 local time) system upgrade and system reboot to keep the system in perfect security conditions
Loads and run the docker images:
- nginxproxy/nginx-proxy: reverse web proxy
- nginxproxy/acme-companion: automated web certificate management
- postgres: sql-type database
- nextcloud: nextcloud service
- weejewel/wg-easy: wireguard vpn with web management

Build the disk image

The build-up of piccolo is based on the pi-gen project.

Open a terminal session
cd path_to_the_piccolo_repository
Start a debian virtual session vagrant up
Log into the virtual session vagrant ssh
Access the build directory cd /vagrant/pi-gen
Start the building process sudo ./build-docker.sh
When the building process is completed, you should see the following message "Done! Your image(s) should be in deploy/"
Log off your virtual session exit
Delete the virtual session vagrant destroy

Insert the SD card again into your PC
Open the "boot" drive
Modify the myconfig file by changing the values of the following fields
- SERVER: name of the server
- DOMAIN: domain where the server can be reached from the internet
- ADMIN_USER: profile of the administration user
- ADMIN_PASSWORD: password of the administration user
Save the myconfig file
Eject your SD card and remove it from your PC when told so

Insert your SD card into your raspberry-pi device
If possible, connect your raspberry-pi server to a display (using a HDMI cable) to monitor the boot sequence
Switch your raspberry-pi device on
Wait at least 5 minutes for the first boot sequence to complete, for the system will apply system upgrades (if any) and load the last versions of several required applications

Use a device (PC, tablet, smartphone) that is connected to the same network as the raspberry pi server
Open your web navigator and point it to https://value_of_field_SERVER_in_file_myconfig.local:9090
A certificate security warning will be displayed because the certificate is auto-signed. Accept the risk and proceed
Sign in with the administrator user credentials and check the option "Reuse my password for privileged tasks"

Open your navigator abd point it to http://value_of_field_SERVER_in_file_myconfig.local:51821