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How to build Occupy.here

Technology overview

Occupy.here will run on any wifi router supported by OpenWrt, but the custom firmware and this documentation are currently limited to the TP-Link TL-WR703N or TL-WR3020. These routers are small, portable, and can run off a 5V USB connection. Note that the default firmware for the TL-703N is in Chinese only, and may prove slightly harder to purchase, but it is the smallest and best router for Occupy.here. Even if you aren’t proficient reading Chinese, installing the firmware should be straightforward. The English-language TP-Link TL-WR3020 is almost exactly the same, except slightly larger.

The Occupy.here website software is written in PHP and stores its content in a SQLite database. Other supporting services include Lighttpd and Dnsmasq, which are configured to simulate a captive portal (i.e., all requests redirect back to http://occupy.here/). There is ongoing research into future support for PGP encrypted messages and email-based syncing between individual routers, but this has not yet been implemented.

Before you begin

This guide is for installing Occupy.here on a new router, running the factory firmware. If that's not what you're looking for, check out these other guides instead:

Hardware requirements

Preparing the USB stick

Your USB stick should be formatted as FAT 32, with a single partition. This is the default on most USB sticks, so you shouldn't have to do anything special.

  1. Download the latest occupy.here release and unzip the contents. You should see a folder called 'occupy.here'.
  2. Plug in your USB stick and copy the 'occupy.here' folder onto it. Keep the original folder on your computer, you'll need it again in a minute. Note that your folder may be called 'occupy.here-r3'. You'll just need to rename it to plain 'occupy.here'.
  3. Eject the USB stick and plug it into your wifi router.

Preparing the wifi router

  1. Turn off your computer's wifi and connect it via Ethernet cable to the wifi router.
  2. Power up the wifi router by connecting the micro USB connector (next to the Ethernet) to a power source. When the blue light stops flashing, and stays solidly lit, you should be ready to continue.
  3. Load http://192.168.1.1/ in a browser to access the default web admin interface, username admin password admin. (On the TL-MR3020 router, the URL is http://192.168.0.254/)
  4. You should see a web interface in Mandarin Chinese. Don’t panic, this will be easy! Click the last option in the left-hand menu, then the third sub-option below that. (On the TL-MR3020 router, go to System Tools > Firmware Upgrade.)
  5. You should see a thin rectangular box with a button next to it. That is the file selection box. Click on it to browse for the firmware to flash onto the router.
  6. Browse to the occupy.here folder on your computer, then look inside the firmware folder. Choose the file tl-wr703n-factory.bin. (On the TL-MR3020 router, use tl-mr3020-factory.bin.)
  7. Click the lavendar button below and to the left of the file selection box. Confirm by clicking 'OK' and wait for the firmware to flash onto the router.
  8. The router will automatically reboot and the default admin interface will attempt to reload (and fail), leaving you on a browser error page.

Bootstrapping Occupy.here

At this point you should have an OpenWrt router, expanded with additional storage from the USB stick. When the router first powers on, it will start blinking its blue light as it starts up. Once the light goes solid, you should be ready to continue.

  1. Connect your computer to the router via Ethernet cable and configure your computer so that it uses the IP address 192.168.1.2. In OS X, go to System Preferences > Network > Ethernet (or Thunderbolt Ethernet). Choose Manually from the drop-down, then enter IP address 192.168.1.2, Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0, Router 192.168.1.1.
  2. Open a command line terminal. On OS X, open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app.
  3. Type telnet 192.168.1.1 and press enter. You should see the "OCCUPY.HERE" ASCII banner. If your router just rebooted, you may need to wait a moment before it's ready for you to connect.
  4. Type df -h. You should see a list of mounted filesystems. If you don't see /usb on the list but you do see /tmp/root/usb, you can mount it by typing: mount /dev/sda1 /usb.
  5. Type cd /usb/occupy.here/bootstrap.
  6. Type ./install.sh to start the bootstrap process.
  7. You will be prompted to set the root password on your router, and then confirm it by typing it again. After you've set the password, the router will reject telnet connections and start allowing connections via ssh. The rest of the bootstrapping process will take a few minutes install packages and configure the software.
  8. Once the script finishes, you should have a new wifi network available called 'OCCUPY.HERE / XXXXXXXXXXXX' (the last part is set according to your router's MAC address).

Using Occupy.here

After the router is bootstrapped, you won't be able to reconnect via telnet, but you can use SSH instead.

  1. Join the wifi network 'OCCUPY.HERE / XXXXXXXXXXXX'.
  2. Open a browser and go to the URL: http://occupy.here/
  3. To connect via SSH, use 'ssh [email protected]'. Use the password you entered at the beginning of the bootstrap process. If you'd like to login to SSH using public key encryption, copy your public key to /etc/config/dropbear/authorized_keys.

Note that while you're connected to OCCUPY.HERE, you won't be able to use the regular internet. Also, if you see a warning message the first time you try to SSH into the router, that's just because you've connected to a different machine with the same '192.168.1.1' IP address. Edit your '.ssh/known_hosts' file and remove the entry for 192.168.1.1.

One last thing: if you set a manual IP address for your Ethernet connection, you may want to change it back to DHCP so that future connections don't get messed up.

That's it, have fun! Please report any problems you encounter to [email protected].