Skip to content

DietPi OS

Prepare SD Card

  1. Go to official Orange Pi Web Site.
  2. Go to section Service & Download and select Download.
  3. Search for the specific Orange Pi model (i.e Orange Pi 5).
  4. Download the Ubuntu Image (i.e Orangepi5_1.1.8_ubuntu_jammy_server_linux5.10.160.7z). This tutorial is mean for that specific Linux distribution.
  5. Flash the image into a SD Card using balenaEtcher.

Initialize

Put the SD Card into the board and turn on the device.

NOTE: Go to your Router Gateway in order to check the IP Address of the device (i.e 192.168.3.49). This is useful since headless installations an external monitor is not needed.

# [Optional] Remove previous known host for previous connections
rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# SSH into the machine (orangepi/orangepi)
ssh orangepi@192.168.3.49

# Update the dependencies
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install compression utils
sudo apt install p7zip-full gettext-base -y

# Install yq
wget https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/download/v4.40.5/yq_linux_arm64.tar.gz -O - | tar xz && mv yq_linux_arm64 /usr/bin/yq

# [Optional] Use the orange pi utility do some basic configuration: update firmware, system configuration, software, etc..
sudo orangepi-config

SPI Flash

In order to boot up from the SDD drive is necessary to flash the SPI with the proper loader.

# You can use orangepi-config and select the desired mode, however you can do manually using the process bellow
sudo nand-sata-install

NVME SPI Flash

By default Orange PI can detect NVME drives, so once the device is plugin into the board it should be detected.

# List Block devices (you should see a device called 'nvme0n1')
sudo lsblk

# [Optional] Erase the content of the SPI Flash
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mtdblock0 bs=1M count=1 && sudo sync

# Use following command to Flash SPI with the loader so it boot from the NVME SSD (sudo find / -name rkspi_loader.img)
sudo dd if=/usr/lib/linux-u-boot-legacy-orangepi5_1.1.8_arm64/rkspi_loader.img of=/dev/mtdblock0 conv=notrunc && sudo sync

# Reboot the system, however it's not necessary
sudo reboot

SATA SPI Flash

By default Orange PI DO NOT detect SATA drives, so once the device is plugin into the board it's not recognized.

# List Block devices (you should not see a device called 'sda')
sudo lsblk

# [Optional] Erase the content of the SPI Flash
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mtdblock0 bs=1M count=1 && sudo sync

# Use following command to Flash SPI with the loader so it boot from the SATA SSD (sudo find / -name rkspi_loader_sata.img)
dd if=/usr/share/orangepi5/rkspi_loader_sata.img of=/dev/mtdblock0 && sudo sync

# Enable SATA devices:
# 1. Activate the SATA overlay in 'orangepiEnv.txt' (sudo find / -name orangepiEnv.txt):
# 2. List all the files at /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay (sudo ls /boot/dtb/rockchip/overlay | grep sata)
echo "overlays=ssd-sata0 ssd-sata2" | sudo tee -a /boot/orangepiEnv.txt

# Reboot the system
sudo reboot

SSD Installation

Download the image that is going to be installed into the SSD drive and copy it into the SD.

  1. Go to official Diet Pi Web Site.
  2. Go to section Download.
  3. Search for the specific Orange Pi model (i.e Orange Pi 5).
  4. Download the image (i.e DietPi_OrangePi5-ARMv8-Bookworm.img.xz).

Copy the image into the Orange Pi using SSH or SFTP.

# From remote computer copy the image to the SD via SCP.
scp "/Users/jsantosa/Downloads/tools/orangepi/DietPi_OrangePi5-ARMv8-Bookworm.img.xz" orangepi@192.168.3.49:~/

# From the orange pi Unzip the content if necessary
7za x DietPi_OrangePi5-ARMv8-Bookworm.img.xz

Generate SSH keys

# [Optional] If ssh folder does not exist
mkdir -p ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh

# Do not fill anything in next command just enter
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "jsa4000@gmail.com" -f ~/.ssh/server_key

# [Optional] Copy keys to each node or use AUTO_SETUP_SSH_PUBKEY in 'dietpi.txt' config instead
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/server_key.pub root@192.168.3.100

# Replace the content of AUTO_SETUP_SSH_PUBKEY for this key and set SOFTWARE_DISABLE_SSH_PASSWORD_LOGINS to 0
cat ~/.ssh/server_key.pub

NVME SSD Installation

# Delete SSD content by setting zeros to the first data blocks
sudo dd bs=1M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1 count=2000 status=progress && sudo sync

# Clone the SD into SSD (very slow)
#sudo cat /dev/mmcblk0 > /dev/nvme0n1

# Copy the image content to the SSD
sudo dd bs=1M if=~/DietPi_OrangePi5-ARMv8-Bookworm.img of=/dev/nvme0n1 status=progress && sudo sync

# Check the data blocks. Notice the new partitions are not extended yet.
sudo lsblk

# Fix the SD and SSD since it uses the same identifier
sudo fix_mmc_ssd.sh # or sudo tune2fs -U random /dev/mmcblk1p2

# Copy the auto configuration
scp -rp "./docs/dietpi" orangepi@192.168.3.49:~/

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/
cat ~/dietpi/templates/dietpi.txt | sudo tee -a /mnt/dietpi.txt
sudo umount /mnt/ && sudo sync

# Power off and remove the SD card
sudo poweroff

SATA SSD Installation

Check DietPi documentation to check the process to add SATA overlays to the OS (dietpiEnv.txt)

Test

# [Optional] Remove previous known host for previous connections
rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# SSH into the machine (root/dietpi)
ssh root@192.168.3.100

# SSH into the machine (private key)
ssh -i ~/.ssh/server_key root@192.168.3.100
ssh -i ~/.ssh/server_key dietpi@192.168.3.100

Using the SSH config file so it's not necessary to enter the private key anymore.

~/.ssh/config

Host sbc-server-1
    HostName 192.168.3.100
    User     dietpi
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/server_key

Host sbc-server-2
    HostName 192.168.3.101
    User     dietpi
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/server_key

Host sbc-server-3
    HostName 192.168.3.102
    User     dietpi
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/server_key

# [Optional] Remove previous known host for previous connections
rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# SSH using the user@host specified in the SSH config
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-1
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-2
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-3

# Power off
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-1 'sudo poweroff'
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-2 'sudo poweroff'
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-3 'sudo poweroff'

# Reboot
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-1 'sudo reboot'
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-2 'sudo reboot'
ssh dietpi@sbc-server-3 'sudo reboot'

First Boot

DietPi offers the option for an automatic first boot installation. See section How to do an automatic base installation at first boot for details.

Following are the most important changes to take a loot in dietpi.txt.

AUTO_SETUP_LOCALE=es_ES.UTF-8
AUTO_SETUP_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT=es
AUTO_SETUP_TIMEZONE=Europe/Madrid
AUTO_SETUP_NET_WIFI_COUNTRY_CODE=ES

AUTO_SETUP_NET_USESTATIC=1
AUTO_SETUP_NET_STATIC_IP=192.168.3.101
AUTO_SETUP_NET_STATIC_MASK=255.255.255.0
AUTO_SETUP_NET_STATIC_GATEWAY=192.168.3.1
AUTO_SETUP_NET_STATIC_DNS=192.168.3.1

AUTO_SETUP_NET_HOSTNAME=Server01

AUTO_SETUP_HEADLESS=1
AUTO_SETUP_SSH_SERVER_INDEX=-2
#AUTO_SETUP_SSH_PUBKEY=ssh-ed25519 AAAAAAAA111111111111BBBBBBBBBBBB222222222222cccccccccccc333333333333 mySSHkey

AUTO_SETUP_RAMLOG_MAXSIZE=200
AUTO_SETUP_WEB_SERVER_INDEX=0
AUTO_SETUP_DESKTOP_INDEX=0
AUTO_SETUP_BROWSER_INDEX=0

AUTO_SETUP_AUTOSTART_TARGET_INDEX=7
AUTO_SETUP_AUTOSTART_LOGIN_USER=root
AUTO_SETUP_GLOBAL_PASSWORD=dietpi
AUTO_SETUP_AUTOMATED=1
SURVEY_OPTED_IN=0

# OpenSSH Client
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=0
# OpenSSH Server
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=105
# Python 3 pip
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=130

Diet Software

You can install as many software as you want during the setup. Since DietPi pretend to be minimalistic, it does not provide a large catalogue of software by default. You can take a look to the software list.

# OpenSSH Client
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=0
# OpenSSH Server
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=105
# Git
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=17
# Python 3 pip
AUTO_SETUP_INSTALL_SOFTWARE_ID=130

Check packages currently installed in debian or ubuntu (apt)

# Check packages installed
dpkg -l

Random MAC Address

Orange Pi 5 - MAC address changes on reboot rk_vendor_read eth mac address failed

# Run following command
sudo journalctl | grep rk_gmac-dwmac

01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: Enable RX Mitigation via HW Watchdog Timer
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: rk_get_eth_addr: rk_vendor_read eth mac address failed (-1)
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: rk_get_eth_addr: generate random eth mac address: b2:23:c3:61:ba:23
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: rk_get_eth_addr: rk_vendor_write eth mac address failed (-1)
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: rk_get_eth_addr: id: 1 rk_vendor_read eth mac address failed (-1)
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: rk_get_eth_addr: mac address: b2:23:c3:61:ba:23
May 01 16:26:49 DietPi kernel: rk_gmac-dwmac fe1c0000.ethernet: device MAC address b2:23:c3:61:ba:23

Creating /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0 with content

# Create file with the fixed MAC Address
sudo tee -a /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0 > /dev/null <<EOT
iface eth0 inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 8a:33:ce:b3:b0:b9
EOT

# Restart Networking
systemctl restart networking

# check the MAC Address has been assigned
ip address | grep 8a:33:ce:b3:b0:b9

Using dietpi-config is necessary to add it into the existing interface (eth0) already created at /etc/network/interfaces

# Add new line with the MAC Address after 'iface eth0 inet static'
IFACE_FILE=/etc/network/interfaces
MAC_ADDRESS=8a:33:ce:b3:b0:b9
HWADDRESS="hwaddress ether $MAC_ADDRESS"
IFACE_STR="iface eth0 inet static"
sed -i "s|$IFACE_STR|$IFACE_STR\n$HWADDRESS|g" $IFACE_FILE # For macos use 'sed -i "" "s|xx|yy|g file

# Restart Networking
systemctl restart networking