Connect Edge Host to Wifi

This how-to walks you through how to connect an Edge host to a Wi-Fi network with wpa_supplicant, using an Intel mini-PC as an example. You can apply the steps in this how-to with other hardware, but steps for configuring the network interface might be different.

To connect an Edge host to Wi-Fi using wpa_supplicant, you need to build wpa_supplicant into the Operating System (OS) image used for the Edge host and provide the Wi-Fi credentials to the Edge host. Depending on how Edge devices are managed at an organization, these two steps are often done by different teams. If they are being done by the same team or person, you can merge the user-data in the step Supply Site-Specific User Data with the original user data you use to build Edge artifacts and skip that step.

Build OS Image with wpa_supplicant Included

Prerequisites

• A physical or virtual Linux machine with AMD64 (also known as x86_64) processor architecture to build the Edge artifacts. You can issue the following command in the terminal to check your processor architecture.

  uname -m

• Minimum hardware configuration of the Linux machine:

  • 4 CPU
  • 8 GB memory
  • 50 GB storage

• A bootable device such as a USB drive, or a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) server.

• A Spectro Cloud account. If you have not signed up, you can sign up for an account here.

• A Palette registration token for pairing Edge hosts with Palette. You will need tenant admin access to Palette to generate a new registration token. For detailed instructions, refer to the Create Registration Token guide.

Procedure

1. Clone the CanvOS repository.

   git clone https://github.com/spectrocloud/CanvOS.git

2. Edit the file Dockerfile in the root directory of the repository. At the bottom of the file, add the following lines.

   RUN apt-get update && apt-get install wpasupplicant && \
       mkdir /var/lib/wpa
   tip

   Consider including some other lightweight network utilities in the OS image that can help you troubleshoot or set up network configurations alternatively if needed. For example, if you are using Ubuntu, consider replacing the RUN statement with the following to also include network manager and ping.

   RUN apt-get update && apt-get install wpasupplicant -y && \
    apt-get update && apt-get install network-manager -y && \
    apt-get install iputils-ping -y && \
    mkdir /var/lib/wpa

3. Follow the rest of the steps in the guide Build Edge Artifact. When finished, identify the palette-edge-installer.iso file in the build folder.

4. Plug in your bootable device and flash it with the ISO image.

5. Plug the bootable device into the Edge host and power on the Edge host. When the Edge host powers on, open the boot menu by pressing F10, and select the bootable device as your boot volume.

6. Wait for installation to finish. The Edge host will reboot by default upon completion unless you specify a different option in the Edge Installer configuration user data.

Validate

You can validate that the Edge host is ready for the on-site deployment by powering on the Edge host and simulating an on-site deployment. The simulation process will require you to complete the installation process and reset the device after the validation.

Supply Site-Specific User Data

It is likely that your Wi-Fi network name and passwords are site-specific, which means you won't be able to include the network credentials in the installer. You can use site-specific user data to provide this information to you Edge hosts instead.

Prerequisites

• A bootable device such as a USB drive, or a Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) server.
• mkisofs, or genisoimage, or similar ISO management software.
  • cdrtools or wodim for Windows.
• An Edge host that has already been prepared for installation.

Procedure

1. Create a file named user-data, and include the following content. Replace network-name and network-password with the name and password of your Wifi network.

    #cloud-config
    install:
        bind_mounts:
            - /var/lib/wpa
   
    stages:
        network.before:
        - name: "Connect to Wi-Fi"
        commands:
            - |
            # Find the first wireless network interface
            wireless_interface=""
            for interface in $(ip link | grep -oP '^\d+: \K[^:]+(?=:)')
            do
                if [ -d "/sys/class/net/$interface/wireless" ]; then
                    wireless_interface=$interface
                    break
                fi
            done
   
            # Check if a wireless interface was found and connect it to WiFi
            if [ -n "$wireless_interface" ]; then
                wpa_passphrase network-name network-password | tee /var/lib/wpa/wpa_supplicant.conf
                wpa_supplicant -B -c /var/lib/wpa/wpa_supplicant.conf -i $wireless_interface
                dhclient $wireless_interface
            else
                echo "No wireless network interface found."
            fi

2. Follow the rest of the steps in the Apply Site User Data section.

Validate

1. Power up the Edge host and wait for it to boot to the registration screen. Do not connect the Edge host with a wired connection.
2. In the Default Address field, confirm that the Edge host has an IP address. This means the Edge host is connected to a network. Since you did not connect the Edge host with a wired connection, this means that the Edge host has successfully connected to your wireless network and received an IP address.