Raspberry Pi IIAB Images - georgejhunt/iiab GitHub Wiki

Raspberry Pi Images

Author: George Hunt; Last Updated: Mar 29, 2020

  • The Raspberry Pi Foundation has recently announced their rpi-imager which runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. This tool makes getting started with IIAB quick and easy.

  • Once a downloaded image is written to an SD card, and running on a RPi, there are tools for updating to the most recent version, and using IIAB's browser based Administrative Console to download content.

Steps to Install an Image on a RPi

  1. Download and install rpi-imager on your working laptop or desktop (needs about 50GB of free space). See detailed installation instructions for each Operating System

  2. Image Choices -- For more information -- Which Image is for Me?.

OS Version Bits IIAB Preset Size WiFi Clients GUI Features
Raspbian Lite 32 Min 4.5GB 18 NO Uses less RAM and SD card
Raspbian Full 32 Med 11.3GB 24 Optional 18 clients(RPi4), or 24(RPi3+), GUI uses 150MB less RAM when off
Ubuntu LXDE 64 Min 7.3GB 32 Optional 32 clients,10% Faster, LXDE uses 1.8GB of SD Card

  1. Start the rpi-imager with this command in a terminal window: "imager". We have installed the "imager" script which in turn calls rpi-imager with an additional command line parameter that puts the IIAB images into the top level of the "CHOOSE OS" selection list. It is very easy to use:

    1. for most situations, just "CHOSE OS" and "CHOSE SD CARD", and "WRITE".
    2. If you do not see the IIAB image that you would like to load, there is an option at the bottom of the top menu which lets you use the file chooser provided by your Operating System. But it has more steps:
      1. You must download the image zip file (There are custom images listed at the bottom of this page, and in other IIAB documentation. And there is a search function at archive.org).
      2. Unzip the file you have downloaded. See unzip suggestions in the first paragraph of the [Raspbian download] (https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/) page.
      3. Click on Choose OS, then scroll down to Use Custom, and navigate to the unzipped image file (.img).

  2. Put the SD card in your RPi, and apply power.

  3. Look for the WiFi SSID "Internet in a Box", and associate to it.

  4. If it does not automatically open a browser, open your browser and browse to "box.lan".

  5. On a Mac or Linux, you can ssh into the rpi with "ssh [email protected]" (using username/password iiab-admin/g0adm1n). On a Windows machine, download and use "putty" to do the same.

  6. Use sudo su to become root.

  7. Then change the iiab-admin password with the command passwd iiab-admin, the create a root password with passwd.

  8. Use the terminal command sudo iiab-gui on or sudo iiab-gui off to change the at-boot default behavior of the GUI.

  9. If you set the boot GUI default to "off", you can toggle the GUI on with startx, and off by logging out from the menu. The reason you might want to let the default be "GUI off" is that there would be about 150MB more RAM available to service client requests when the RPi is acting as a server.

Archived IIAB Images

Author: Tim Moody; Last Updated: Mar 16, 2019

The generic images are simply prebuilt versions of what you could build yourself with curl scripts at download.iiab.io. Instead of downloading a raspbian image, writing it to an sdcard, and running the curl script, you just download one of these images, write it to the sdcard, and boot IIAB.

These images are all 'Content Ready', that is they have a given set of services installed but no ZIMS, or OER2Go modules, or any other content and are based on

  • IIAB 6.7 with current fixes
  • Raspbian Lite 2018-11-13

The three images, min, medium, and big are described in the FAQ: What services (IIAB apps) are suggested during installation?

Each of the links below gives a description and both torrent and download links for the particular image.

Internet in a Box 6.7 Minimum Content Ready

Internet in a Box 6.7 Medium Content Ready

Internet in a Box 6.7 Big Content Ready

Specific Curations

You can find a growing number of prebuilt IIAB images on the Internet Archive. IIAB is deployed in a number of different countries and languages and also for a variety of audiences. Below is a selection of curations for specific environments.

Medical Internet in a Box Beta 3.6 Content Ready

This is also a 'Content Ready' image but with services selected for Medical users.

Medical Internet in a Box South Asia Beta 2.2 (32G)

A demo of this image is available at South Asia Demo.

Medical Internet in a Box Beta 3.1 for Nigeria 16G

A demo of this image is available at Nigeria Demo.

Medical Internet in a Box Uganda Beta 2.2 (16G)

A demo of this image is available at Uganda Demo

Medical Internet in a Box Beta 3.0 Spanish (32G)

This is an older version of Internet in a Box based on IIAB 6.4