The Raspberry Pi is a minicomputer designed on a single board with all the essential components needed to run an operating system. The Raspberry pi is a device that uses the Broadcom controller chip which is a SoC (System on Chip). This SoC has the powerful ARM11 processor that runs at 700 MHz at its core. This mini computer comes without display unit, but can be used with HDTV screen or NTSC or PAL standard TV screen. It has an Ethernet port that allows connection to a network. Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems can be loaded on the Raspberry pi. This inexpensive board's ability to load Linux operating systems and the board's accessibility over a LAN network make it the perfect choice for small dedicated web servers.
This article focuses on how to configure the Raspberry pi board as a web server and the technique to make it serve as a graphical game for anyone who types the IP or address of the Raspberry pi board into the browser's address tab. Raspberry pi web server is available on the same LAN network or can be made available to anyone who has internet connectivity using port forwarding technique.
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In this specific project Ubuntu is installed on the Raspberry pi board and is loaded onto the Raspberry pi board and connected to a router using a crossover LAN cable. So the only additional hardware needed with the Raspberry pi for this project is just a LAN cable.
Once connected to the router with Ubuntu operating system, it can be accessed remotely from other systems connected to the same LAN network. The board can be accessed from a Linux PC using the secure shell that is enabled on the Raspberry pi's Ubuntu board. If the IP of the Raspberry pi board on the network is 192.168.1.5, the following command can be used to log in as the user named 'pi' on the Raspberry pi;
ssh (email protected)
You will be asked for the password for the username 'pi' and it is 'raspberry' by default. The same can be done from Windows system with the help of software like 'PuTTY' which can be downloaded for free. It can be difficult to find the IP address of Raspberry pi board on LAN and this can be done easily with the help of software like 'Ip Scanner'.
Check the IP range of the router before continuing editing and it can be found by simply checking the system IP which is used to access the Raspberry pi board. For a Linux PC, the IP address can be found using the command;
ifconfig
and for a Windows system the IP address can be found using the command:
ipconfig
Now add the following lines below the commented statement;
Make sure the will set for the Raspberry pi board is not already in use on any other PC and this can be done using the 'ping' command on Linux and Windows PC.
If there is no PC with the IP address 192.168.1.68, the following 'ping' command should fail.
ping 192.168.1.68
Once logged into the Raspberry pi, the first thing to do is set a static IP address and this can be done by editing a single file in Ubuntu. The file called 'interfaces' needs to be edited and saved which is in the /etc/network directory. Open the file using the VIM editor and disable the following statement;
iface eth0 static inet
The statement can be disabled by commenting it as shown below;
# static iface eth0 inet
If the PC IP is 192.168.1.5, write only the following statements
address 192.168.1.68
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
Save the file and it is suggested to restart the Raspberry pi board which will set the new IP address as 192.168.1.68.
If the PC IP is 192.168.0.5, write only the following statements
address 192.168.0.68
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
Save the file and it is suggested to restart the Raspberry pi board which will set the new IP address as 192.168.0.68.
Use the following command to reboot the Raspberry pi board;
restart
Once your Raspberry pi has restarted, try logging in using the new IP address.
The next step is to download and install the Apache server for Ubuntu. This can be done using the following commands;
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2
Now just copy the game folder into the “/var/www” directory. Change the permission of files in the game folder called say 'game', using the following command so that it can be accessed by others on the network.
game chmod 777/*
Now open a browser on your PC and enter the address of the Raspberry pi board in the address tab and start playing.
The Raspberry pi is connected to port number 80 on the router and can be forwarded to the internet by logging into the router and making settings in 'PORT FORWARDING', the steps vary from one router model to another.
Enable port 80 forwarding using the following details;
Port to be forwarded: 80
Initial port number: 80
End port number: 81
Protocol: ALL or TCP/UDP
Also find the router's public IP and whether the public IP is, say, 123.238.112.227; then one can use the same IP to play on Raspberry pi game server from anywhere in the world using a web enabled device.
Project video
