Intro
This guide assumes a certain level of familiarity with Meshtastic, and Meshtastic nodes.
The Femtofox is similar to, and can functionally replace, a Raspberry Pi Linux Native Meshtastic node. However, the Foxbuntu OS takes away most of the heavy lifting of a typical install, leaving you free to build your mesh application without the initial hurdles.
Hardware
To get started, you will need a Femtofox. You can either build or buy one.
1. Building a Femtofox
Directions for ordering PCBs and building a Femtofox can be found in the Community Hardware repo.
2. Buying a Femtofox ( >>> click here <<< )
The Femtofox Pro is available for purchase, and has several added features:
- Arrives fully assembled
- 4-Layer PCB allows for extra complexity
- USB-C for power and built in serial debug, which allows for direct access to the Femtofox without network or additional hardware
- Extra pins are mapped to the headers, allowing for easier expansion
- An added "Kill Switch" breakout, allowing for the addition of an optional thermal fuse for added safety on solar builds
- Additional decoupling capacitors
The Femtofox Pro is available through the following licensed sellers:
If you require a large quantity of Femtofox boards, please get in touch.
Additional hardware
See supported hardware for Wifi, Realtime Clocks (RTC) and more.
To keep accurate time, it is strongly recommended that an RTC module be installed (see supported hardware). Alternatively, network time can be used via an internet connection can be utilized. Femtofox uses Chrony to handle this.
Operating System
- Download the latest image of Foxbuntu from the releases and extract from the zip file.
- Use an image flashing tool such as Balena Etcher to flash the image to a suitable SD card (see supported hardware). Note: the image will not appear bootable to Etcher, but will be functional in use.
- Insert the SD card into the reader of the Femtofox.
!NOTEDuring first boot, a run-once script executes. While this script is running, the User LED will power on and off every half second. This can take up to about 7 minutes, after which Femtofox will reboot.
Initial Configuration - Suggested Workflow
Foxbuntu is ready to operate almost from the first boot. The settings can be configured using one of the following methods:
Option 1: Serial Console ( >>> click here <<< )
- Serial console - Connect a USB-C cable to the power/serial port (Femtofox Pro) or connect a serial-USB adaptor to TX/RX/Gnd of UART2 (Femtofox CE). Serial settings: 115200 baud, flow control off.
Finding the correct COM port ( >>> click here <<< )
On Femtofox Pro, connect the Power USB-C port to your PC with a cable, and open a serial console application such as PuTTY for windows or browser-based serial console like this one in Chrome/Edge. Select your the Femtofox's COM port (find the correct COM port in Windows hitting WIN+R and entering cmd /k wmic path Win32_SerialPort get DeviceID, Description && pause. The port should be named "USB-SERIAL CH340". Serial settings: 115200 baud, flow control off.
Option 2: SSH ( >>> click here <<< )
There are 3 options to get a login prompt over SSH:
-
SSH via wired Ethernet - connect a network cable either through the RJ45 port or by soldering directly to the Ethernet headers of the Luckfox (possible but not recommended) and connect it to your network. Identify the IP address via your DHCP server (e.g. your router) and connect using an SSH client of your choice.
-
SSH via web browser - if the Femtofox is already on a network, either by wired Ethernet, or by wifi configured using the usb-config tool, then you can use a web browser to browse either to the Femtofox IP address, or to https://femtofox.local:7681 (if you have the hostname for the Femtofox, use it instead). You may get a warning about a bad encryption certificate - this is normal (caused by the fact that the Femtofox is generating its own encryption keys, and not getting them certified by a third party).
-
SSH via USB ethernet adapter - only the RTL8152 chipset has been tested, but most adapters should be supported.
Credentials and Initial Setup:
At first login, the default username and password is femto:femto. You are required to change the password on first login.
After first login, run sudo femto-config or sfc from the command prompt to launch the setup wizard.
USB configuration - See USB configuration tool for details on how to configure via a USB drive.
Mesh Applications
The Femtofox Configuration tool is a simple menu-based tool for configuring the various options available. If a specific setting is needed, you can consult this tree-view of the menus
Femtofox is supplied with installers for many popular applications, such as:
- Meshing Around - a popular auto-responder/query handler/BBS/everything else.
- TheCommsChannel BBS - a popular BBS application
- Contact Client for Meshtastic - the simplest, most retro client possible
- Samba file sharing - comes preinstalled but disabled. Enable in
femto-configmenu.
Install these through the femto-config utility.
Additional applications will be added to the default image in future.
Advanced
Connecting using RDNIS via usb
It is possible to use the USB port on the Luckfox as a peripheral network adapter. see this guide. Note that in the preconfigured images USB is set to host mode, so you'll have to switch back to peripheral with sudo luckfox-config. This is not the recommended as a primary approach, but is available to advanced users.
Building Foxbuntu images
You can build your own Foxbuntu image, following the guide in Building-Foxbuntu-(WSL).