Using Roon with Hifiberry image (short tutorial)

Not to dwell into pros and cons here, after much thinking I opted for using “turn key” Hifiberry image for my Hifiberry equiped Pi’s in my Roon audio system.

But as there were some bumps on the road, especially with using WiFi on some of my endpoints I wrote myself a little step by step. I am sharing it, as it may prove useful.

STEP ONE
Bake image on SD card. Download image from Hifiberry’s site downloads subpage. I like to use this free USB image tool.

As this is a turn key solution you should be good to go after inserting SD card with image into your Raspberry. However, if you need to tweek something here is optional…

STEP TWO
For first login into Hifiberry image you have to be physically connected (keyboard and monitor needed) to your pi. Username: pi, password: hifiberry.

Then enter…

sudo raspi-config

To enable SSH, change password, rename your image (handy if you have more than one Hifiberry endpoint), play with localisations, etc… I also changed Memory split (under advanced settings) used for GPU to 32 (from standard 64) as my endpoints are all screenless.

STEP THREE (here is where things get Wifi tricky)
To enable WiFi on RPi2 (if needed) enter…

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

(and change file to):

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1 device_name=RP XY ap_scan=1 fast_reauth=1 network={ ssid="YOUR SSID" psk="YOUR PASSWORD" key_mgmt=WPA-PSK }
Mind that YOUR SSID and YOUR PASSWORD is where you enter YOUR WiFi SSID and password.

To enable 5GHz WiFi change that same file to:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
device_name=RP XY
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
        ssid="YOUR SSID"
        psk="YOUR PASSWORD"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        scan_freq=5180 5200 5220 5240 5260 5280 5300 5320
}

As my WiFi dongle is Edimax EW-7811DAC (I love it for its powerful 7dBi directional antenna) and has no native Raspbian (Debian) support:

wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80256631/install-wifi.tar.gz
tar xzf install-wifi.tar.gz
./install-wifi

To enable second WiFi specificaly on RPi3 (that builtin WiFi has quite limited range) I had to…

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

(and change file to):

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual

auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

auto wlan1
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp
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Footnote: If you need to clone the Hifiberry image for another endpoint, you need to remove the /etc/uuid file and then clone the SD card. A new UUID file will then be created on each system on the next boot. :slight_smile: