Digital Library Project

[T Gillett]

Hi All

We have been doing some work on a Digital Library Project designed to provide a simple classroom wifi router with a library of locally stored Web content to enable students to access the material without the need for an Internet connection.

Attached is a brief outline of the project. More documentation is available for download.

I have posted beta firmware for testing here:

    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/

Firmware is available for Dragino MS14 devices (eg MP2), GLiNET devices including AR150, AR300M, MT300N-V2, and TP-Link MR3020, MR3040 and WR842.

Please post back if you are interested in this project, and if you have a chance to test the firmware.

Regards

Terry

[Chima Kalu]

Hi Terry,

 Am interested in trying this out..

what device will work best? a list will  help

Regards

Chima Kalu

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Chima Kalu

[T Gillett]

Hi Chimu

There is a list of currently supported  devices in the previous email, and if you have a look at the downloads web site link you will see folders labelled for all the devices supported. 

If you are shopping for a new device, it is generally best to get one that is natively based on OpenWrt rather than a proprietary operating system.

 This is because manufactures have gone to some lengths in recent years to discourage installation of non-OEM firmware so they can claim compliance with FCC regulations in USA.

So devices such as those from GL-iNet and Dragino (HE module) are recommended as they are based on OpenWRT and they actively support development by users.

Look for devices with fast CPU speed and as much RAM as possible as this will enhance performance.

We have also included DL firmware for some older TP-link devices like MR3020 because these have been widely used in the past in projects like LibraryBox that are no longer supported. 

These devices are probably not appropriate for new purchases, but existing devices may be repurposed. These devices also have limited flash memory and can not support all the functionality of the DL software.

Regards

Terry

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[Paul Colmer]

Hi Terry

May be very useful for me and some of my Wapa guys getting ready to play in the rual areas with TV whitespace.

I've been working on USTDA commercial trial since August 2019 and ICASA have given us commercial launch date of April 1st 2021.

So I keen to test .

Regards

Paul Colmer

Wapa Executive Management Committee

074 569 5014

[T Gillett]

Hi Paul

Probably not quite the use case we had in mind, but whatever... 😀

The project does show what can be done with web content stored locally at the edge of the Network.

If you have not already found them, you may also be interested in the IIAB and RACHEL proects that provide a much grander version of our microserver.

Regards

Terry

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[T Gillett]

Hi All

The Digital Library Ver 1.0 software is now available for download as follows:

Firmware
    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/releases/Ver-1.0/

Documents
    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/documents/Released/Ver-1.0/

Source
    https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library
   

Feedback welcome.

Regards

Terry

[T Gillett]

Also...

Sample Home Page
http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/documents/HomePage/

[Pascal Laurent]

Do we have a French version as well?

On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 3:19 AM T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All

The Digital Library Ver 1.0 software is now available for download as follows:

Firmware
    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/releases/Ver-1.0/

Documents
    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/documents/Released/Ver-1.0/

Source
    https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library
   

Feedback welcome.

Regards

Terry

On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 11:10 AM T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All

We have been doing some work on a Digital Library Project designed to provide a simple classroom wifi router with a library of locally stored Web content to enable students to access the material without the need for an Internet connection.

Attached is a brief outline of the project. More documentation is available for download.

I have posted beta firmware for testing here:

    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/

Firmware is available for Dragino MS14 devices (eg MP2), GLiNET devices including AR150, AR300M, MT300N-V2, and TP-Link MR3020, MR3040 and WR842.

Please post back if you are interested in this project, and if you have a chance to test the firmware.

Regards

Terry

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[T Gillett]

Hi Pascal

You can put whatever content you like in the Library memory.

Finding good content is the hardest part of the project!

You can just put files on a USB memory and plug it in to the DL device and they will be displayed in a simple list which you can navigate to open individual files with the web browser.

If you put an index.html file in the root directory, that will opened as the home page.

Regards

Terry

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[T Gillett]

Hi All

Attached draft document outlines Hardware options for currently available Digital Library firmware.

Feedback welcome.

Regards

Terry

On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 11:10 AM T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kevin Steen]

Thank you, Terry, for creating this firmware and for the excellent
Hardware guide - it is extremely useful, especially with possible Black
Friday specials coming up!

My local area (London, UK) is closing libraries regularly and also
directing patrons to commercial e-book providers rather than sources of
freely-available books. I hope to assist the community libraries to
liberate people from this worrying situation, and the Digital Library
Project will make the task a whole lot easier.

Thank you again, and also to everyone else who helped make this possible.

-Kevin

[Pascal Laurent]

Hi,

Can we use the current digital library firmware to create a mesh infrastructure that provides access (to the library content) to students in a small rural town?  How do we secure access to prevent abuse ( such as disconnecting devices being idle for x amount of time, etc) ?

Thanks,

Pascal

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[T Gillett]

Hi Pascal

Some thoughts on your question...

The Digital Library firmware sets up a router device to act as a simple WiFi Access Point and Web server for local content

So it can operate stand-alone to serve content without requiring any other network connection.

At the same time, it can connect to an upstream network using either an Ethernet cable or WiFi connection. 

So it can also be used as a basic building block in a more complex network.

The DL will directly support around 30 WiFi connections, so if you position the device physically in a good high location you may get a coverage of several hundred metres radius, which will allow connections from dwellings within this area.

The capacity of the DL to support a certain number of users is determined by two basic things - the number of simultaneous WiFi connections it can support, and the ability to handle the workload to serve the content as requested by the users.

There is little point trying to connect very large numbers of clients to a single DL using additional networks because the increasing workload will eventually overload it and slow the device down.

In any case, you have to provide additional Access Points to connect all the users, so they may as well be configured as DL devices and serve the content directly to the clients.

If you set up a community wide network using mesh or other technologies, then you can plug multiple DL devices into that network to provide Access Points, and to connect the clients to upstream network resources. 

If you serve local content from the DL devices, then all that data traffic will not have to travel over your community network, leaving it free for other uses.

If you want to set up a single local content server on your network to serve large numbers of clients, then you will need to get a more powerful server device. In this case you might like to look at something like the IIAB project and run it on a more powerful hardware platform like RPi-4 or x86.

Of course, this sort of option comes with additional costs in terms of complexity, dollars and support requirements.

To really address your question properly, it would be necessary to work out what the real requirements are in more detail.

How many users will your network need to support?

What geographical area are they spread over?

What sort of terrain is involved over this area?

How much data are users likely to use?

What sort of applications will be used?

How will the network grow over time?

And so on.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Terry

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[T Gillett]

Hi All

I have posted a draft User Guide for Assembling Digital Library Content to assist with the process of creating a library.

The document can be downloaded here:

    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/documents/Drafts/

Feedback welcome.

Regards

Terry

[Vickram Crishna]

Sorry for coming in late. 

https://www.gnowledge.org/projects/dev.html#doer-disk-of-oer is a distributed set of data and tools useful for creating a local knowledge resource from scratch. This was originally created to distribute on a CD, which is no longer practical, but a thumb drive serves the purpose, to get started in any isolated location, from one screen to multiple devices and screens.  

Some of it is India-specific, naturally, but feel free to pick and choose. The point here, as is clear from the description, was to encourage children to learn how to produce content while learning, rather than to consume readymade data on any 'subject'. 

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[Pascal Laurent]

Hi,

Happy 2021 and wish you all the very best. It looks like we may need more user friendly documents. At least a document that anyone can read to get the Digital Library (DL) up and running. I would like to work on such document. I need your help. I am using the AR150 (GL_AR150-b2d) and my goal is to get the DL online for testing. Here is what I have done so far:

Setting up the router

1) Flash the router with openwrt-Digital-Library-01-AR750-VER-1.0-RC3.2-AR750-ar750-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

2) Connect to the DL as admin

3) Secure the DL a bit

• change the default admin passwords
• Change time zone
• Change Passphrase (for Digital-Library and Digital-Library-Guest)

Setting up the USB drive (40GB+)

This is where the confusion starts. Remember my goal is to get the DL up and running in the simplest way possible. I would worry about adding/removing/adjusting stuff later on. I am assuming  I need to add the content of this page (https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library/tree/Ver-1/DIGITAL-LIBRARY-USB) or usb zip file (https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library/blob/Ver-1/DIGITAL-LIBRARY-USB.zip) in the root of the USB drive. right?

Uploading the contents to the USB Drive

Here I would like to upload the basic library files (not the images) as described in the section of "The basic library image includes:" in this page (https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library). Is there a script i need to use that would download the content to their respective locations in the USB drive? Do I need to download manually from oer2go?

Also the https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library page indicates that

"a basic library image has been developed containing some 40GB of content, largely drawn from the OER2GO website (oer2go.org). The library contains material with licences that allow free use." Would you please educate me where to download/access that 40GB content? That's a lot of data, is there a host i could FTP to to obtain the data?

Thanks for your assistance,

--Pascal

[T Gillett]

Hi Pascal

Good to hear that you have the Digital Library basically running.

To answer your questions:

1. Just to clarify which device you are using, can you confirm that it is the AR150 device please?

You mentioned that you had installed firmware "AR750-VER-1.0-RC3.2-AR750-ar750-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin", but this firmware is intended for a different device, the AR750.  Also this is a developmental "Release Candidate" version which is not intended for use in the field.

I assume there is a typo (AR750) in the firmware name you mentioned??

The latest Released firmware for the AR150 and other devices is located here:

         http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/releases/Ver-1.3/

2. Documentation

The following documents are available for download here:

    http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/documents/Released/Ver-1.0/

 - Digital-Library-Content-Ver1.0.pdf
 - Digital-Library-Hardware-Ver-1.0.pdf
 - Digital-Library-Intro.pdf
 - Digital-Library-Manual-Ver-1.0.pdf
 - Digital-Library-QuickStart-Ver-1.0.pdf

3. The process for installing the default library content on a SD/USB memory device is described in Section 3.9 of the Digital Library Manual.

The basic process is as follows:

- Format the SD/USB memory device as ext2 (Linux) or exFAT (Windows) with 4k block size.

- Download the Template Zip file.

- Unpack the contents of the Zip file and copy all the files and directories onto the memory device.

- Download the library modules you want to install from the OER2GO website -   www.oer2go.org

   Each module can be downloaded as a Zip file, or via FTP, or via RSYNC

- Copy the downloaded files for each particular module into the corresponding directory in the "/modules" directory on the SD/USB memory device.

  Be sure to preserve any files already in the directory from the template (typically an img file and a index.html file)

4. The total library content of 40GB is certainly a lot to download, but you can download it one module at a time.

Nonetheless, the Khan Academy (KAOS) module is almost 16GB and the Wikipedia for Schools module is almost 8GB, so still large downloads.

Also some of the content (eg Sugarizer) is not currently available on the OER2GO website.

I am happy to make up a 64GB SD card with the content loaded and post it to you for the cost of the device and postage.

This is typically around $35US, depending on your location.

Once you have one device, it is relatively easy to copy the content to make further devices.

5. You can use any static HTML content you wish on the Digital Library.

So you can  immediately place some PDF files for example onto a USB memory and try out the DL.

They will appear as a simple list on the Home page and you can click on each item to open it.

If you make up an index.html file and place it on the memory device, that will appear as the Home page.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Terry

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[Pascal Laurent]

Hi Terry,

Thank you for the quick response. I am using the GL.iNet GL-AR150. Here is a rough draft of the document. Yeah, en-kaos was an unfortunate choice.

Download the Digital Library Firmware

1. Download the firmware AR150 (http://download.villagetelco.org/firmware/digital-library/releases/Ver-1.3/build-2020-12-17-12%3A48-AR150-Digital-Library-VER-1.3/openwrt-Digital-Library-AR150-VER-1.3-AR150-ar150-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin)

Flash Router

2. Connect one end of the RJ45 cable to the LAN port on the router

3. Connect RJ45 cable to computer

4. Flash router

Connect DL router to your network

5. Connect RJ45 cable from switch to the Router’s WAN port

6. Power router (using your phone USB power plug)

Connect to the DL  router:

7. From computer WIFI choose the Digital-Library SSID

8. Enter password for the Security Key

9. http://digital-library

Secure the DL Router 

10. From your Internet browser connect to http://digital-library/admin

11. Enter for username admin

12. Enter for password adminpassword

You will see this page:

Secure the Digital-Library Router

1. Login to the router

1. http://digital-library/admin

2. From General:

1. Admin password: whateverPassw$rd

2. Click Save & Apply

3. Logout/login to make sure it sets

4. Time Zone: EST

5. Click Save & Apply

6. Logout/login to make sure it sets

2.  From WIFI:

1. Change the Passphrases

2. Click Save & Apply

3. Logout/login to make sure it sets

3. From Network Status

1. Record the WAN IP address

2. Connect to the router: ssh root@WAN_IP_ADDRESS

3. Password: password

4. Change it, type this command: passwd 

5. Logout/login to make sure it sets

Preparing the USB stick for content

1. Format the drive using exFAT  (using window 10)

2. Set Allocation unit size to 4096

3. Plug USB drive into your computer (Mac/Windows/Linux)

Make sure USB Drive is connected to the DL

1. Connect to the DL via ssh (e.x. ssh root@WAN_IP_ADDRESS)

2. From the command line type df -h

3. Pay attention to the /dev/sda1 ⇒ /mnt/sda1 (i.e. where the content would be placed)

Adding Content to the Drive

1. Download https://github.com/villagetelco/digital-library/blob/Ver-1/DIGITAL-LIBRARY-USB.zip 

2. Connect to the DL using cyberduck (https://cyberduck.io/) ==> or Filezilla

3. Opps the 1 is missing in 0.2.1.173 (my local network)
   

4. Go to 

4. Extract the content of DIGITAL-LIBRARY-USB.zip  to the USB root drive (i.e /mnt/sda1)

5. Downloading and copying the individual library modules into their respective sub-directories in the modules directory.

1. Here is an example (using Khan Academy On a Stick):

1. Let’s download and deploy kaos

2. Go to http://oer2go.org/viewmod/en-kaos

3. Using Filezilla to connect to dev.worldpossible.org

        Host: dev.worldpossible.org

        Username / Password: anonymous

4. Download en-kaos.zip

5. Unzip it (it is huge)

2. Turn off the DL router

3. Connect the USB drive to your PC (Windows 10)

4. TBA

I am guessing once the en-kaos download completes, all I need to do is unzip it to the /mnt/sda1/modules/kaos-en/ folder. Do I need to perform any additional settings for the DL to made aware of the mount (/mnt/sda1)? 

Thank you for the quick response.

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[T Gillett]

Hi Pascal

A couple of suggestions:

1. You need to secure the root account as well as the admin account.

Login as root (PW: password) and you can set both root and admin passwords on the screen.

The admin account will give access to the admin screens only, the root account also gives SSH command line access.

2. You don't need to copy files onto the memory device using SFTP to the DL.

You can simply plug the memory into your PC and transfer the files locally which will be much faster. You can copy the template files and the module files this way. 

3. Once you have put the files on to the memory, remove it from your PC and transfer it to the DL, then connect the power. The DL will automatically map the memory device to sda1 and use it as the home page and library content.

Regards

Terry

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[Morris Kabuye]

Very helpful Terry!!

Thank you and happy new year!

Morris

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[Morris Kabuye]

How do I send the $35 for the already made card? Am in Uganda trying out the device.

Rachel 2

Morris

On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 01:55 T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[T Gillett]

Hi Morris

I will contact you directly regarding mail arrangements.

Regards

Terry

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[Pascal Laurent]

Cool...thanks

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