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Blog In A Box Support

For general Raspberry Pi support please go to the Raspberry Pi foundation.

What is Blog In A Box?

Blog In A Box is a version of Raspbian that is pre-configured with a web server and WordPress. It comes with a simple graphical interface to download and burn straight to an SD card.

It supports Raspberry Pi 1, 2, 3, and Zero.

How do I use it?

Download the Blog In A Box installer (for MacOS or Windows) and start the app.

The first time you run the installer it will download some additional software.

Once ready you can configure your installation.

We highly recommend supplying an SSH public key. Details about this can be found further down this page.

You can change the value of any of the advanced configuration, which includes auto-generated values for various logins. You should make a note of these for later reference.

Once everything has been configured select a drive containing your SD card and burn Blog In A Box to the card.

After burning has completed you can insert the card into a Pi and power it on. Blog In A Box will reboot your Pi several times during the initial setup process.

Included Software

In addition to everything that Raspbian provides, Blog In A Box is pre-configured with:

• Nginx webserver
• MySQL database
• PHP7
• Node
• SAMBA sharing
• SSH login
• Zeroconf autodiscovery
• WordPress
• Custom Raspberry Pi/WordPress Plugin

Device Support

Blog In A Box is pre-configured for the Raspberry Pi camera and SenseHAT.

The installed WordPress has been setup with a theme and plugin to also support the camera and SenseHAT.

Pi Camera

Using the supplied plugin you can take photos with the Pi camera and have it appear in a blog post. Additionally configure a photo to be automatically taken on a set schedule.

SenseHAT

Automatically take environmental readings and have them appear on your blog, either as the current ‘live’ readings, or a chart.

The SenseHAT can additionally display the current reading on its LED screen.

Development

We encourage users of Blog In A Box to tinker with it as much as possible. The WordPress plugin has been designed to allow easy integration of additional devices, or customisation of existing software.

You will find WordPress in /opt/wordpress and the plugin in /opt/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/biab-plugin.

The plugin has a companion tool located at /opt/biab which integrates the hardware with WordPress.

More details of the plugin, theme, and companion tool can be found here:

• Blog In A Box WordPress Theme
• Blog In A Box WordPress Plugin
• Blog In A Box Companion Tools

How do I access my Pi?

You can use any of these methods for accessing your Pi:

• Zeroconf / Bonjour local network at http://yourblogname.local
• SSH
• SAMBA share – just mount yourblogname as a drive
• Direct attached keyboard and monitor

How do I SSH?

Using SSH to login to your Pi is the preferred and more secure method, and allows you to do so without having a keyboard or monitor attached to the Pi.

If you don’t have an SSH key then you can follow this SSH guide.

If you supply your public SSH key to the installer tool then it will auto-configure your Pi to allow you to connect without entering a password:

ssh pi@bloginabox.local

How do I update WordPress?

Blog In A Box is set to auto-check for a new WordPress every day, or whenever it is booted. If you want to update WordPress manually then:

1. cd /opt/wordpress
2. wp core update