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Create a clean raspbian image

Clean your sd card

Before writing the raspbian image into your sd card, clean your storage device by turning all its bits into 0.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk<sd card number> bs=4m

Burn raspbian image into sd card

# dd if=/Users/<username>/Downloads/2019-04-08-raspbian-stretch-lite.img of=/dev/rdisk<sd card number> bs=4m

Serial connection and disable first boot autosize

Do the following 3 steps BEFORE BOOTING FOR THE FIRST TIME your raspberry pi

Backup cmdline.txt and config.txt

Before modifying cmdline.txt and config.txt, BACKUP THEM!

$ cp -p cmdline.txt cmdline.txt.original
$ cp -p config.txt config.txt.original

Modify cmdline.txt

Once you have finished, change the output console device and remove the script that autoexpands / partition size at first startup.

$ vi cmdline.txt
console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 -> console=ttyAMA0,115200
delete init=/usr/lib/raspi-config/init_resize.sh

Modify config.txt

Don't forget to enable this option, otherwise you won't be able to communicate to your raspberry pi throught raspberry debug port (TTL-232R-RPi).

$ vi config.txt
add this : enable_uart=1

/dev/root       1.6G  978M  538M  65% /
devtmpfs        460M     0  460M   0% /dev
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           464M   12M  452M   3% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   43M   22M   21M  51% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000

Resize / manualy and create /media/data partition

Now, resize the / partition and create a new one.

# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0

Your partition table should look like this :

Device         Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1       8192   96042   87851 42.9M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2      98304 3522559 3424256  1.6G 83 Linux

Delete the / partition, and create a new one (primary) which starts at THE SAME POSITION as the one you have just deleted, in my case 98304.

In the fstab, replace PARTUUID by /dev/mmcblk0p<partition number>. Reboot your raspberry pi and then tell your system you have resized a partition by typing :

# resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p<partition number>

After creating the partition that will be mounted at /media/data, reboot your raspberry pi. Then, turn it into an ext4 partition, and add it to fstab.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p3
# mkdir -p /media/data

# vi /etc/fstab
/dev/mmcblk0p3        /media/data     ext4    defaults             0       0

Make sure you have CREATED /media/data folder BEFORE MOUNTING it because your raspberry pi WON'T BOOT after that : Cannot open access to console. The root account is locked see sulogin(8) man page for more details.

Now, it's time to test what you have done.

# mount -a
$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root       7.9G  1.1G  6.5G  14% /
devtmpfs        460M     0  460M   0% /dev
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           464M   12M  452M   3% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /var/spool
tmpfs           464M  148K  464M   1% /var/log
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /var/tmp
tmpfs           464M     0  464M   0% /tmp
/dev/mmcblk0p1   43M   22M   21M  51% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
/dev/mmcblk0p3  6.7G   31M  6.3G   1% /media/data

dhclient can't create lease file

# mkdir -p /media/data/var/lib/dhcp
# ln -s /media/data/var/lib/dhcp /var/lib/dhcp/

# vi /etc/dhcp/dhclient-enter-hooks.d/samba
# netbios_setup (comment the function call)

Can't get DNS servers from dhcp

# touch /media/data/resolv.conf
# ln -s /media/data/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

Update raspbian packages and install needed packages

# apt update
# apt upgrade
# apt install --no-install-recommends tree lsof nmap git

Enable ssh

touch /boot/ssh
# systemctl enable ssh
# systemctl start ssh

Reference : https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/

Mount partitions

# vi /etc/fstab
tmpfs		/tmp		tmpfs	defaults	  0	  0
tmpfs		/run		tmpfs	defaults	  0	  0
tmpfs		/var/spool	tmpfs	defaults	  0	  0
tmpfs		/var/log	tmpfs	defaults	  0	  0
 
# reboot

REBOOT your raspberry pi AFTER adding each line to FSTAB

Systemd-hostnamed doest not start

# vi /etc/fstab
tmpfs		/var/tmp	tmpfs   defaults	  0	  0

Check if there are any errors

Fix rsyslog /var/spool/rsyslog directory missing

Using unit file

# vi /etc/systemd/system/generateRsyslogStructure.service

[Unit]
Description=Generate Rsyslog structure
Before=syslog.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/pi/generateRsyslogStructure.sh
Type=oneshot

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

$ vi /home/pi/generateRsyslogStructure.sh
#!/bin/bash

if [ -r /etc/rsyslog.conf ]; then
    WorkDirectory=$(grep "WorkDirectory" /etc/rsyslog.conf | cut -d\  -f2)
else
    echo "Cannot read /etc/rsyslog.conf" >> /tmp/rsyslogService.txt
    exit 1
fi

if [ ! -d "$WorkDirectory" ]; then
    mkdir $WorkDirectory
fi

exit 0

sudo chmod 664 generateRsyslogStructure.service
chmod a+x generateRsyslogStructure.sh

# systemctl enable generateRsyslogStructure.service

Using tmpfiles.d config files

# vi /etc/tmpfiles.d/genRsyslogStruc.conf
d /var/spool/rsyslog 0755 root root

# mkdir /var/spool/rsyslog

Reference: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/tmpfiles.d.5.html

Disable swap

# systemctl stop dphys-swapfile.service
# systemctl disable dphys-swapfile.service
# reboot

Mount system in read-only mode

# vi /etc/fstab
/dev/mmcblk0p2  /               ext4    defaults,noatime,ro  0       1
/dev/mmcblk0p1  /boot           vfat    defaults,ro          0       2