kiosk-server

Touch screen kiosk with remote control web server, using blazor and net6.

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

TODO

• user/password authentication for setup screen
• home assistant integration (??)

Display when no Kiosk URL is defined yet:

When using the external setup URL (http://x.x.x.x:5000/setup, no password authentication YET!) you can enter the Kiosk URL and then either reboot or shutdown the raspberry pi.

The Kiosk URL is only shown after a reboot.

Test Environment

Touch Display 1920x515 (12.6 inch, IPS panel):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001966967133.html

Touch display 3840x1100 (14 inch, IPS panel, uses usb-c connector for power and touch screen):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003332731770.html

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (I only have the 8GB RAM / 16GB EMMC version)

The Waveshare CM4-NANO-B expansion board (also available on Amazon)

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/CM4-NANO-B

The USB-C port is connected to the 5V power. (Also used to put the OS image onto the EMMC flash.)

The USB-A port is connected to the display. (To power it and also for the touch screen)

The HDMI port is connected to the display HDMI port.

Pressing the pushbutton (GPIO21) shuts down the CM4

Installation Instructions

I mainly used this document as a guideline: (note that for the CM4 it's not exactly the same)

https://gist.github.com/fjctp/210f4e870f913416b8d0e17fd36153c2

Install bootloader on CM4

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/compute-module.html

Set boot switch to on, plug in usb-c

Download rpiboot_setup.exe, run rpiboot.exe

Also see waveshare CM4-NANO-B wiki page.

https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot/raw/master/win32/rpiboot_setup.exe

• Install raspberry pi os lite 32 bit
• Set up wifi
• Set up ssh
• Set up an account (The instructions and various configuration files assume pi/raspberry Adjust as required.)

After connecting via ssh :

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo raspi-config

Select desktop/cli console auto login

sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg x11-xserver-utils xinit openbox

sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends chromium-browser

Edit /boot/config.txt

For Touch Display 1920x515 :

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d # note that this was vc4-kms-v3d before !!!!!
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt=1920 515 60 6 0 0 0

[cm4]
#otg_mode=1
dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host
dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=21

For Touch Display 3840x1100 :

dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d # note that this was vc4-kms-v3d before !!!!!
hdmi_enable_4kp60=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt=3840 1100 60

[cm4]
#otg_mode=1
dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host
dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=21

Edit /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart

xset s off
xset s noblank
xset -dpms

setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/' ~/.config/chromium/'Local State'
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/; s/"exit_type":"[^"]\+"/"exit_type":"Normal"/' ~/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

chromium-browser --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --kiosk 'http://127.0.0.1:5000'

For the 3840x1100 screen, you can increase the zoom level of chromium using this command line :

chromium-browser --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --force-device-scale-factor=1.5 --kiosk 'http://127.0.0.1:5000'

Edit ~/.profile

[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && startx -- -nocursor

Web Server

Copy all the web server application files and subdirectories to ~/kiosk-server

Make application runnable using :

sudo chmod +x ~/kiosk-server/kiosk-server

Install the application as a service (Adjust kiosk-server.service if user or directory is different) :

sudo systemctl stop kiosk-server

sudo cp ~/kiosk-server/kiosk-server.service /etc/systemd/system/kiosk-server.service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

sudo systemctl enable kiosk-server

sudo systemctl start kiosk-server

Check if service is running ok :

sudo systemctl status kiosk-server

or

sudo journalctl -u kiosk-server 

Visual Studio Publish Action

When using 'Publish' -> copies all files to ~/kiosk-server using pscp, that comes with putty

Adjust paths, ip address and password in .csproj file as required :

Target Name="PiCopy" AfterTargets="AfterPublish">
   <Exec Command="pscp -r -pw raspberry C:\dotnet\projects\kiosk-server\kiosk-server\bin\Release\net6.0\publish\ pi@192.168.2.36:/home/pi/kiosk-server/" />
</Target>

Stop the web server, before updating the files :

sudo systemctl stop kiosk-server