Getting started with Wifi Pineapple Mark V

September 11th at 12:00am

I recently picked up a Wifi Pineapple Mark V. I've been getting familiar with it and want to document what I've found so far.

A few words...

My pineapple is a Mark V that came with the 1.2.0 firmware installed. While the steps I outline here worked for me, YMMV. If you 'brick' your device, the Pineapple people have a handy guide for how to undo that.

 

Connection & Setup

Before I can really 'do' anything with the Pineapple I need to get connected and complete the setup process. I found that if I plugged in my laptop to the Pineapple's ethernet port that I received an IP Address in the range of 172.16.42.x

Once my laptop had a DHCP address I was able to access the pineapple at http://72.16.42.1:1471 and complete the setup process which consisted of:

  • Accepting a EULA
  • Accepting the 'Software License' (GPL v3)
  • Changing the root password

At this point I was able to browse the Web UI

 

Firmware Upgrade

My pineapple came with the 1.2.0 firmware so it was in need of an upgrade (version 2.0.4 was available at the time of this writing). I didn't want to connect the pineapple to the internet yet, so I performed a manual upgrade which consisted of the following steps:

  • Downloading the latest firmware from the downloads page
  • Using WinSCP to copy the binary file to the pineapple
    • Note: Be sure to use SCP and *not* SFTP as the pineapple does not understand SFTP
      (I was searching for a non-standard SSH port because I didn't know this. Port 22 works fine with SCP. :) ) 
       
  • Be sure to run md5sum on the upgrade.bin file you copy over! if the hash doesn't match the hash listed on the downloads page you could corrupt your pineapple
  • Run the command sysupgrade -n -v /path/to/upgrade.bin file

Once these steps are completed it may take a few minutes for your pineapple to become responsive again. It took over 5 minutes for me to be able to log back in after following these steps.

 

Format and Mount SD Card

I noticed something kind of odd after the update: The 2GB SD card that comes with the pineapple was not showing up when I ran df -h at the SSH terminal. After doing a bit of research I found that (at least in my case) the SD card appeared as /dev/sda. I was able to format it and get it to mount on boot like this:

  • mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda
  • uci set fstab.@mount[0].device=/dev/sda
  • uci commit
  • *Reboot the device*
Note: I *STRONGLY* suggest you run this command to find out what the pineapple thinks it is mounting before running the above commands:
  • uci show | grep fstab

    When I ran this I saw that the default configuration was to point to /dev/sdcard/sd1, which didn't exist on my device. That is why I had to run the commands listed above.

 

DateTime Configuration

Once your pineapple is connected to the internet it should use the NTP server that is configured. I chose t manually set the time at the SSH prompt while still experimenting. This command worked for me:

date -s "2014-09-11 21:21:00"

 

How to reboot?

On occasion while making configuration changes to the pineapple I was notified that I needed to reboot my pineapple (like when I changed the log directory for karma [Note here: I think the Mana project has significantly improved upon karma]). There are 2 ways to reboot the pineapple:

  • In the Web UI inside the Configuration area under the Advanced tab
  • At the SSH command line by running the reboot command

 

How do I shutdown?

So far the only way to power off the pineapple (that I have found) is to use the SSH command of poweroff


What do the flashing lights mean?

On my Mark V pineapple, I noticed the following:

  • Green light means that the unit is powered on
  • Orange light means that the ethernet jack is plugged in
  • Blue flashing light means that the unit is booting
  • Blue solid light means the unit has booted
  • Red light means the wifi antennas are on

 

Where can I go for more information?

There are a few places you can go to get more information or help: