In this guide, we will walk through the steps to set up Fedora Server on your Raspberry Pi 4. This guide assumes that you have some knowledge of using Linux, and have access to the necessary hardware and software components. Note that this guide has been created based on multiple sources and has been modified to reflect the specific requirements for a successful installation on the author’s device.
Hardware Requirements
- Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
- A microSD card with a capacity of at least 8GB
- A power supply for Raspberry Pi 4
- A microSD card reader
Software Requirements
- arm-image-installer
- A terminal emulator
- qemu-user-static
- qemu-user-static-binfmt
Step 1: Download Fedora Server Image
Download current raw image for aarch64 from https://getfedora.org/en/server/download/.
Step 2: Download UEFI Firmware
Next, download the current UEFI firmware for Raspberry Pi 4 from the following link: https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases. Unzip the file in a temporary location, such as the Downloads folder.
Step 3: Preparing The Raw Image
In this step, we will decompress the raw image and prepare it for use.
Decompress the image:
xz --decompress Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw.xzThis will delete the original xz file after decompression and you will be left with Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw. You can add --keep to keep the compressed version.
Next, list the partitions in the raw image with fdisk:
$ fdisk -l Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw
Disk Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw: 7 GiB, 7516192768 bytes, 14680064 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5c5e303a
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw1 * 2048 1230847 1228800 600M 6 FAT16
Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw2 1230848 3327999 2097152 1G 83 Linux
Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw3 3328000 14680063 11352064 5,4G 8e Linux LVMThe raw image has three partitions: .raw1 is the bootloader partition, .raw2 is the Linux boot partition (id 83), and .raw3 is the partition we want, a Linux LVM partition (id 8e) where Fedora is installed.
To mount the image at the right place, we need to calculate the mount offset as follows:
sector size (512) x start sector (3328000) = 1703936000However, if we mount the image with this offset, it will fail:
$ sudo mount -o loop,offset=1703936000 Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw /mnt/raw3
mount: /mnt/raw3: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'.To solve this issue, we need to use a tool like kpartx. This utility creates a virtual device in /dev/mapper that we can manipulate as a real device. Run the following command to add a device verbosely:
$ sudo kpartx -a -v Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw
add map loop0p1 (253:0): 0 1228800 linear 7:0 2048
add map loop0p2 (253:1): 0 2097152 linear 7:0 1230848
add map loop0p3 (253:2): 0 11352064 linear 7:0 3328000Then verify the new partitions in /dev/mapper:
$ ls -l /dev/mapper/
total 0
crw------- 1 root root 10, 236 Şub 10 11:28 control
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Şub 11 00:17 fedora-root -> ../dm-3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Şub 11 00:17 loop0p1 -> ../dm-0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Şub 11 00:17 loop0p2 -> ../dm-1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Şub 11 00:17 loop0p3 -> ../dm-2Finally, create a directory and mount the LVM partition to the new directory:
sudo mkdir /mnt/raw3
sudo mount /dev/fedora/root /mnt/raw3Step 4: Working Directly Within The Image
It’s time to start making changes to the image. To do this, we’ll use chroot to change the working root of our session to the root from the image, or alternatively systemd-nspawn. To support emulation between architectures, we’ll need to install qemu-user-static, qemu-user-static-binfmt and restart systemd-binfmt.service.
Chroot to the mounted disk image and start a shell:
sudo chroot /mnt/raw3 /bin/bashEnsure that the architecture is aarch64 and not x86_64 (use uname -a).
Next, we’ll create a local user that we’ll use to connect via SSH later. The following commands create a group and user named pi. The user will have a UID of 1000 and be assigned to the pi and wheel groups:
/usr/sbin/groupadd pi
/usr/sbin/useradd -g pi -G wheel -m -u 1000 piCreate the .ssh directory, the authorized_keys file, and set proper permissions:
mkdir /home/pi/.ssh
chmod 700 /home/pi/.ssh
touch /home/pi/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 600 /home/pi/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R pi.pi /home/pi/.ssh/Add your public key (~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) to the authorized_keys file.
Since our new user belongs to the wheel group, allow this group to use sudo without password:
echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/wheel-nopasswdAlso, Fedora prompts you to finish the setup on the first boot. To avoid that, disable the initial setup:
unlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/initial-setup.service
unlink /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/initial-setup.serviceChange the current directory to the EFI partition. Rename config.txt to config.txt.save.
And then you can ssh. Congratulations! You successfully connected to your new Fedora Server on your Raspberry Pi!
In the EFI partition, copy the updated firmware files that were downloaded in Step 2. This will replace several files and add a new config.txt file:
cp -r ~/Downloads/rpi4efi/* .In the EFI partition edit config.txt. It should have the following contents:
arm_64bit=1
enable_uart=1
uart_2ndstage=1
enable_gic=1
armstub=RPI_EFI.fd
disable_commandline_tags=1
disable_overscan=1
device_tree_address=0x1f0000
device_tree_end=0x200000
dtoverlay=miniuart-btChange the contents to look like the contents below. The two changes are an addition of the kernel line a the top and comment out the armstub line. Be sure to comment out or delete the start_x=1 line if it exists. Save and exit the file:
kernel=rpi4-u-boot.bin
arm_64bit=1
enable_uart=1
uart_2ndstage=1
enable_gic=1
# armstub=RPI_EFI.fd
disable_commandline_tags=1
disable_overscan=1
device_tree_address=0x1f0000
device_tree_end=0x200000
dtoverlay=miniuart-btThat’s all we need to change. Exit the chroot and unmount the disk image:
exit
sudo umount /mnt/raw3Deactivate the logical volume inside the volume group fedora:
sudo vgchange --activate n fedoraThen delete the virtual device:
sudo kpartx -d Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.rawStep 5: Installing the modified image
Two time-consuming tasks remain: compressing the image and installing it on a microSD card.
Compress the raw disk image to a .xz file, but this time keep the .raw file:
xz --compress Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw --keep
I recommend you keep the raw file if you want to make incremental changes in the future. Otherwise, remove the --keep parameter.
This command will take a while.
Finally, copy the modified disk image to a microSD card:
sudo arm-image-installer --image=Fedora-Server-37-1.7.aarch64.raw.xz --media=/dev/sda --target=rpi4 --addkey=/home/xeome/.ssh/id_rsa.pub --norootpass --relabel --resizefs -yThis command will take some time as well.
Step 6: Validation
Power on the RPi4. Observe the behavior of the red and green LED lights and the network lights during the boot process, which may take several minutes. The red and green led lights on one end will variously blink, or stay steady, or go out. The network leds will stay steady for several minutes and go out at least twice. At the end, the red and green leds will go out and the network lights will start to blink, indicating that Fedora is now booted and requesting an IP address from your network’s DHCP service.
Subsequent boots are much faster.
Find the dynamic IP address assigned to your Raspberry Pi using nmap or a similar tool on a Fedora machine or any other computer connected to your home network. Replace the CIDR range as necessary:
$ sudo nmap -sn 192.168.1.100/25
Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.106
Host is up (0.0048s latency).
MAC Address: E4:5F:01:AA:BB:CC (Raspberry Pi Trading)Connect to your new Fedora Server on the Raspberry Pi using ssh. Congratulations! You have successfully connected to your new Fedora Server on your Raspberry Pi!