teslausb

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This repo contains steps and scripts originally from this thread on Reddit

Many people in that thread suggested that the scripts be hosted on Github but the author didn't seem interested in making that happen. I've hosted the scripts here with his/her permission.

The original post on Reddit assumed that the archive would be hosted on Windows and that the Pi would be set up using a Windows machine but this Git repo welcomes the contribution of instructions for other platforms.

TODO/Asks

• Script to make this easy to get going. Ideally supports multiple targets (see further TODO/Asks)
• Copy to AWS S3 / Google Drive / Etc
• Copy to SSH/SFTP

Intro

You can configure a Raspberry Pi Zero W so that your Tesla thinks it's a USB drive and will write dashcam footage to it. Since it's a computer, you can run scripts on the Pi to automatically copy the clips to an archive server when you get home. The Pi is going to continually:

1. Wait until it can connect to the archive server
2. Archive the clips
3. Wait until it can't connect to the archive server
4. GOTO 1.

Disclaimer: It hasn't been confirmed that this solution will work with v9 of the Tesla software. It has been verified that when files are present in the TeslaCam directory they are archived to a server when the car gets back on the wireless network.

Prerequisites

Assumptions

• You park in range of your wireless network.
• Your wireless network is configured with WPA2 PSK access.
• You'll be archiving your dashcam clips to a Windows machine, and the Windows machine has a stable IP address on your home network.
• You'll be setting up the Raspberry Pi using a Windows machine.

Hardware

Required:

• Raspberry Pi Zero W: Adafruit or Amazon

  Note: Of the many varieties of Raspberry Pi only the Raspberry Pi Zero and Raspberry Pi Zero W can be used as simulated USB drives. It may be possible to use a Pi Zero with a USB Wifi adapter to achieve the same result as the Pi Zero W, but this hasn't been confirmed.

• A Micro SD card, at least 8 GB in size, and an adapter (if necessary) to connect the card to your computer.

• A USB A/Micro B cable: Adafruit or Amazon

Recommended: These will allow you to set up the Raspberry Pi without following the steps for a "headless" setup, which are a little more complicated.

• Mini HDMI to HDMI cable Adafruit or Amazon
• A USB keyboard.
• A micro USB power cable.

Optional:

• USB A Add-on Board if you want to plug your Pi into your Tesla like a USB drive instead of using a cable. Amazon
• A case. Don't want unprotected circuits hanging about! Official case at Adafruit or Amazon. There are many others to choose from. Note that the official case won't work with the USB A Add on board.
• USB Splitter if you don't want to lose a front USB port. The Onvian Splitter has been reported working by multiple people on reddit.

Software

Download Raspbian Stretch Lite

• Note: Bittorrent is dramatically faster than direct download.
• Note: Raspbian Stretch Lite was tested by the original poster on Reddit, other varieties may work, too.

Download and install:

• Etcher

Create your archive

Hosting on Windows

Set up a share on a Windows machine to host the archive. These instructions assume that you created a share named "SailfishCam" on the server "Nautilus". It is recommended that you create a new user. Grant the user you'll be using read/write access to the share. These instructions will assume that the user you've created is named "sailfish" and that the password for this user is "pa$$w0rd".

Get the IP address of the archive machine. You'll need this later, so write it down, somewhere. You can do this by opening a command prompt on the archive machine and typing ipconfig. Get the IP address from the line labeled "IPv4 Address". These instructions will assume that the IP address of the archive server is 192.168.0.41.

TODO Other hosting solutions

Set up the Raspberry Pi

There are four phases to setting up the Pi:

1. Get the OS onto the micro sd card.
2. Get a shell on the Pi.
3. Get the scripts onto the Pi.
4. Get the Pi set up for your Tesla.

Get the OS onto the micro SD card

These instructions tell you how to get Raspbian onto your MicroSD card. Basically:

1. Connect your SD card to your computer.
2. Use Etcher to write the zip file you downloaded to the SD card. Etcher works well and is multi-platform.

   Note: you don't need to uncompress the zip file you downloaded.

Get a shell on the Pi

If you have a monitor with an hdmi input, a mini hdmi to hdmi cable, a usb keyboard and a micro usb power cable you can hook up the devices to the Pi and configure it directly.

1. Insert the MicroSD card into the Pi.
2. Connect the keyboard, and monitor to the Pi.
3. Connect the power supply to the Pi using the port labeld "PWR" on the circuitboard.
4. When you're prompted for the password for the user "pi" use "raspberry" without the quotes.
5. Now skip to section below titled "Get the scripts onto the Pi".

If you don't have a keyboard/HDMI setup to boot the Pi and edit/transfer files directly, you'll probably want to connect to the Pi over USB.

• If you're using Windows, follow these instructions, then skip down to the section titled "Get the scripts onto the Pi".
• If you're using Linux or a Mac, follow these instructions, then proceed to the next section.

Get the scripts onto the Pi

Now that you have a shell on the Pi you can turn the Pi into a smart USB drive.

1. Enter the following command.

   sudo -i
   nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
   

2. Add this block to the bottom of the file specifying the actual SSID of your network and your actual PSK, keeping the quotes around both values.

   network={
     ssid="NETWORK"
     psk="PASSWORD"
   }
   

3. Press Control-O, Enter to save the file.
4. Press Control-X to return to the command line.
5. Configure the wifi to ensure that your Pi has access to your network.

   wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure
   

6. Run this command

   ifconfig wlan0
   

7. Verify that there's an IP address on your subnet assigned. If you don't see the IP address wait for a couple of seconds and re-run the command.
8. Try to ping your archive server from the Pi.

   ping -c 3 nautilus
   

9. If the server can't be reached, ping its IP address:

   ping 192.168.0.41
   

10. If you can't ping the archive server by IP address from the Pi you should go do whatever you need to on your network to fix that. If you can't reach the archive server by name from the Pi but you can by IP address then use its IP address, below, in place of its name.
11. Run these commands, subsituting your values:

    export archiveserver=Nautilus
    export sharename=SailfishCam
    export shareuser=sailfish
    export sharepassword=pa$$w0rd
    

12. Run these commands:

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cimryan/teslausb/master/windows_archive/setup-teslausb
    chmod +x setup-teslausb
    ./setup-teslausb
    

13. Run this command:

    reboot
    

Get the Pi set up for your Tesla.

If you set up the Pi with a keyboard and a monitor disconnect it and connect it to a PC. If you're using a cable be sure to use the port labeled "usb" on the circuitboard.

1. Wait for the Pi to show up on the PC as a USB drive.
2. Create a directory named TeslaCam at the root of the drive.
3. Eject the drive.
4. Plug the Drive into your Tesla.