Installation

Quick start

If you're too impatient to read everything below and you have a Raspberry Pi, then follow these steps:
1. Download the bedtime image
2. Write this image to a 4GB SD card with Macintosh or Windows software
3. Put the SD card in the Pi, cable it up to power and your network.
4. Browse to http://bedtime.local If you get no response, download the Windows driver
5. Set the database password and disable DHCP on your router
6. Log into bedtime, set your timezone, create parent logins, set up your children and their devices.

Required hardware

To install Bedtime on your network, you will need a spare computer to install Linux on. This can be an old one which is no longer capable of running the latest and greatest games or applications.
This computer will need to have a network connection to your ISP router, either through an Ethernet cable or via WiFi. Virtually any storage device will be sufficient, if it offers more than about 1GB of space.
The zipped SD card image for the Raspberry Pi credit card sized computer can be written to a 4GB SD card with tools such as the Win32 Disk Imager for Windows or PiWriter for Mac. The Pi is likely to offer the best combination of price, size and availability for those who have no spare computers.

Installation Steps

Fedora Linux is currently the platform of choice. This, with Pidora are the only platforms which have been tested with the latest bedtime version. The rpm works on both, or you can save yourself some trouble and download the Pi SD card image as per the quick start above. Please note that the image is set to the GMT. You must set bedtime to your own time zone on the settings page or do an awful lot of time zone conversions in your head.

If you don't have a Raspberry Pi, work through the [Fedora Installation] wiki page to install Fedora. Log into your new server and set the hostname:

[root@localhost ~]# echo "bedtime.local" > /etc/hostname

Reboot the server for this to take effect:

[root@localhost ~]# reboot

Log back in and find the IP address of your new server by typing this:

[root@bedtime ~]# ip address show | grep global

Download the latest RPM from the files page. It will look like bedtime-x.y-z.noarch.rpm. Connect to your bedtime server with Windows or Macintosh software. Use the root credentials and copy the RPM to /root.

Go back to the bedtime server and install the RPM with yum. This will also install a few dozen packages that bedtime relies on and disable one or two that conflict with it.

[root@bedtime ~]# yum -y localinstall bedtime-x.y-z.noarch.rpm

You don't have to type the entire filename; once you are at 'bed' just press the Tab key and Linux will finish the command for you. The Yum package manager will select a few dozen required packages and install them all in the right sequence. The installation will pause once or twice while loads of things happen in the background, but eventually you should see the 'Complete' message and be back at the prompt.

OVA method

If you intend to run bedtime as a virtual machine, download the OVA from the files page. This is similar to the Raspberry Pi image, in that it contains a minimal installation of the OS (Fedora in this case) with the bedtime RPM already installed. You can power on the VM after importing the OVA and continue with the web installation below.

Web Install

You can complete the installation from the comfort of a web browser. Fire up your favourite from Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera or even Internet Explorer. If you are using a Windows computer, you may need to install the Apple Bonjour driver. If you have iTunes or Safari installed you most likely have it already. If not, go to http://support.apple.com/kb/DL999 and install the Bonjour Print Services for Windows. With your browser suitably prepared, go to http://bedtime.local/ where you should see a simple install page. If you have not set a MySQL root password, you can set it here by entering the same password twice. You are not likely to need this password in the future, but it is good practice to password protect your databases. If you have set a MySQL password (you may have seen the suggestion during installation) then enter it here. The only other question you will have to answer, is if you want to stick to the DNS servers as they were (most likely from your ISP) or point to OpenDNS. The latter gives you the option to create an account for your network and block certain categories of Internet content. As with the Fedora install, the OpenDNS configuration is outside the scope of this document.
Once you press Submit, you will get to the last page of the installation (I told you it was simple) where you can open the Bedtime management site. Before that, you will need to make sure that your shiny new Bedtime installation has the monopoly on the distribution of IP addresses. At this point, there is still competition from your ISP router. On balance of probability, this is likely to be the trickiest part of the whole exercise. There are many ISP's who regularly issue new routers from a wide range of vendors and models.

Hacking your Router

Check out the [Routers] wiki page. Other than giving you a link to its web interface, there is very little Bedtime can do with your router. When you click the link you will almost be greeted by a login of some sort. You can try admin/admin (the first login for bedtime as well) or any combination of admin/administrator/root/password, especially on older models. Again, google the ISP and router combo for inspiration. Newer routers will be a little bit more secure. Have a look for a sticker on the (bottom of) the router with username and password details. You may have received the credentials in a letter from your ISP.
Once you're logged in, look for LAN or IP settings. You will need to find the 'DHCP server' setting and untick it to disable DHCP. Perform any Apply, Save or even Reboot action on your router. Once you have found the magic steps to disable DHCP on your router, please consider dropping me a line with the outline steps, and I will incorporate them into this wiki.
Well done, you have completed the installation. Treat yourself to a beverage or snack of your choice.

Over time, the devices on your network will come in on the devices page of Bedtime. Power one off and back on to confirm that this is the case. You may need to wait a while for everything to show up, but typically no more than 24 hours. If you get nothing, have another look at your router.