How to run Superbacked OS on Raspberry Pi

Table of contents

Requirements

Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB min, 4GB or more recommended)
Raspberry Pi 15W USB-C Power Supply
Raspberry Pi keyboard and mouse (or equivalent)
Raspberry Pi Micro HDMI to Standard HDMI (A/M) Cable (or equivalent)
microSD card or USB flash drive (used to run Superbacked OS, 16GB min, faster is better)
Plug and play webcam with USB-A connector (720p min, 1080p recommended)
HDMI display (720p min)

Recommendations (optional)

Running Superbacked OS on datAshur PRO² USB flash drive is recommended to enforce access control, data persistence and tamper resistance hardening.

Superbacked OS microSD or USB flash drive guide

Step 1: install Raspberry Pi Imager

macOS

Go to https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/, download and install Raspberry Pi Imager.

Ubuntu (or other Debian-based OS)

Heads-up: depends on Qt.

$ sudo add-apt-repository -y universe

$ sudo apt install -y rpi-imager

Step 2 (optional): disable Raspberry Pi Imager telemetry

macOS

$ defaults write org.raspberrypi.Imager.plist telemetry -bool NO

Ubuntu (or other Debian-based OS)

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/Raspberry\ Pi

$ cat << "EOF" > ~/.config/Raspberry\ Pi/Imager.conf
[General]
telemetry=false
EOF

Step 3: download Superbacked OS

Heads-up: for additional security, verify Superbacked OS release.

Go to https://superbacked.com/download and download Superbacked OS (Raspberry Pi).

Step 4: copy Superbacked OS to USB flash drive

Open “Raspberry Pi Imager”, click “CHOOSE OS”, then “Use custom”, select superbacked-os-arm64-raspi-*.img.xz, click “CHOOSE STORAGE”, select USB flash drive and, finally, click “WRITE”.

Raspberry Pi Imager

Step 5 (optional): enable datAshur PRO² global read-only and configure device as bootable (see product documentation for instructions)

Usage guide

Heads-up: password is “superbacked”.

Right-click “superbacked.AppImage” and click “Run as a program”

Run as a program

Update guide

Step 1 (if applicable): disable datAshur PRO² global read-only (see product documentation for instructions)

Step 2: boot Superbacked OS

Step 3: connect Ethernet cable

Step 4: run following commands

Heads-up: password is “superbacked”.

$ sudo overlayroot-chroot

$ superbacked-os-update.sh
Done

$ exit

$ sudo systemctl poweroff

Step 5 (if applicable): enable datAshur PRO² global read-only (see product documentation for instructions)

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