Raspberry Pi Project

Hello everyone, I thought I'd ask this question here in hope of getting some ideas and some help.
I've never bought a Raspberry Pi before, but after watching some videos and projects of it I've caught an interest for it, now I thought "Hey, this would make a cool college project". Why is that? Well I attend an IT-College and I'm currently learning about networking, servers etc. and because of that I decided that Raspberry Pi would be perfect for a project.

The first idea I have is to do something like this but since I've never bought a Raspberry before I'm so unsure on what components I need and such, and I'm also very unsure if this would make a good project, so that's where you come in, if you have suggestions, tips or anything then please feel free to post.
The reason I want to do the project above is because we're also learning about network security, and I'm very interested in it aswell, but I have a hard time choosing what I want to do since there's so many cool projects.

I've broken down the ideas I've come up with so far into a list

• Portable Hacking Station
• Media Center
• Retro Pi
• Bitcoin Miner
• Gameboy
• Tor Router
• NAS Server
• BitTorrent Client

And what I want to know is, which Raspberry is best? What are the basic components needed? What's a good project for it? Please post a reference link to your answer.
If I do decide to go with the Portable Hacking Station, then how do I set it up with Raspberry Pi 2? And can someone give me a link to the best and cheapest battery for this? It felt pretty unclear when looking at different types of batteries, as I don't know which one has the best compability and is the most compact one.

The Pi is awesome, would totally recommend you get one.

You might post this same question on the LinusTechTips forum as well, they'll have a lot of ideas and advice.

I use a Raspberry Pi model 2 B as my home server. It currently runs the following:

• SSH server
• Samba server (for file sharing)
• 3D print host server (controls 3D printer and provides livestream from camera)
• VPN server
• BitTorrent client

It handles all of the above without missing a beat. The uptime on it is currently more than 250 days. For only $35, I'd say the model 2 B is definitely the best for your usage - it has ethernet, 4x USB ports, GPIO pins, and uses less than 7 watts under load.

Thanks for the responses, but when ordering the Raspberry Pi only the "computer" is included right? There's no power cord or anything included as I've understood?
And how much do you recommend buying a wireless adapter? I've got the router pretty far from my room and it'd be a hazzle to have an ethernet cable connected to the Pi.
Is there like a package or anything that I can buy with the basic components required?

yes, recommended components: USB wifi dongle, USB bluetooth dongle, SD CARD (16gb+ with raspian wheezy image, or windows 10, just based on preference), a microUSB charger cable, and (if portable) a Duracell rechargeable charging station.

Creeper9207, on 08 February 2016 - 04:05 PM said:

yes, recommended components: USB wifi dongle, USB bluetooth dongle, SD CARD (16gb+ with raspian wheezy image, or windows 10, just based on preference), a microUSB charger cable, and (if portable) a Duracell rechargeable charging station.

Can you perhaps link the recommended components? I already know what SD Card and WiFi dongle I want, I'm mostly unsure about the portable charging station and charger cable.
Why do I need a bluetooth dongle by the way? What's the pros of having that?

Add NAS server to the idea list!

apemanzilla, on 06 February 2016 - 01:45 AM said:

• SSH server
• Samba server (for file sharing)
• 3D print host server (controls 3D printer and provides livestream from camera)
• VPN server
• BitTorrent client

I've been meaning to ask this earlier, are you doing this on one single Pi? If so then that's awesome, can I setup a Pi to use it as a VPN server, BitTorrent client and a NAS server?

Creator, on 08 February 2016 - 04:57 PM said:

Add NAS server to the idea list!

Thanks for the suggestion, I've updated the original post! :D/>

TheOddByte, on 09 February 2016 - 10:11 AM said:

I've been meaning to ask this earlier, are you doing this on one single Pi? If so then that's awesome, can I setup a Pi to use it as a VPN server, BitTorrent client and a NAS server?

A Pi is just a very small, low-power computer, it can run all of those it just may become a bit slow.

Yes, it is all running on a single RPi B2. It has currently been running for 110 days without an issue.

The RPi 2 is quite powerful for its price - quad core 1 GHz ARM processor and 1 GB of memory may not seem like much, but in a headless server setup it's plenty.

I have used the Camera module together with a web server and some shell scripts to make a "security cam". For the hacking station you should at least have wlan and some battery pack(Many phones have that micro usb, so you can get a micro usb phone battery bank) and a touch controlled display for the Raspberry pi, also there is a special version of kali for the raspberry pi( http://docs.kali.org...rm-raspberry-pi ) and that should be all.

Edit: Usb keyboard might be helpful.

Luca_S, on 09 February 2016 - 06:10 PM said:

I have used the Camera module together with a web server and some shell scripts to make a "security cam". For the hacking station you should at least have wlan and some battery pack(Many phones have that micro usb, so you can get a micro usb phone battery bank) and a touch controlled display for the Raspberry pi, also there is a special version of kali for the raspberry pi( http://docs.kali.org...rm-raspberry-pi ) and that should be all.

Edit: Usb keyboard might be helpful.

Yeah I already knew that, as I've put a link to that in the original post, where they show what keyboard etc. is best to use and they also point to that special version of Kali( although I'd prefeer Parrot )

How about using it to host a website?

If you have an external hard drive you can make your own cloud storage server too (may be good to combine with the NAS).
https://owncloud.org/
http://www.tonido.com/