System configuration¶

DietPi-Config¶

Configure various system settings, from display / audio / network to auto start options. To start the system configuration, use the following command:

dietpi-config

Software overview¶

DietPi-Config - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive configuration via dietpi-config, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-config [<targetmenu_id>]
Available values for <targetmenu_id>:
    1           Open menu "Display Options"
    2           Open menu "Display Options" -> "Display Resolution"
    3           Open menu "Advanced Options"
    4           Open menu "Performance Options"
    5           Open menu "Security Options"
    6           Open menu "Display Options" -> "GPU Memory Options xxx"
    7           Open menu "Language/Regional Options"
    8           Open menu "Network Options: Adapters"
    9           Open menu "Netword Options: Adapters" -> "Ethernet"
    10          Open menu "Netword Options: Adapters" -> "WiFi"
    11          Open menu "Tools"
    12          Open menu "Tools" -> "Benchmarks"
    13          Open menu "Advanced Options" -> Overclocking xxx"
    14          Open menu "Audio Options"
    15          Open menu "Tools" -> "Stress test"
    16          Open menu "Network Options: Misc"
    17          Open menu "Network Options: Adapters" -> "Proxy"
    18          Open menu "Advanced Options" -> "Serial/UART"
    19          Open menu "Advanced Options" -> "APT"
    20          Open menu "Network Options: Misc" -> "Test IPv4 address"
    21          Open menu "Network Options: Misc" -> "Test IPv6 address"
    22          Open menu "Network Options: Misc" -> "Test domain name"

DietPi drive manager¶

Feature-rich drive management utility. It is a lightweight program that allows you to:

• Manage drives: Mount, format external drives
• Maintenance drives: Check and repair drives, resize (expand) filesystem, change reserved blocks count
• Set drive attributes: Set read only filesystems, set idle spindown time
• Move DietPi User data
• Transfer RootFS to external drive (Raspberry Pi and some ODROID boards only)
• Disable swap file, change swap file size
• Run benchmarks on drives
• Mount network drives (NFS and Samba)

To start DietPi-Drive_Manager, use the following command:

dietpi-drive_manager

Software overview¶

Setup a dedicated drive for DietPi¶

To use an additional drive (example USB drive) the following steps have to be done:

1. Run dietpi-drive_manager to bring up the main menu.
2. Plug in the drive you wish to use.
3. Select Refresh from the menu (if it doesn’t show up straight away, give it a few seconds for system to update, then try again).

4. Select the drive you wish to use from the list, then press Enter.

   

   If needed, format the drive before usage selecting the Format option (filesystem type description see below).
   Remark: Formatting drives can only be done unmounted.

   If needed, mount the drive via the Mount selection. If mounted, commands Unmount, Benchmark, User data, Swapfile and Read only are present.

   

Move the location of user data and swap file¶

You can move the location of the DietPi user data (default /mnt/dietpi_userdata) or the swap file to a different location on a target drive. This may be useful if your filesystem containing the DietPi user data resp. swap file has only little space left. Therefore execute the following steps (example user data, swap file is quite similar):

1. Run dietpi-drive_manager to bring up the main menu.
2. Have the target drive connected and mounted (see description above).
3. Select the target drive and press Enter.

4. In the drives menu select User data resp. Swapfile and follow the instructions.

5. Move user data:

   

6. Change swap file size:

   

Format filesystem types¶

Formatting filesystems lead you to these dialogues:

In the latter dialog you have to choose the filesystem type. The following selections may be chosen:

Move DietPi system to a larger SD card¶

If you want to extend your DietPi SD card space by moving the system to a larger memory card, this can be achieved by the following steps:

1. Shutdown your system and put the SD card into a card reader of a different systems.
2. Copy the SD card contents to the new (larger) SD card. This can e.g. be done using
   • the dd command (command line option)
   • balenaEtcher or Rufus (graphical user interface option)
   • gnome-disks (graphical user interface option)
3. Boot the system with the copied memory card.
4. Run dietpi-drive_manager to bring up the main menu.
5. Select the disk containing the root (/) partition and press Enter.

6. Select Resize and press Enter.

   

7. Reboot your system to expand the root filesystem to use the whole space of the new memory card.

A similar procedure may be used when moving the SD card contents to a smaller SD card. During this procedure you typically need to shrink the partition size (e.g. with parted or gparted) before copying the partition image to a different memory card. Also, do the resize to use the full space on the new card.

Mount network drive¶

If you want to mount a NFS drive or a Samba share, you can do this by:

1. Run dietpi-drive_manager to bring up the main menu.
2. Select Add network drive.
3. Select the type of network drive that you have.
4. Follow the prompts.

DietPi drive manager - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive drive management via dietpi-drive_manager, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-drive_manager [<command>]
Available commands:
  <empty>       Interactive menu
  1             Select an available drive mount which is then saved to: 
                /tmp/dietpi-drive_manager_selmnt
  3             Scan for new drives and re-create fstab non-interactively, 
                then exit
  4             Reset /etc/fstab with currently attached local drives 
                and /tmp + /var/log tmpfs mount 
                (command shall only used internally by DietPi-Installer)

DietPi file explorer¶

Lightweight file manager and explorer. To start DietPi-Explorer, use the following command:

dietpi-explorer

DietPi file explorer - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive file management via dietpi-explorer, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-explorer [<command>]
Available commands:
    <empty>     Interactive menu
    1           Select a file/dir mode
                - Return result for other applications to /tmp/.dietpi-explorer_selected_location
                - Return an error code when no selection is given
    1 <path>    Select a file/dir mode, start from <path>

DietPi autostart¶

Defines software packages to start when the DietPi OS boots up. Example, boot into the desktop with Kodi running. To start DietPi-Autostart, use the following command:

dietpi-autostart

DietPi autostart - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive autostart selection via dietpi-autostart, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-autostart [<index>]
Available values of <index>:
    <empty>     Interactive menu
    <not empty> Apply autostart <index> non-interactively

See the screenshot above for values of <index> left in the menu lines (0, 7, 16,…).

DietPi services¶

Provides service control, priority level tweaks and status print. To start DietPi-Services, use the following command:

dietpi-services

Software overview¶

If DietPi services are called via the command line without arguments, an interactive menu to apply service modes and settings comes up:

The dialog to tweak a service is entered by highlighting the service (keys Up and Down) and pressing Enter. The configuration dialog (example: cron service) looks like this:

DietPi services - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive handling via dietpi-services, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-services [<command> [<service_name>]]
Available commands:
    <empty>     Interactive menu
    status      Print service status info
    start       Start service <service_name>
    stop        Stop service <service_name>
    restart     Restart service <service_name>
    enable      Autostart service on boot <service_name>
    disable     Do not autostart service on boot <service_name>
    mask        Mask service to prevent its usage entirely <service_name>
    unmask      Unmask service to allow its usage <service_name>

Available service_names:
    <name>      Apply command to a single available systemd or sysvinit
                service <name> (e.g. "cron")
    <empty>     Apply command to all available services known to DietPi
                - Masked services are skipped unless command is "unmask".
                - Disabled services are skipped if command is "restart".
                - Services required for network or shell sessions are skipped.
                - You can include/exclude services by editing the following file:
                  /boot/dietpi/.dietpi-services_include_exclude

Example:

root@dietpi:~# dietpi-services status

 DietPi-Services
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Mode: status 

[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | cron                 active (running) since Mon 2025-02-10 05:06:57 CET; 7h ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | ssh                  active (running) since Fri 2025-01-17 15:03:59 CET; 3 weeks 2 days ago
[ INFO ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-vpn           inactive (dead)
[ INFO ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-cloudshell    inactive (dead)
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-ramlog        active (exited) since Fri 2025-01-17 15:04:00 CET; 3 weeks 2 days ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-preboot       active (exited) since Fri 2025-01-17 15:04:00 CET; 3 weeks 2 days ago
[  OK  ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-postboot      active (exited) since Fri 2025-01-17 15:03:59 CET; 3 weeks 2 days ago
[ INFO ] DietPi-Services | dietpi-wifi-monitor  inactive (dead)
root@dietpi:~#

DietPi LED control¶

Change triggers for the status LEDs on your SBC/motherboard. To start DietPi-LED_Control, use the following command:

dietpi-led_control

Depending on your used hardware, the number of entries in the dialog will change.

DietPi cron¶

Modify the start times of specific cron job groups. To start DietPi-Cron, use the following command:

dietpi-cron

DietPi JustBoom¶

Change the audio settings. To start DietPi-JustBoom, use the following command:

dietpi-justboom

If the sound output is configured, the following dialog appears:

If no sound output is configured, the following dialog appears:

In this case you have to e.g. install a sound program package via dietpi-software or configure the sound output e.g. via dietpi-config.

DietPi display¶

DietPi Display allows the configuration of console display modes and rotation via KMS/DRM (Kernel Mode Setting, Direct Rendering Manager). This is e.g. valid for a local display of the Raspberry Pi and the NanoPi M6:

dietpi-display

DietPi survey¶

DietPi Survey allows the DietPi project to obtain general information regarding your system and installed software. To start DietPi-Survey, use the following command:

dietpi-survey

Software overview¶

#!/bin/bash
((aDIETPI_VERSION[6.34]++))
((aGIT_BRANCH[MichaIng/master]++))
((aDEVICE_NAME[Virtual Machine (x86_64)]++))
((aCPU_ARCH[x86_64]++))
((aCPU_COUNT[2]++))
((aDISTRO_VERSION[buster]++))
((aAUTOSTART_OPTION[${aAUTOSTART_NAME[0]:=0}]++))
((aAUTO_SETUP_AUTOMATED[0]++))
((aNETWORK_INTERFACE[eth0]++))
# -------------------------
# DietPi-Software installs
# -------------------------
((aSOFTWARE[${aSOFTWARE_NAME6_34[103]:=103}]++))
((aSOFTWARE[${aSOFTWARE_NAME6_34[104]:=104}]++))

dietpi-software list | grep ' =2'

# dietpi-software list | grep ' =2'
id 103 | =2 | dietpi-ramlog: minimal, optimised logging | | https://dietpi.com/docs/software/log_system/#dietpi-ramlog
id 104 | =2 | dropbear: lightweight ssh server | | https://dietpi.com/docs/software/ssh/#dropbear

dietpi-survey

grep 'SURVEY_OPTED_IN' /boot/dietpi.txt

# grep 'SURVEY_OPTED_IN' /boot/dietpi.txt
SURVEY_OPTED_IN=1

DietPi survey - Command line usage¶

Beside the interactive setting via dietpi-survey, there is the option of the shell command line:

Usage: dietpi-survey [<command>]
Available commands:
    <empty>     Interactive menu to opt in or out
    1           Send survey data or empty file, based on previous user choice