RaspboCrate

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 (4GB RAM recommended)
SD card (32GB or larger)
Power supply appropriate for your Pi model
Network connection (Ethernet or Wi-Fi) for initial setup
Computer with an SD card reader for flashing the image

Prepare your RO-Crate data

RaspboCrate imports RO-Crate data from a USB drive. The drive must have a top-level catalog directory — this is how RaspboCrate recognises it as a data drive.

Inside catalog/, each collection lives in its own folder containing an ro-crate-metadata.json (the collection-level crate). Each item belonging to that collection lives in a subfolder, with its own ro-crate-metadata.json (the item-level crate) alongside the item's files (audio, video, images, transcripts, and so on).

USB drive
└── catalog/
    ├── MW6/
    │   ├── ro-crate-metadata.json          ← collection-level
    │   ├── MW6-001/
    │   │   ├── ro-crate-metadata.json      ← item-level
    │   │   ├── MW6-001-A.mp3
    │   │   └── MW6-001-A.eaf
    │   └── MW6-002/
    │       ├── ro-crate-metadata.json
    │       └── ...
    └── DWU/
        ├── ro-crate-metadata.json
        └── PEK2/
            └── ro-crate-metadata.json

A few practical notes about the layout:

The metadata filename may be the plain ro-crate-metadata.json or a prefixed form like MW6-ro-crate-metadata.json — both are recognised.
The difference between a collection-level crate and an item-level crate is encoded in the metadata itself (its @type and conformsTo profile), not the folder name. The folder layout above is the convention RaspboCrate expects.
Dot files and dot directories (for example macOS .Spotlight-V100 or .Trashes) are ignored, so you don't need to scrub them off the drive.

For users of the CrateWorks downloader, this is the shape of the data you end up with after exporting and unzipping selected items onto a USB drive.

Step 1: Download the image

Download the latest RaspboCrate image from the GitHub Releases page. Choose the Raspberry Pi Image asset (a .img.xz file). Leave it compressed — do not unzip it; Raspberry Pi Imager reads .img.xz directly.

Step 2: Write the image

Write the image to your SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager .

Insert your SD card into your computer
Open Raspberry Pi Imager
Select your Raspberry Pi device (for example, Raspberry Pi 4)
For the operating system, scroll to the bottom of the list and choose Use Custom, then browse to the image you downloaded (e.g. raspbocrate-v1.9.0.img.xz)
Select your SD card as the target
Click Write and confirm when warned that the SD card will be erased. You may be prompted for your password to authorise the write.
Wait for the writing and verification steps to finish, then eject the card

Step 3: First boot

Insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi
Connect the power supply
Connect to the raspbocrate-XXX Wi-Fi access point (no credentials required), or connect the Pi to your local network via Ethernet (DHCP must be available)
Wait for the Pi to boot (first boot may take 5–10 minutes depending on your Pi as containers initialise)
On a Raspberry Pi 5, the power LED will flash when all services are ready. The LED flashes for 2 minutes at a 1-second interval to signal that the system is available

Step 4: Access the admin interface

Once the Pi has booted, access the admin interface in your web browser:

http://raspbocrate.local/admin

If raspbocrate.local doesn't resolve, you may need to find the Pi's IP address from your router and use that instead.

On MacOS X, Chrome may fail to reach .local addresses. If that happens, try Safari or another browser. Or configure Chrome to be able to access the local network (Search "chrome allow .local access" for instructions).

Importing data from USB

With a USB drive prepared as described in Prepare your RO-Crate data, importing is straightforward:

Insert the USB drive into the Raspberry Pi
Open the admin interface
Navigate to the "Import" section
Select the USB drive and the collections to import
Click "Import" and wait for the process to complete
The admin interface shows a notification when the import has finished

Browsing catalogues

Once you've imported data, you can browse your catalogues using the Oni UI:

http://raspbocrate.local/

The catalogue browser provides full-text search, filtering by collection, language, and other metadata fields.

Troubleshooting

Can't find the Pi on the network

Ensure the Pi is connected via Ethernet or has valid Wi-Fi credentials
Check your router's admin page for connected devices
Try using an IP scanner tool like nmap or Angry IP Scanner

Services not starting

On a Pi 5, if the power LED doesn't flash after 10 minutes, the containers may have failed to start
Wait a few minutes after first boot for all containers to start
SSH into the Pi and check Docker container status: docker ps
Check container logs: docker compose logs

Need help?

If you encounter issues, please open an issue on GitHub .

Getting Started