The Raxda Rock Pi S works great as a Companion Satellite host. It fits a USB host port and PoE capability into a very small shape.

DeckRack maintains builds of Companion Satellite for Rock Pi S at github.com/deckrack/companion-satellite-armbian.

Download a Companion Satellite image from our releases.
Unzip the file.
Flash it to a microSD card using an etcher app like balenaEtcher. An 8GB card works fine. Armbian recommends A1 rated microSD cards.
Insert the microSD card into the Rock Pi S. Power it by either USB-C or PoE Hat.
Connect the Rock Pi S Ethernet to a network with internet access.
If there is a blue flashing LED, the Rock Pi is probably working correctly.
In Companion, discovered Companion Satellite devices on the network are listed at Surfaces > Discover.

If you need to SSH into the Rock Pi S, use username root and password 1234. These are Armbian defaults- you should change them.

More swap space may be required to update Companion Satellite via SSH. In this case, run these two commands to make more room.

fallocate -l 4G /swapfile && chmod 600 /swapfile && mkswap /swapfile && swapon /swapfile
mount -o remount,size=2G /tmp/

Download Armbian Bookworm Minimal from https://www.armbian.com/rockpi-s/
Flash it to a microSD card using an etcher app like balenaEtcher. An 8GB card works fine. Armbian recommends A1 rated microSD cards.
Insert the microSD card into the Rock Pi S. Power it by either USB-C or PoE Hat.
Connect the Rock Pi S Ethernet to a network with internet access.
If there is a blue flashing LED, the Rock Pi is probably working correctly.

In macOS Terminal:

Enter this command
- SSH -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null root@rockpi-s
Provide the Armbian default password
- 1234
When prompted, set a new root password. Take note of the displayed IP address.
When prompted, make a new user. It doesn’t matter as Satellite is installed via root.
When prompted, accept the recommended user language.
If prompted, Skip generating other locales
Run these commands to make more swap space
- fallocate -l 4G /swapfile && chmod 600 /swapfile && mkswap /swapfile && swapon /swapfile
- mount -o remount,size=2G /tmp/
Run the Satellite install script
- curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitfocus/companion-satellite/main/pi-image/install.sh | bash
Install a specific Satellite version
- sudo satellite-update
When prompted, select version you want (probably latest stable or latest beta)
Teminal should report “config ok” and then “Update is complete”
In a browser, navigate to http://[IP of Rock Pi]:9999
That’s Companion Satellite!

Companion Satellite on Rock Pi S

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