Here's what you'll need
- Pi connected on the same network as you
- Access to your router's web interface or we'll scan the network from our pc
- SSH client software (Putty, or through the linux command line)
- Coffee and doughnuts
Plug in and go
Plug in your SD card into the Raspberry Pi, no SD card setup yet? Check out my guides
Write a RaspBerry Pi SD Card In Linux Command Line
or
Write a Raspberry Pi image to an SD card in Windows
Once you have an SD card inserted into your Pi, Connect up a power supply and plug it in to your network
Connecting to your Pi with the hostanme
By default, most images you'll be running on the Raspberry Pi will have the default hostname of raspberry. Depenidng on your working computer and the network your'e on, you may be able to access the Pi with only the hostname (instead of the IP address). You can SSH into your pi (using the terminal or software like putty) using the hostname or hostname.local
ssh pi@raspberry
or
ssh This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you are able to connect using the hostname, you can use the command ifconfig, to find the Pi's local IP address
ifconfig
Finding the Raspberry Pi on the network
If you cannot access the Raspebrry Pi with the hostname alone, you will need to find the IP address. This is the most difficult step, but I'll walk you through it. By default, your network router will assign an IP address to the raspberry pi automatically. We need to find that address. There are several ways to do this, we'll discuss two different ways to finding your pi on the network.
Method 1 - Logging into you router's web interface
The easiest is to login to your router's interface using your web browser.
Since every manufacturer’s interface is different, we are using mine shown here as an example, when I click on Network Map > Clients it shows me all devices that are connected to the router (wireless or wired). We are looking to find raspberry pi as a wired connection shown here in the upper right with an IP address of 192.168.138.64
Your network and router interface will vary (192.168.1.xxx or 192.168.0.xxx), make note of the address you find for the raspberry pi, we'll need it for the next step.
Method 2 - Scanning your network from your pc/laptop
In Windows/Mac/or Linux you can download a free program called Angry IP Scanner http://angryip.org/download/
You just input the IP address range that your network is running (typically 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255 or 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.255) and hit Start
You can also scan form the command line in linux using a tool called nmap
Install Nmap
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nmap
then scan and find the pi (substitute 192.168.138.* with your network IP range (typically 192.168.1.* or 192.168.0.*)
nmap -v 192.168.138.* | grep "raspberrypi"
Connect to the raspberry pi remotely
Now we have the IP address, we'll ssh into the raspberry pi, with windows you can download a free program called Putty. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
| For Windows on Intel x86 | |||
| PuTTY: | putty.exe | ||
Run the program putty and find Specify the destination you want to connect to and type in the IP address of your raspberry pi, leave everything else default
or from the linux terminal type
ssh pi@<ip-address-of your-pi>
either method you choose, the first time you connect, you'll be prompted "Are you sure you want to connect, answer Yes
Raspberry Pi Default login credentials are
Login: pi
Password: raspberry
Once connected, you'll have a terminal similar to the one shown here
Configure the basic setup of the raspberry pi remotely
We need to proceed with a few steps to configure your pi
In the ssh terminal type
sudo raspi-config
You'll see this
We are going to proceed with 4 steps navigating the setup menu to make sure your pi is fully configured, just navigate through the terminal with these steps outlined below
- Step 1: Expand Filesystem
We just need to make sure that we can use the entire SD card installed. Highlight (up/down arrows) Expand Filesystem and hit enter. Once complete hit enter to return to the menu above
- Step 2: Change User Password
Highlight Change User Password and hit enter. You'll be prompted to enter in your new password (so it will no longer be the default: raspberry). Once complete hit enter to return to the menu above
- Step 3: Enable Boot to Desktop (Optional)
If you do plan on using the pi in the future with an external display, you can choose to highlight and select this option. Booting to desktop if not needed will just waste resources if you plan on keeping it headless.
- Step 4: Internationalisation Options
You change the time zone here to match your location. You can change the default keyboard layout and language as well. I have mine set Time Zone: US/Central, Language: en-us-UTF8
All of the other options are not needed for our typical setup. You can now arrow across and highlight finish and hit enter to exit the setup menu. It will prompt you to reboot the pi, select <Yes>. We're almost done at this point!
Final configuration for our pi
Log back into the pi using ssh, we will need to input the new password you choose to login.
- Update the software on your pi
In the ssh console terminal type
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Select Y and hit enter when prompted. This will download and update all of the software packages that are currently installed. This may take 5-10 minutes, here's the point you'll need to grab the coffee.
Update the distribution if available
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Update firmware if available
sudo rpi-update
I always like to reboot after any major updates
sudo reboot
- Assign a statc IP to the raspberry pi
Do this so you can always connect to your raspberry pi with the same IP address
First we'll make a copy of the original configuration file, in case something may happen (nothing wrong ever happens so you can skip this step :) )
sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.old
Next we edit the network configuration file
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
You should have the default /etc/network/interfaces file that will look like this
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
auto wlan1
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
We will change the above file to this. Replace the section labelled under eth0 with the static IP information for your network, the new file should look like this
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.42
network 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8
dns-nameservers 8.8.4.4
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
auto wlan1
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
Here's is a look at the same file above, with only the eth0 section, broken out as an example of what needs to be edited. Items to edit = Yellow, My comments (do not include in file) = blue
auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.42
#change IP "address" in your network that you want the raspberry pi to be on (ie: 192.168.0.200 or 192.168.1.200) keep the first 3 octets the same as your network
network 192.168.0.0
#change "network" to the address of your network, (typically it will be 0 ie: 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.1.0) The first 3 octets will be the same as the IP address
netmask 255.255.255.0
#leave this the same for typical networks
broadcast 192.168.0.255
#"broadcast" is the same 3 octets as your IP and network address, with the last being 255 (ie: 192.168.0.255 or 192.168.1.255)
gateway 192.168.0.1
#change "gateway" this to the IP address of your router (Typical router's end in .1 or .254)
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8
# add this to allow dns resolution on you static interface (8.8.8.8 is a public DNS server)
dns-nameservers 8.8.4.4
# add this to allow dns resolution on you static interface (8.8.4.4 is a public DNS server)
After your are done editing in nano, hit ctrl-x and save the configuration
Reboot the pi for all the changes to take effect
sudo reboot
Setup Wifi on your raspberry pi
If you have a USB wifi adapter, you can use my guide where I walk through the steps of setting up the wifi access through the command line
Raspberry Pi multiple WiFi setup through the command line
You're done with the basic setup of the raspberry pi, now have some fun!
