PiHeadlessSetup.md

Setting up a Raspberry Pi Headless

Requires the ability to mount and edit the SDCard or other drive that will be used in the Pi. These instructions are for a current Linux desktop PC. See the links below for other operating systems.

These instruction work on my Linux Mint (Debian derivative) machine. See the links in each session for more specific instructions.

SSH

See: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/enable-ssh-raspberry-pi

1. Insert the SDCard. It should mount an display two partitions:
   1. boot - the boot partition
   2. rootfs - the root file system
2. Create a file on the boot partition call ssh:

   touch /media/$USER/boot/ssh
   

Wifi

See: https://howchoo.com/g/ndy1zte2yjn/how-to-set-up-wifi-on-your-raspberry-pi-without-ethernet

1. Insert the SDCard. It should mount an display two partitions:
   1. boot - the boot partition
   2. rootfs - the root file system
2. Use the plain text file editor of your choice to create a file at /media/$USER/boot/wpa_supplicant.conf
3. Enter the following contents into the file, changing the details to match your configuration:

country=CA # Your 2-digit country code
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
network={
    ssid="YOUR_NETWORK_NAME"
    psk="YOUR_PASSWORD"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Boot

1. Install the SDCard in the Raspberry Pi and start it up. After resizing the root filesystem it will reboot. You should now be able to logon with Username: pi and password raspberry.

Change the default username to something other than pi (optional)

See: https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/how-to-change-the-default-account-username-and-password And: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/6/html/v2v_guide/preparation_before_the_p2v_migration-enable_root_login_over_ssh

1. Logon to the pi (hostname should be raspberrypi) as pi using SSH ssh pi@raspberrypi you have configured. Become root: sudo su. Edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Find the line: #PermitRootLogin prohibit-password and change that line to, or enter a new line that is: PermitRootLogin yes. That section of the file should now look like this:

   # Authentication:
   
   #LoginGraceTime 2m
   #PermitRootLogin prohibit-password
   PermitRootLogin yes
   #StrictModes yes
   #MaxAuthTries 6
   #MaxSessions 10
   

2. Restart the sshd service: systemctl restart sshd

3. Give the root account a password with the passwd command.

4. Exit from root and pi accounts. All this is to allow you to logon as root since you won't be able to change the pi account name if anything is running under that account.

5. ssh to raspberrypi as root with the password you just set.

6. You can change the user name with the following two commands (change newname to your username):

   usermod -l newname pi                   # Change the default account name.
   usermod -m -d /home/newname newname     # Match the home directory to the new default name
   

7. Logout as root. Logon with the new account name.

Scripting

If you do this a lot, like I do, you may find a script like this helpful:

#!/bin/bash
MOUNT="/media/${USER}"
HOSTNAME="smartypi"
USERNAME="your_user_name"

touch ${MOUNT}/boot/ssh

cat << EOF > ${MOUNT}/boot/wpa_supplicant.conf
country=CA # Your 2-digit country code
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
network={
    ssid="SSID"
    psk="password"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}
EOF

echo $HOSTNAME > ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/hostname

cat << EOF > ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       localhost
::1             localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1         ip6-allnodes
ff02::2         ip6-allrouters

127.0.1.1       $HOSTNAME
EOF

cp ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/group ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/group.old
sed -e "s/^pi:/${USERNAME}:/" < ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/group.old | sed -e "s/:pi/:${USERNAME}/" | sed -e "s/,pi/,${USERNAME}/" > ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/group

cp ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/passwd ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/passwd.old
sed -e "s/^pi:/${USERNAME}:/" < ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/passwd.old | sed -e "s/\/pi:/\/${USERNAME}:/" > ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/passwd

cp ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/shadow ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/shadow.old
sed -e "s/^pi:/${USERNAME}:/" < ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/shadow.old > ${MOUNT}/rootfs/etc/shadow

if [ -d ${MOUNT}/rootfs/home/pi ]
then
        mv ${MOUNT}/rootfs/home/pi ${MOUNT}/rootfs/home/$USERNAME
fi

# Copy ssh credentials for continuity. Assumes tar file exists in the working directory.
tar -xzf ${HOSTNAME}.ssh.tgz -C ${MOUNT}/rootfs/home/${USERNAME}

# Set the local time zone for the system.
sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Toronto /etc/localtime