How to set up a Raspberry Pi

headless-rpi.md

Install Rasbian

Most of the time I use a headless Raspberry Pi which I want to access via ssh. These are the steps to do that.

1. Download Rasbian
2. Install the downloaded file on a SD card

• Find the disk number of the SD card with diskutil list
• Unmount the disk with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk<number>
• Copy data on the SD card with sudo dd bs=1m if=<img-file> of=/dev/rdisk<number> conv=sync

3. Configure ssh and WiFi settings as described on stackoverflow

• Enable ssh by creating an empty file at /Volumes/boot/ssh
• Configure WiFi by providing a file at /Volumes/boot/wpa_supplicant.conf with the following content

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid="<ssid>"
psk="<pwd>"
}

4. Check if the Raspberry Pi is connected to the WiFi with ping raspberrypi.local
5. ssh onto it with ssh pi@rasbperrypi.local (password is raspberry)

If WiFi is not needed at all, you can disable it with iwconfig wlan0 txpower off. Use on to turn it on again.