Setting up access to a headless Raspberry Pi is one of those tasks that should take a few minutes, but for some reason always seems to take much longer. The most common method is to configure Wi-Fi access and an SSH service on the Pi before starting it, which can go wrong in many different ways. This author, for example, recently spent a few hours failing to set up a headless Pi on a network secured with Protected EAP, and was eventually driven to using SSH over Bluetooth. This could thankfully soon be a thing of the past, as [Paul Oberosler] developed a package for SSH over USB, which is included in the latest versions of Raspberry Pi OS.
The idea behind rpi-usb-gadget is that a Raspberry Pi in gadget mode can be plugged into a host machine, which recognizes it as a network adapter. The Pi itself is presented as a host on that network, and the host machine can then SSH into it. Additionally, using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), the Pi can use the host machine’s internet access. Gadget mode can be enabled and configured from the Raspberry Pi Imager. Setting up ICS is less plug-and-play, since an extra driver needs to be installed on Windows machines. Enabling gadget mode only lets the selected USB port work as a power input and USB network port, not as a host port for other peripherals.
An older way to get USB terminal access is using OTG mode, which we’ve seen used to simplify the configuration of a Pi as a simultaneous AP and client. If you want to set up headless access to Raspberry Pi desktop, we have a guide for that.
Thanks to [Gregg Levine] for the tip!
I don’t want to diminish the possibilities of this feature. But the problem the author describes here hasn’t happened to me since I began using the Raspberry Pi Imager. It automatically adds wifi credentials, my personal login credentials as well as enables services like SSH by default.
Recent versions of Raspberry Pi Imager are broken and don’t actually do what they’re supposed to do, leaving users wondering what they did wrong and why they can’t connect to their new Pi.
thank you. I recently installed pi os with the imager and selected customization options as usual. but the pi didn’t get on the network
I had to connect a monitor and I saw it was asking for a username. I thought I may have forgotten to click “Apply” somewhere but it seems it’s an actual problem
Don’t use the RPI imager. So this may be useful. We’ll see… I use etcher to copy the PI OS image to the SD card, SSD Drive, or PCIe SSD. After the image is laid down, then connect drive to RPI. Now I have to hook up a monitor, keyboard to setup the initial user and make static IP connections to the network(s). Once that is done, then go back to headless access with ssh and change hostname, and other settings. It was so much easier with an initial user pi … But so it goes.
And I am the lucky individual who submitted the tip. And sadly Andrew I agree with you on the Imager. I downgraded to the much older version I am now using because of similar issues. Oddly enough all connected with the zany issue I tipped the site about.
Most off the shelf IOT devices use bluetooth for the initial wifi configuration. There are several phone apps to do this, such as BLEHero and nRF connect. Maybe that could be another alternative?
Bluetooth could be used in serial port mode. It can provide a console just like the UART header. Another option would be to switch the WiFi to AP mode and host a configuration page if it fails to connect to a network.
It definitely shouldn’t use anything that requires an app though.
I just wanted to mention that this is the way it works out of the box with the Beaglebone Black since 13 years (192.168.7.2 anyone?). I always thought that was a nifty feature and wondered why RPi didn’t do the same.
Because the Pi is supposed to be an educational tool (aside from all the ones that got gobbled up by corporations for embedded applications). You’ve got to remember the target demographic. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West.
Obviously, anything educational has to have all the complexity removed from it. Heaven forfend a person might actually learn something. Hence NOOBS, PINN, and Imager.
+10 for Blazing Saddles reference.
I looked into doing this but ultimately ended up using usb to 3.3v serial adapter. In my case it was a gizmo for work and our computers are super locked down and the end device wouldn’t be on my machine anyway so I didnt want to muck around with getting it to setup some random machines or machines and blah blah blah