Raspberry Pi- Remote Access

Intro

Remote control over the local network

Sometimes you need to access a Raspberry Pi without connecting it to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Perhaps the Raspberry Pi is embedded in a robot or mounted in an inconvenient location. Or maybe you don’t have a spare monitor. To remotely control your Raspberry Pi from another device on your local network, use one of the following services:

• SSH (Secure SHell)- provides secure access to a terminal session on your Raspberry Pi.
• VNC (Virtual Network Computing)- provides secure access to a desktop screen share on your Raspberry Pi.
  • All you need is another computer, a local network, and the local IP address of your Raspberry Pi.
• Raspberry Pi Connect- shares your Raspberry Pi’s screen securely with no need to determine your local IP address.

Get Raspberry Pi’s IP address

• Show the Raspberry Pi’s IP:

  hostname -I

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SSH into Raspberry Pi

Enable SSH Server

Raspbian OS

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/remote-access.html#ssh

• Enable SSH Server on the Raspberry Pi:
  • Enable SSH via raspi-config
  • Alternatively, create an empty file named ssh (no extension) in the /boot directory of your Pi’s SD card

  sudo raspi-config

  Then, navigate to Interfacing Options > SSH > Enable

Hint

If you have an OS other than Raspbian (e.g. Ubuntu), you may need to first install the utility by running sudo apt install raspi-config

Connect to an SSH Server

Hint

Ubuntu does not have SSH server enabled out of the box, but can be installed by running sudo apt install openssh-server

• Open a terminal on your host machine (Linux/macOS) or use an SSH client (e.g., PuTTY for Windows)

  • Use the SSH command to connect to your Raspberry Pi. Replace <user> with your username (default is pi), and <ip-address> with the Raspberry Pi’s IP address:

  ssh <user>@<ip-address>

  Example:

  ssh pi@192.168.68.121

• Enter the password for the Raspberry Pi when prompted

• Once authenticated, you will be logged into the Raspberry Pi’s terminal remotely

<username>@<hostname> ~ $

Set up static IP

• See setting-a-static-ip-for-raspberry-pi

Optional: Setting Up Passwordless SSH (via SSH keys)

• Generate SSH keys on your local machine (e.g. laptop)
  • Skip this step if you already have it:

  ssh-keygen

1. Copy the public key to the Raspberry Pi:

   ssh-copy-id <user>@<ip-address>

2. You can now SSH into your Raspberry Pi without a password:

   ssh <user>@<ip-address>

Transferring Files to/from Your Pi

Use scp to securely copy files between your local machine and the Pi:

• Copy a file to the Pi:

  scp file.txt pi@<RPI_IP_ADDRESS>:/home/pi/

• Copy a file from the Pi:

  scp pi@

Screen share with VNC

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/remote-access.html#vnc