Headless Raspberry Pi

General
1

I am getting ready to install Node-RED in a new Raspberry pi 3, using Raspbian Stretch Lite, that will run headless. At this time the SD card is ready with the image and nothing else has been installed (eg. Node.js). My question: the installation script from the docs (https://nodered.org/docs/hardware/raspberrypi) is the recommended way to go for installing Node-RED with my setup? Any additional recommendation to ensure that GPIOs and serial interface will run smoothly after installation?

2

Yes, the script will install nodejs and serialport etc.

3

Awesome, thank you Dave !

4

It was a hassle-free installation and took less than 3 minutes. A quite smart script indeed!

rasp-script-end-result
rasp-script-end-result.png1323Ă—921 51 KB

1 Like
5

In case anyone is interested in building a Pi headless server I have written a step by step guide on doing this. Done carefully there is no need to ever connect the pi to a display, keyboard or mouse.
http://blog.clanlaw.org.uk/pi-headless-server.html

4 Likes
6

Just a footnote to @colin's excellent blog post:
It is actually possible (all things being equal) to set up a headless pi without even a wired ethernet connection. If in addition to the ssh file, you also add to the /boot directory a configuration file for wireless access (wpa_supplicant.conf), the operating system (Raspbian) will move the file to its correct location and use it to connect to your WiFi router. I use a file with a simple WPA configuration,

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=US
network={
	ssid="Your_Network_Name"
	psk="Your_Network_Password"
	key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

If you can't connect at raspberrypi.local, you might have to check your router to find the ip address for the pi, but it's nice not to have any connections to the pi except power.

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7

Thanks @drmibell I was not aware of that. I will give it a go the next time I build one and update the blog accordingly.

8

I always add the ssh file and wap_supplicant.conf. I also add a couple network entries in - one for my network, one for my daughters, one for my son's. That way where ever I bring/install the pi it will work.

1 Like