#RaspberryPi – How To automatically connect to WiFi, enable SSH on 1st boot

Hi!

If you been playing around with Raspberry Pi, I’m sure you already know this. For me this was a 1^st timer, so I must write this down for the future myself.

When I started testing the Raspberry Pi 4, I got one of the complete kits, so I got the official red keyboard and mouse.

I figure out I also need a couple of extra video cables. Now we need a [Micro HDMI to HDMI Cable] to connect one of the 2 video outputs to an external monitor.

This is the (cheap) monitor I’ve been using for a long time, however by default the RPi does works in a valid resolution for this monitor.

And, the 2 main tasks you perform when you start your RPI are

• Configure Wireless Connection
• Enable SSH

Of course, you can do this directly in the SD with the Raspbian image (see references). And it’s also very easy to do.

You need to create a file named [wpa_supplicant.conf] in the root of the SD card with the following information:

country=ca
update_config=1
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
 scan_ssid=1
 ssid=" Your WiFi SSID"
 psk="You amazing password"
}

The file content is very straight forward to understand. Main values to complete are [ssid] and [psk]

Important: This only works the first time you boot the Raspberry Pi with the SD card. The SO search for [wpa_supplicant.conf] and performs the connection. If you already booted the device, you need to create a bootable SD card again.

If you also want to enable SSH, you need to create a blank file named [ssh] to the main partition.

And that’s it, your Raspberry Pi will be connected to the Wifi and with SSH enabled. At this moment we can use a tool like AngryIp (see references) to detect the new device in the network

My new device IP is: 10.184.1.231, so now I can use any SSH client (like Putty, see references) to connect to the device. As usual the default credentials are

• user: pi
• password: raspberry

You can now start working with your Raspberry Pi !

Of course, at this moment you should change your default password and update everything with a command like this one

sudo -- sh -c 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade -y; apt-get dist-upgrade -y; apt-get autoremove -y; apt-get autoclean -y'

Happy coding!

Greetings @ Toronto

El Bruno

References

• Raspberry Pi, Download Raspbian https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
• Raspberry Pi, Installing the Image https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md
• AngryIP https://angryip.org/
• PuTTY: a free SSH and Telnet client, https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/