Nuts and Volts - May/June 2018

In addition, a virtual desktop interface is created when you run a headless Pi, i.e., no monitor or graphical desktop.

Here’s how to connect to your Pi via VNC. Boot up the Pi, and open up the menu bar by clicking on the Raspberry Pi logo in the upper left-hand corner. Go to Preferences, then Raspberry Pi Configuration. A window should appear. Go to Interfaces and enable VNC if it isn’t already (Figure 13).

After you “OK” the changes, the Pi may ask to reboot (if VNC wasn’t enabled). If so, reboot for the changes to take effect. When you get back to the home desktop screen, open up a Terminal window (the button looks like a black box at the top of the screen). Type in “hostname - I” to receive the IP address of the Pi, and remember this number.

Now you’ll need to download VNC Viewer from RealVNC on your laptop or computer (refer to Resources). Once that has downloaded, open it up to reveal a “VNC Viewer” window (Figure 14). Enter the IP address into the top box. You’ll be prompted to enter in your username and password before you’re connected! If you didn’t change it, the default login is “pi” and “raspberry” for the username and password, respectively.

Now let’s switch our focus to SSH. The concept of remotely connecting to your Raspberry Pi is the same except you only have access/control via the terminal. In other words, you control your Pi with text commands instead of clicking through a graphical display.

We’ll be connecting to the Pi through a Windows computer in this SSH guide. If you’re using something other than a Windows computer, see Additional Content in the Resources list for directions. Just like with VNC, you’ll have to first enable SSH in your Raspberry Pi Configuration menu. To review: Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration > Interfaces. Ensure that SSH is Enabled. You can also use “hostname -I” in the terminal to return the IP address now. You will need this IP address later.

Similarly to how we used RealVNC for a VNC connection, we’ll be downloading and using a client called Pu TTY (see Resources). Scroll down to where you see “putty.exe” in blue. If you’re not sure whether to download the 32- or 64-bit version, the 32-bit should run fine regardless. Download and run the file to open up a Pu TTY Configuration window (Figure 15).

Type in the IP address into the “Host Name (or IP address)” field, and click Open. You’ll see a Pu TTY Security Alert window which you can safely ignore by clicking Yes. Finally, the screen will prompt you for a username and password before you have access to your Pi. (Recall the default login is “pi” and “raspberry” for the username and password, respectively, if you haven’t changed it.)