HowTo: RaspberryPi – Controlling the RaspberryPi via SSH

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The big advantage of the RaspberryPi is not only that it is small, compact and relatively cheap, but also that it can be easily remotely operated from another computer.
There are basically two ways to do this:
Once by means of the software “VNC” which brings the desktop of the RasPi over the network or Internet on your computer. You can use your RasPi, as usual with Windows, with a mouse and a keyboard. Since this case but image and sound must be transferred for this control method, a fast (Internet) connection between RasPi and your computer.

Second, there is the possibility to use the SSH protocol to control your RasPi.
You control the RasPi only via text commands. This is a bit strange at the beginning, because you can not just “click around” and search for functions.
You have to know most of the commands. This scares off just at the beginning of something.
That’s why I’ve created an overview of the most common RasPi or Linux commands with examples here: RaspberryPI Commands cheat sheet

In this article, I’ll explain how you can connect to your RasPi with the program “PuTTy” (which uses the SSH protocol).

Hints for our lovely english readers: Basically, many of the articles on Nerdiy.de are translations from the original german articles. Therefore, it may happen here and there that some illustrations are not available in english and that some translations are weird/strange/full of mistakes or generally totaly wrong. So if you find some obvious (or also not obvious) mistakes don't hesitate to leave us a hint about that in the comment section. 
Also please don't get confused, that instead of a "dot" often a "comma" is used as decimal separator. 🙂

Safety instructions

I know the following hints are always a bit annoying and seem unnecessary. But unfortunately, many people who knew it "better" from carelessness lost their eyes, fingers or other things or hurt themselves. In comparison, a loss of data is almost not worth mentioning, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Even the coolest project is worth no injury or other annoyance. https://www.nerdiy.de/en/sicherheitshinweise/

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Requirements

Helpful Articles:
Before you start with the article, you should have prepared the RaspberryPi so that it can be reached via the network and controlled by SSH.

The following three articles describe what to do to prepare the RaspberryPi:
RaspberryPi – Setting up for Nerdiys!
RaspberryPi – The First Configuration!
RaspberryPi – Control the RaspberryPi via SSH

Required tools:
-none-

Required material:

In the following list you will find all the parts you need to implement this article.

Download the appropriate software

To connect to the RasPi via the SSH protocol you first have to download the program “PuTTy”. It is available for download at: www.putty.org/.
You need from there the category “MSI (Windows Installer)” the file from the column “64 bit”.
Only if your computer is a little older you should take as a precaution the “32bit” variant.
If you are not familiar with downloads yet, I recommend this blog article: Downloads/Uploads – How the files come from the Internet and disappear again.
There are many basics explained in detail again.

Install “PuTTy”

Of course, after you have downloaded the installation package for PuTTy you also have to install it.
If you are not familiar with the installation of a program yet, I recommend this blog article: Installing programs
There are many basics explained in detail again.

Connect PuTTy to the RasPi

After you have installed PuTTy you can start it. A dialog box opens with the title “PuTTy Configuration”. This looks complicated at first but you do not need much to connect to your RasPi. In order to connect to your RasPi you now have to enter the IP address of your RasPi under “Host Name (or IP adress)”. If you do not know the IP address of your RasPi and also not how to find out, then I recommend this article: Show/find IP address of the devices in the network
After you have entered the IP address in the text box, I recommend you to save it. This is done by adding a name in the text field “Saved Sessions”. I took the name “RasPi” as shown in the picture. After you have defined a name there, click on “Save” and the IP address will be saved with the given name “RasPi” in the field below.
Now you can see that in the list under the text box the name you entered before appears. In this case, the name “RasPI” has been added to the list. So you do not need to re-enter the IP address every time you start PuTTy, just click on the name of your RasPi you want to connect to. PuTTy then automatically searches for the associated IP address and connects to the RasPi. But we are not that far yet: To connect you with the RasPi you now click on “Open”.
This will open a black window and immediately after a warning. These informs you of a potential security risk. This alert indicates that the encryption key encryption key sent by the RasPi does not match the one in the putty configuration. This is not surprising, because you’re connecting to your RasPi for the first time. As soon as you click “Yes”, the key will be exchanged again. For the next (and all upcoming) connections the error message should not occur anymore.
You can confirm this warning with “Yes”. Then the window closes and you can see the black window. This window is called “console”. Through the console you can now communicate via text commands with the RasPi and tell him what to do or not to do.

Auf dem RasPi einloggen

However, before you can enter correct commands, you must first verify your access rights. But since you know the login data for your RasPi this is not a problem. In the console you will be prompted by “login as:” already to specify a user under which you want to log in. The user “pi” is preinstalled on the RasPi or by Raspian as standard. You enter “pi” and press enter. The console resp. The associated RasPi asks you for the corresponding password. If you have changed this, you only know this password. If you have not gotten around to changing it, the default password is “raspberry”. Do not be confused that the cursor does not move when typing in the password. This is just a safety feature. (If you still use the default password, please remember that this is a potential security risk.) How to change the password can be found in this article: RaspberryPI Commands Cheat Sheet)
After you have entered the correct password and confirmed with Enter, you will be welcomed with a small welcome text and then have the opportunity to enter first commands.
What this could be, for example, I have summarized in this article: RaspberryPI – commands cheat sheet

You now know how to connect to the RasPi via PuTTy or SSH.
If you also want to know how to control the RasPi via VNC – ie via a graphical interface with mouse and keyboard – I recommend you this article: RaspberryPi – Control the RaspberryPi via VNC

I hope everything worked as described. If not or you have any other questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Also, ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂

Fab

P.S. Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you appreciate it that I share these information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee box. 🙂

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