Operating RevPi without Screen and Keyboard

You think reading is boring? Dirk also explains in the video how to “headlessly” use the RevPi Flat! Here’s the video.

The RevPi Flat can only be operated without a separate keyboard, mouse and screen, i.e. headlessly. This works via an encrypted connection (SSH) between your PC and the RevPi Flat.

In the headless operation described here, only the command line input is available to you as a user interface.

Required hardware

  • PC
  • Power supply unit for the power supply
  • Ethernet cable

Required software

Download these programs and install/save them on your PC:

  • Windows: Advanced IP Scanner (For Linux you can use arp-scan, for example)
  • PuTTY or a comparable program

Preparation

  • Connect your router and your RevPi Flat with the Ethernet cable or
  • Set up a WLAN connection.
  • Connect your RevPi Flat to the power supply.

Attention: an initial start-up of the RevPi Flat is not possible via WLAN. The WLAN can only be used after you have accessed the device via SSH or terminal and configured the WLAN connection.

Let”s go!

In the first step, we use the Advanced IP Scanner to determine the IP address of the RevPi Flat. We need this to establish an SSH connection from your PC to the RevPi Flat.

  • Open the Advanced IP Scanner.
  • Click on the IP button.
  • Advanced IP Scanner automatically detects the IP address range in which your computer is located.
  • Click on “Scan”.

Advanced IP Scanner now scans the subnet in which your PC is located. This process may take a few minutes. The results are displayed in the results list:

  • Make a note of the IP address

Tip! Advanced IP Scanner also shows you the MAC address of the devices. If you have more than one RevPi product on your network, you can identify the device you are looking for by comparing the MAC address on the front of the RevPi with the results of the Advanced IP Scanner.

If you can”t find the IP address this way, you can alternatively find the IP address in the DHCP server of your router. You have to log in to the web interface of your router. Under “Connected Devices” (or similar depending on the router) you will find your RevPi Flat.

In this step we will use Putty to establish an SSH connection between your PC and the RevPi Flat.

  • Open Putty.
  • Write the IP address of your RevPi Flat into the “Host Name (or IP address)” input field.
  • In the “Connection type” selection field, click on SSH.
  • The “Port” input field now shows the value “22”.
  • Click on “Window > Translation” in the “Category” tree.
  • Select the character set UTF-8 in the “Remote character set” selection field. The selection prevents special characters and umlauts from being displayed incorrectly.
  • Click on “Session” in the “Category” tree.
  • Write any name for the connection in the “Saved Sessions” input field.
  • Click on Save.

The settings for the connection are now saved. You can call up the connection at any time in the “Saved Sessions” selection field with “Load”. This way you don”t have to re-enter the settings every time.

  • Click on the “Open” button.

The connection to the RevPi Flat is established.

  • Enter your username and password. Both are written on the sticker on the side of your RevPi Flat.

You can now use your RevPi Flat.