Connect to Raspberry Pi 4 via SSH with LAN cable without HDMI/Monitor

I recently got a new RPi 4B and was struggling to get started with it. I looked around many tutorials but most of them required me to have a micro HDMI cable to be able to connect to a monitor/TV. Few of them did give an option to connect via LAN cable but were old tutorials and were not complete.
Therefore, this article addresses this gap and gives a process to connect a freshly baked Pi to a system and start programming.

We need:
1) Raspberry Pi (I had a Raspberry Pi 4B)
2) LAN Cable|
3) Wifi Router
4) Memory stick
5) A windows/linux system

Let’s get started:

1) On Windows/Linux system, flash the SD card with the rasbian OS and create an empty ssh.txt file in /boot/ folder.

Raspberry Pi imager

2) Once the OS has been written on the memory stick, remove it from the system and plug it into the raspberry pi.

Src: https://www.raspberrypi.org/app/uploads/2020/03/SD-READER-CU.jpg

3) Take the Ethernet (LAN) cable, connect one end to the wifi router. Connect the other end to the Raspberry Pi.
Note: At this moment, you should be able to see the Green/Orange LAN Port lights blinking signalling that the data is being transmitted.

Ethernet port lights glow

4) To connect the system to pi, you need pi’s IP. Use an app to find its IP from the home network. Since our Pi is already connected to the home network, all we need is to peek into the network and find out its IP.

I used an app called Network Scanner by Zoltan Pallagi. However, there are a number of Apps available to scan the home network.

Network Scanner — Android App

5) Once you have the IP of the raspberry pi, go to the system. SSH into the raspberry pi using the IP of raspberry pi from Step 4. For linux users,

Linux — command for ssh

Now, you will be asked to type a password for raspberry pi. For a new raspberry pi, the password is — raspberry
Once you log in, you will see something like this in your terminal.

Once successful login into pi

6) It’s an easy job from here. Now what you need is a VNC server. There are many, however, I prefer tightvncserver. Install it on raspberry pi.

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

Once installed, instantiate the server

tightvncserver

You should see something like

Upon successful instantiation of VNC server

7) Now, you need a client on your system to connect to this server. I use Remmina.

It can be directly installed from ubuntu software store or follow https://remmina.org/how-to-install-remmina/.

8) Start the Remmina client and set up a new connection. Add the details of the Pi as follows.

Set up new connection pipeline

Click on Save and connect.

9) Upon successful connection, you should see the desktop of raspberry pi.

Default desktop of raspberry Pi

You completed the setting up of pi. Now, enjoy working on your project.

Photo by Doran Erickson on Unsplash

Thanks for reading.

If you still face an issue, you can contact me at sharadrawat2402@gmail.com

Next up, let’s start interfacing other components with raspberry pi. First component is the mighty L298N H-bridge motor driver.

Interfacing L298N H-bridge motor driver with raspberry pi