Burstbytes

Raspberry Pi have made it super easy to just pick up an SD card, and have a lab device available at your fingertips. I had a spare Raspberry Pi Zero v1.1 lying around that I had purchased during an OzBargain deal for just $12 AUD, and had never gotten around to setting it up.

Raspberry Pi OS is based on Debian, and is extremely light weight – it runs smooth on a Raspberry Pi Zero v1.1 which only has 512mb of RAM!

All you’ll need is a minimum 8gb MicroSD card (but I’d highly recommend getting at least 16Gb or 32Gb to future proof it, it’s only a few more dollars), and a way to plug that card into a computer. Some devices like MacBooks have a SD card reader built in, but otherwise, you can buy a Micro SD to USB A/C adapter inexpensively off Amazon.

You can use any model Raspberry Pi for this based on what you plan on using it for. I plan to use this just as a lab device that might run some networking daemons which can be handed over Wi-Fi just fine (or use an ethernet adapter if required).

Getting started

First, we’ll need to install the Raspberry Pi Imager – this is a tool brought out by Raspberry Pi that can easily flash whatever OS you’re planning on using to any model Raspberry Pi. Once installed, you’ll want to plug your SD Card into your device, and choose your model Device and OS. I’m using a Raspberry Pi Zero and installing Raspberry Pi OS. Make sure your SD card is in Write mode (usually a little flick up on the side of the card).

Click Next, and then Edit Settings to enter OS customisation settings.

OS Customisation

My favourite part of this entire process is pre-configuring username and passwords, and network details in advance. Set a username and password, and configure your SSID (and any ethernet details on relevant models). You can optionally set a hostname and timezone details. Go to Services, and also configure SSH access by password. After this, click Save.

This will let you fully connect to the device without ever needing to plug in a screen and keyboard (which was always one of my most annoying quirks with any new lab setup).

You’ll get a pop up confirming that you’re going to override the data on the SD card. Confirm that, and wait for it to finish. Once finished, you’ll get a confirmation that you can remove the reader.

SSH Time

Once we’ve got everything on the Micro SD card, remove it from your PC and and put it into your Raspberry Pi. Plug it in with power, and optionally an Ethernet port (on wired models). Give it a few minutes, and keep an eye on your Access Point to see what IP your Raspberry Pi receives. In my case, it received an IP of 192.168.10.11. This is the IP that we’ll use to SSH in.

Once you have those details, from a PC that can reach this IP we can SSH into the Raspberry Pi using the details that we configured in the OS customisation screen. In my case, the username will be burstbytes, and my IP was 192.168.10.11. After you’ve successfully SSH’d in, you can then also change to being the root user of the device. You may need to put in your password again.

ssh burstbytes@192.168.10.11
sudo su

Conclusion

And that does it – Raspberry Pi have really made setting these devices up so quick and seamless – within 10 minutes I had installed the OS and gained root access to my Raspberry Pi, and other modules can now be installed to turn this into a valiant lab device. A great, cheap solution to having a lab device at home or in your office.