Booting and Updating

Overview

Questions

• How do you connect to a freshly booted Raspberry Pi on the network?
• What are the first steps after logging in for the first time?

Objectives

• Find a Raspberry Pi on the network using ping
• Log in to the Pi via SSH
• Update and upgrade the OS packages

Running the OS for the first time

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Once you have written the operating system to the microSD card you can insert the card into the RPi and switch it on. If you configured the OS with a Wifi SSID and enabled ssh you should be able to access the RPi via the wireless network using your desktop or laptop computer.

Callout

First boot takes longer than usual

On its very first boot, the Pi automatically expands the root filesystem to fill the SD card. This can take a minute or two, during which the network interface will not yet be up. Wait until ping node01.local succeeds before attempting to SSH in.

How do I find my IP address?

In the setup stage, you connected your Pi to the CarpentriesOffline WiFi network and gave each node a name, for example node01. You can use the ping command to check it is connected to the network:

BASH

❯ ping -c1 node01.local
PING node01.local (192.168.1.48): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.48: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=27.346 ms

--- node01.local ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 8.019/9.380/11.158/1.315 ms

This performs a DNS lookup with the router and resolves the DNS address, node01.local to its dynamically-assigned IP address (here 192.168.1.48), then sends an ICMP “ping” packet to ensure we can reach it on the network.

Discussion

Trouble connecting to your Pi?

.local hostnames resolve automatically on macOS and Linux. On Windows they can be unreliable. If ping node01.local is failing, even after waiting a little while for the system to expand the root partition, use the hint below!

Give me a hint

Try the following in order:

1. Check you are using your Pi’s actual hostname: the examples in this lesson use node01, but you (or we) may have given yours a different name in the Raspberry Pi Imager. Check the label on your Pi, or ask your neighbour what name they set, and make sure your ping and ssh commands use that name rather than the example from the instructions.

2. Try SSH by name anyway: even if ping fails, SSH sometimes resolves .local names independently. Some routers also support bare hostnames without the .local suffix, so it is worth trying both:

   BASH

   ssh pixie@node01.local
   ssh pixie@node01

3. Reboot the Pi: if it failed to join the WiFi on first boot, a reboot usually fixes it. Wait a minute, reboot, then try again.

4. Use a network scanner: these free GUI tools list every device on your network along with its IP address. Look for a device named node01:

   • Windows / macOS / Linux: Angry IP Scanner

   • Windows only: Advanced IP Scanner

   • Command line (all platforms): nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24 (requires package install)

     Installing nmap

     Platform	Command
     Windows (PowerShell)	winget install nmap
     macOS	brew install nmap
     Debian / Ubuntu	sudo apt-get install nmap
     Fedora / RHEL	sudo yum install nmap

   Once you have the IP address, use it in place of the hostname:

   BASH

   ssh pixie@192.168.1.48

5. Ask your instructor: they can find the IP address from the router.

Instructor Note

.local resolution failures are most common on Windows. Linux learners in the same group are usually unaffected and can confirm the Pi is up. If a group is stuck, look up the Pi’s IP from the router interface and give it to them directly — this is the fastest recovery path.

Consider using a serial KVM controller software such as kvm-serial and HDMI capture interface to connect directly to the console of the user’s Raspberry Pi. The login screen prints the IP directly to the display.

Logging in to the Pi

Use SSH or login with a local console (if you have a monitor attached). Use the login details you used above to log into the Pi.

BASH

ssh <USERNAME>@<IP-ADDRESS>

In section 2, we set our username in the Raspberry Pi Imager to pixie, and the password set there was 0nl1n3.

Logging in should look something like this in your terminal:

Updating the software

Now you are connected, do an update and a full-upgrade:

BASH

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Key Points

• Use ping node01.local to confirm a Pi is reachable on the network before connecting
• SSH with ssh <username>@<ip-address> to log in
• Always update packages with sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y before installing software