Pidora-Headless-Mode

Notice
Headless mode is currently a experimental feature, updates to headless mode and current issues can be found below

What is headless mode?

Headless mode is a system configuration which enables access to a raspberry pi, through ssh on a network, without the use of a monitor or keyboard plugged into the raspberry pi. This mode does require another computer to ssh into the raspberry pi. When this feature is enabled, firstboot is bypassed and disabled.

Security Warning!
If you are going to use headless mode it is critical that you change the root password as soon as possible, because Pidora is set with a default root password that is publicized.

Enabling headless mode on Pidora

To enable headless mode, you will need to create a file named "headless" in the boot filesystem on your SD card before you insert the card into your Pi.

On Linux:

Tutorial Video: http://youtu.be/ALUAmw6Mz_o

Insert the SD card into your system, and create a file named "headless" in the filesystem labelled "boot".

On Windows:

Insert the SD card into your system. Only the boot filesystem will be made available, because Windows will not be able to read other partitions on the card. Create a file named "headless" on that

Note
If you are using a Windows OS you will need to remove the .txt file extension on the headless file. More information on removing file extensions on eHow

There are two possible configurations for headless-mode "DHCP" configuration and "Static" configuration.

DHCP Configuration

If you would like to obtain an ip address dynamically via DHCP, leave the "headless" file empty.

Static Configuration

If you would like to specify a specific IP address you will need to include the IP Address, Netmask and Gateway, place the following information in the "headless" file:

Sample headless file Static Configuration

There have been two added options to the headless file:

• RESIZE this will initiate a rootfs-resize if you want to use the full amount of space on the SD card.
• SWAP sets the amount of swap you would like to use.

IPADDR=192.168.1.105
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
RESIZE
SWAP=512

Headless Mode is enable with DHCP -- How do I find out my ip-address?

After you have enabled headless mode with either the DHCP configuration or Static IP configuration, the ip address that has been assigned to Raspberry Pi will be played through the speakers 2 minutes after you have powered the Raspberry Pi, and 30 seconds later it will also flash your ip address through Pi's OK/ACT LED.

More information about ip-read and ip-flash

Headless Mode Script Update

Initially there were a few issues with dchp and headless mode since our release the headless script has been updated. It has not been officially added to the updates repo yet but, if you are interested in trying this mode out now you can copy and replace the old headon script with the updated one located at /usr/bin/headon

#!/bin/bash
headless=`ls /boot/headless* 2> /dev/null | head -n 1`
echo "Headless Mode Enabled"
if [ -e "$headless" ]
then
      systemctl enable sshd.service
      systemctl start sshd.service
      systemctl stop firstboot-graphical.service
      systemctl disable firstboot-graphical.service

      headtext=`grep '[0-9]' "$headless"`
      if [ "$headtext"  != "" ]
      then

              ip_address=$(sed -n 's/IPADDR=//p' $headless)
              ip_netmask=$(sed -n 's/NETMASK=//p' $headless)
              ip_gateway=$(sed -n 's/GATEWAY=//p' $headless)
              swap_size=$(sed -n 's/SWAP=//p' $headless)

              cat << EOF > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
IPADDR=$ip_address
NETMASK=$ip_netmask
GATEWAY=$ip_gateway
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
NM_CONTROLLED=yes
EOF

              systemctl restart NetworkManager.service

      else

              cat << EOF > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
NM_CONTROLLED=yes
EOF

      fi
else
     systemctl stop headless-mode.service
     systemctl disable headless-mode.service
fi

#Check headless file for resize option

#Check headless file for resize and swap option
grep -iE 'resize|swap' $headless

if [ $? -eq 0 -a ! -f /.resized ]
then
       touch /.rootfs-repartition
       touch /.resized
   echo $swap | grep -o '[0-9]*' > /.swap
       reboot
else
#resized already remove resize flag if it exists
       rm -f /.rootfs-repartition
   rm -f /.swap
fi

#read ip address
systemctl start ip-read.service
#flashing ip address
systemctl start ip-flash.service

SSH to the headless Pi

ssh root@{ip_address} Default user: root/raspberrypi