Remote access to your Raspberry Pi

That’s it—I’ve finally decided to start my homelab: a place to experiment, break things, learn, and start all over again.

I had a Raspberry Pi 4B sitting in a box, so I figured, why not jump in?

Discovering What’s on the Pi

I plugged it into my monitor to see what was on it. Turns out I had installed Ubuntu MATE desktop a few years ago. It worked… sort of. I connected to Wi-Fi and started downloading a few things, but every time I opened Firefox, the system froze. After several restarts and failed attempts, I decided Ubuntu MATE wasn’t the right fit—especially with only 2 GB of RAM.

Choosing the Right OS

To save resources, I went with Raspberry Pi OS Lite instead of the full desktop version. It boots incredibly fast and gives me a clean terminal-only environment—perfect for setting up a lightweight home server for experimentation.

Setting Up Remote Access (SSH)

Of course, I didn’t want to plug the Pi into a monitor every time I wanted to use it. Remote access via SSH is the way to go, and luckily, it’s very straightforward:

1. On your Raspberry Pi, open the terminal and run:

    sudo raspi-config
   

2. Go to Interfacing Options → SSH → Enable → OK → Finish.

3. Find your Pi’s IP address:

    hostname -I
   

4. From another computer, connect using:

    ssh <username>@<ip-address>
   

5. The first time you connect, you’ll get a security warning—type yes to proceed. Enter your password when prompted.

You should now see the Raspberry Pi prompt:

<username>@<hostname> ~ $

And that’s it—you’re now connected remotely and ready to start experimenting with your homelab!