Headless setup of Ubuntu on NanoPi NEO

by Adam Świątkowski
5 mins read
NanoPi NEO v1.4

This guide shows how to run Ubuntu 20.04 with SSH and DHCP enabled on NanoPi NEO v1.4 Focal Fossa. “Headless” in this context means that no monitors or keyboards are connected to the IoT device.

NanoPi NEO v1.4 is made by FriendlyARM for makers, hobbyists and fans.
NanoPi NEO v1.4 is made by FriendlyARM for makers, hobbyists and fans.

Thanks to the great job of NanoPi authors headless mode (i.e. DHCP, SSH, network configuration enabled) is activated out of the box after we flash image of the OS to the microSD card.

1. Downloading and flashing image of OS to the microSD card

Firstly, we need to download OS image. Navigate to this link. This is the official Google Drive’s volume with images for NanoPI. Let’s download the newest one which for me is named: nanopi-neo_sd_friendlycore-focal_4.14_armhf_20210618.img.zip.

NanoPI Download
NanoPI Download volume

2. Flash image to the microSD card

In the second step we need to unpack just downloaded zip file which contains the img file. Next, download and install the flashing software Etcher. After installing Etcher, we need to select the image file and flash it to the microSD card (I recommend to use not worse card than class 10 microSD card with 32GB).

Etcher
In Etcher select the img file and microSD card

3. NanoPi is almost ready, let’s locate the device

After flashing the microSD card, we need to connect it to the NanoPi device. After that, you can connect the Ethernet cable and power cable. You should see green and red lights blinking. Now what we need to do is locating the IP address of the device in our local network. You can use nmap or other network scanning tool, however the easiest way will be to check the DHCP list on our router, which should contain the IP address of NanoPi device.

Example of the DHCP row with IP address assigned to IoT NanoPi
Example of the DHCP row with IP address assigned to NanoPi

4. Connect to NanoPi using SSH and start the IoT journey

When we’ll locate the IP address of NanoPi we can connect to this device using SSH protocol. Default username and password are:

Username: root
Password: fa

The example command to use to connect to the device (replace the IP address with the one that you’ve found in 3rd step):

ssh [email protected]
SSH to NanoPi IoT device using default credentials
SSH to NanoPi IoT device using default credentials

Thank you. IoT I’m coming…

In this blog, I surely will focus more on IoT staff, so keep fingers crossed and wait for more. 😀 If you are interested in Linux topics maybe you’ll find yourself useful some of my previous articles:

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