It is advisable to set this up before you need it so you can be sure that it is

configured and working correctly.

As long as you have an SD-Card reader available, you can switch between the conf
igurations using a laptop (or
directly on the Raspberry Pi if you have a screen/keyboard at the time).
Remember if you need the wired network for your computer (i.e. to get internet)
then you shall have to make a
choice about which one you wish to use (or get an extra network port by adding a
USB network dongle). If you use
wireless connections, then you can still have both!
Any standard network cable should be suitable (needs to have a male RJ45 connect
or on each end), most cables
available will be fine for our needs.
Note: You can use a normal network cable since the Raspberry Pi LAN chip is smar
t enough to reconfigure itself for
direct network connections (in the past older computers would have needed a spec
ial cross-over cable).
Note: These instructions are only applicable to manually installed installat
ions (i.e. those which are imaged
directly using SDimager rather than using NOOBS. Unfortunately, if you use NOOBS
the OS boot partition is moved and
is no longer directly accessible from windows. You will need to either image you
r card manually or use a linux
computer/LiveCD/Virtual Machine to access the OS boot partition and edit the cmd
line.txt file directly.
You can also use the Pi-Kitchen, see Recipe 001-Direct Network for more deta
ils.
I ve also created a cut-down version of the instructions for more advanced users w
ho won t need all the details:
In A Nut Shell Direct Network Connection
HOW TO USE A DIRECT NETWORK CABLE
What are we trying to achieve?
A good way to remotely control a Raspberry Pi is to connect it to a network and
use one of the methods discussed in
the Guide to Remote Connections. This will provide access to the terminal, by usi
g SSH, even the ability to view
the desktop using VNC, or the ability to run graphical programs as if they were
running directly on the laptop
itself (see below for X11 Forwarding). We just need to make the network link wo
rk directly without requring a full
network setup (with Router etc).
Making a network connection work
Normally, if you take a Raspberry Pi and directly connect it to a network, it wi
ll attempt to automatically find an
IP address (see bottom of the page for information about IP Addresses and what t
hey are) by requesting one from
your Router or other device running a DHCP server (a protocol which automaticall

y deals out addresses to computers

as they attach to a network).
However, if you connect the Raspberry Pi directly to another computer, not a lot
will happen. The Raspberry Pi
won t get an IP Address since there isn t a DHCP server to talk to (it can t talk to a
nything other than the laptop).
Other computers will often give themselves a default address (in the address ran
ge 169.254.0.0 169.254.255.255)
but the Raspberry Pi doesn t do this (yet). Besides even if the Raspberry Pi did,
we would still need to know what
address it had picked to be able to connect to it!
To get around this, we have to give the Raspberry Pi a fixed IP address (i.e. we
tell it what it s IP Address
should be so it doesn t have to wait for one).
There is just one complication to this, and that is if your laptop is configured
to a fixed IP too. At first this
may not seem like a problem, since if both IPs are fixed then we will know the a
ddress of both computers every time.
However for them to be able to talk to each other directly, they need to have si
milar addresses (at minimum the
first number should match, but we shall match at least the first 2 in this case
to work with default network
settings). For more information on this, see the section at the bottom of the p
age about SUBNETs.
STEP 1

Find the Laptop s Network Settings

Before we power up our Raspberry Pi, we can have a look at the network settings
of the computer we are planning on
connecting to and determine if the address is automatically allocated or fixed.
WINDOWS INSTRUCTIONS:
From the Start Menu, run the Control Panel .
(Windows 7/Vista) Open Network and Sharing Center
ngs on the left side.
(Windows XP) Open

and click on Change adapter setti

Network Connections

Find the item which relates to your Wired network adaptor (by default this i
s usually called Local Area
Connection ).
[Image Here]
Right-click on it and open Properties .
[Image Here]
Select the item which is called Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) or
sion 4 (TCP/IPv4) if there
are two (the other is Version 6), and open the Properties .
[Image Here]

Internet Protocol Ver

Hopefully, the IP Address will be

ot don t worry, just take a
note of the IP address and Subnet
formation useful to keep, but we
won t need it this time). If you
ting to automatic, or you can
leave it alone (we shouldn t need

set to

Obtain an IP address automatically . If n

Mask set here (you may find the rest of the in

know what you are doing, you can change this set
to adjust it as long as we know the IP Address).

MAC AND LINUX:

You will need to locate the settings for your wired adaptor and check to see if
the IP Address is configured
automatically, or fixed to a specific value.
To get to network settings on Mac OS X:
1) Load System Preferences.
2) Click Networks.
[Image Here]
STEP 2

Setting the Raspberry Pi s IP address

Option 1: Quick Setup / Setting up when you don t have a monitor

This quick method skips all of the testing which can be performed if we have a R
aspberry Pi running with a monitor
and keyboard attached. If you run into problems, then follow the steps in Optio
n 2, to test the network settings.
1. Ensure the Raspberry Pi is powered off, and remove the SD-Card.
Insert the SD-Card into a card reader and plug it into your laptop.
Find the drive and you should find several files on the Card (note it a lot
smaller than you d expect since it
is only the boot section of the Card (the rest is hidden)).
Make a copy of cmdline.txt and rename it cmdline.normal
Edit cmdline.txt and add the IP address at the end (be sure you don t add any
extra lines).
For network settings where the IP address is obtained automatically, use an addr
ess in the
range 169.254.X.X (169.254.0.0 169.254.255.255):
ip=169.254.0.2
For network settings where the IP address is fixed, use an address which matches
the laptop/computers address
except the last one.
ip=192.168.0.2
Ensure you take note of this IP address (you will need it every time you want to
directly connect to the Raspberry
Pi).

Make new copy of cmdline.txt and rename it cmdline.direct

To swap between configurations, just replace cmdline.txt with either cmdline
.normal or cmdline.direct (or use
the commands in Option 2 to do it directly on the Raspberry Pi
the change will t
ake effect next time you power up)
Return the card to the Raspberry Pi.
both the computer and Raspberry Pi
and power up.

Attach the network cable attached to

NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

You will need to wait for your computer to finish detecting the network sett
ings (you may see a small
networking icon flashing in your system tray while it does, or open up the netwo
rk settings to see when it has
finished and has an IP address)
it can take around 1/2 minute. Your computer ma
y report the connection as
limited or no connection when connected to the Raspberry Pi in this way, this is n
ormal as indicates it is a
direct computer to computer connection rather than a standard network.
If you forget or decide not to plug in the network cable, the Raspberry Pi w
ill wait 2 minutes (or until you
connect the cable) before completing it s start-up (so if you only have a keyboard
and monitor attached, you need
to wait!).
If you are using multiple wired network adaptors (i.e. Using an extra USB-LA
N dongle) on your computer you may
find you have to unplug the other network cable and reattach afterwards (my Wind
ows XP machine needed this before
it would connect through the direct link).
Option 2: Set-up using a monitor and keyboard (i.e. before you really need it):
You will now see that having a keyboard and monitor available at this stage is h
elpful for when we set this up, as
we can test each step.
Boot up the Raspberry Pi and plug in the network cable to both machines.
When the Raspberry Pi has booted ensure you log in and open the terminal if
not already open.
Type the following:
hostname -I
You will probably find that nothing is shown, as this is trying to show you the
current IP address (which is not
allocated yet). If it does show something, then you may have already have a fix
ed IP address (if you do take note
of it in case you need to put it back later).
Now set the new address as follows:

For network settings where the IP address is obtained automatically, use an addr
ess in the
range 169.254.X.X (169.254.0.0
169.254.255.255):
sudo ifconfig eth0 169.254.0.2
For network settings where the IP address is fixed, use an address which matches
the laptop/computers address
except the last number.
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2
We can check this has worked by rechecking the IP address:
hostname -I
You will see we now have the IP address set.
We should now be able to ping

the laptop.

Find the laptop address (if it wasn t a fixed address) by returning to the lis
t of Network Adaptors in windows
and double clicking on the icon to see it s Status (don t worry about the warning of
mited or no connection ).
Then select the Support

li

tab and then Details . You should see the laptop s IP address.

ping 169.254.0.1
We should get lots of responses (the laptop is responding the Raspberry Pi throu
gh the network cable)! Ctrl+C to
stop that. (If you didn t then double check your connections and the IP addresses
you are using).
As mentioned before, the new IP address will be lost when we reboot, so we need
to ensure it is set every time we
boot (or at least every time we want it to be when we boot).
To do that we can edit the cmdline.txt
of the SD Card.

file which is located on the boot partition

Make a copy of the file, with the following command:

sudo cp /boot/cmdline.txt /boot/cmdline.normal
Next edit the original file using nano:
sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
At the end of the long line, add the following (you will need to add a space bet
ween the last item and ip :
ip=169.254.0.2
Ctrl+x and y to save and exit.
Make a copy of this file too:
sudo cp /boot/cmdline.txt /boot/cmdline.direct

You can now reboot the Raspberry Pi (sudo reboot), and next time the IP addr
ess will be automatically set.
To change between configurations, simply use the following commands (just re
member to
edit /boot/cmdline.direct if you need to change the IP address in future).
sudo cp /boot/cmdline.normal /boot/cmdline.txt
sudo cp /boot/cmdline.direct /boot/cmdline.txt
SUMMARY
Now you should be able to do most of the things you would normally do when conne
cted to a network. It is even
possible to use this direct network link to share your laptop/computer s internet
connection (if it is connected
via Wifi for example), although I ve not needed to do this yet.
One VERY useful thing to do is to set up Putty
terminal and graphical
programs directly from your laptop/computer.

and

Xming

to allow you to control the

[Image Here]
See the main Guide to Remote Connections for links for how to set-up VNC and share
d folders, and X-11 on other
computers.
STEP 3 (recommended)

Install Putty and Xming Server (for SSH and X11)

I am assuming you are using the latest version of Raspbian which has SSH and X11
Forwarding enabled by default (if
not see the bottom of this post to enable them if things don t work).
1. Install and run a X-Windows server on your computer
Download and run http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/ from the Xming site.
Follow the installation, including installing Putty
ou can also download Putty
separately from http://www.putty.org/

if you don t have it already. Y

An alternative X-Windows server is available called mobaxterm, this provides a l

ittle more control, keeps your
X-Windows together and handles your sessions etc. You can get it from http://mo
baxterm.mobatek.net/. (Thanks to
Mike for this tip).
2. Ensure your SSH program (Putty) has X-11 enabled.
In the PuTTY configuration, find Connection , SSH , X11? and tick the check-box for X11
forwarding . If you
leave the X display location blank, it will assume the default Server 0:0? (you c
an confirm the server number by
hovering your mouse over the Xming icon in the system tray when it is running).
You can save your set-up within
Putty so you will won t have to do this each time.

[Image Here]
3. Enter the Raspberry Pi s IP Address
[Image Here]
Enter the IP Address of the Raspberry Pi in the Session settings above (you may
also find that you can use the
Raspberry Pi s hostname here instead (default: raspberrypi)).
Save the setting using a suitable name (RaspberryPiDirect) and press open to conne
ct to your Raspberry Pi. You
will likely get a warning pop-up stating you haven t connected to the computer bef
ore (allows you to check you have
everything right before continuing).
All being well, you should be greeted with a prompt for your username and passwo
rd (remember the defaults are pi
and raspberry).
4. Using X11 and Xming
Ensure you have Xming running, by starting the Xming program from your computers
start menu and then in the
terminal window, type a program which normally runs within the Raspberry Pi desk
top (such as leafpad or scratch ).
Wait a little while and the program should appear on your computers desktop (if
you get an error you have probably
forgotten to start Xming , so run it and try again).
If you want to run an X program, but still be able to use the same terminal
console for other stuff, you can
run the command in the background with &:
i.e. leafpad &
Just remember that the more programs you run, the slower everything will get. Y
ou can switch to the background
program by typing fg , check for background jobs with bg .
You can even run a full desktop session through X-11, although it isn t partic
ularly user-friendly and VNC will
produce better results. To do this you have to use lxsession instead of startx .
If you get the following error (or similar) when running PyGame or Tkinter s
cripts:
_tkinter.TclError: couldn't connect to display "localhost:10.0"
Use the fix below:
cd ~
sudo cp .Xauthority ~root/
More details and links are in the main Guide to Remote Connections.
Additional Information / Troubleshooting
To switch on (or off) SSH you can access raspi config (just type
onfig from the terminal) and

sudo raspi-c

select SSH in the menu (it seems like SSH is already enabled by default for some
distros).
[Image Here]
Enable/Disable SSH via Raspi-config
Ensure X-11 forwarding is enabled on the Raspberry Pi (again, a lot of distr
os now have this enabled by default).
Use nano with the following command:
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Look for a line in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file which controls X11Forwarding an
d ensure it says (with no # before it):
X11Forwarding yes
Save if required (ctrl+x,Y, enter), and reboot:
sudo reboot
Using cmdline.txt for Other Network Settings
The ip= command-line option allows us to specify the network settings when the ke
rnel is loaded (the core of the
linux system), it s full options are in the following format (allows us to set eve
ry aspect of the network if
required):
ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>
More details of what each part means and other kernel options is detailed in sec
tion 2 of this kernel documentation.
Easy Changing with a Simple Script:
The following script will prompt to allow you to change your settings (just type
./switchip.sh to run).
To create the file, you can use nano:
nano switchip.sh
Just press ctrl+x and y, to save and exit when you are done.
switchip.sh
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
#!/bin/sh
#Function to swap to Direct IP Address
direct () { sudo cp /boot/cmdline.direct /boot/cmdline.txt;}
#Function to swap to Normal Automatic IP Address
normal () { sudo cp /boot/cmdline.normal /boot/cmdline.txt;}
# Menu using case-esac
echo "Select IP Address? Use Direct or Auto or Keep (d/a/-)?"
read answer
case $answer in
d|D) echo Use Direct IP;direct;;
a|A) echo Use Auto IP;normal;;
*) echo Keep - No Change;;
esac
echo cmdline.txt
echo ____________
cat /boot/cmdline.txt

You could even extend this to allow you to setup fixed IP addresses for differen
t networks, so you can always be
sure you can find your IP and connect correctly.
WHAT IS an IP Address / Hostnames / Pinging / Subnets?
An IP Address is like your phone number or post code, it simply allows other com
puters to find that particular
computer in the network and ensure any messages it sends goes to that one in par
ticular.
Often, IP Address s can be replaced with hostname s so that we can ask for a specifi
c computer without knowing
all the numbers (like the contacts list on your phone, the computer looks up the
name and uses the number for
you). For instance, http://www.google.com, is a hostname, where it s IP address i
s 173.194.45.49 (probably
depending on where you are). We can ping the address using the following command,
which simply sends some
short messages to see if there is another computer on the other side to respond
to them.
ping www.google.com
or:
ping 173.194.45.49

Subnets:
Networks use subnets to help handle the fact that there could be a HUGE number o
f computers on a network (like
the internet) and it would be impossible for a computer to listen to and respond
to any computer in the address
range 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255.
To handle this, networks will use a subnet mask, this ensures that a computer on
ly needs to respond to
computers with are within the same SUBSET, which is defined by the SUBNET MASK s
etting.
The mask is a series of flags which defines which range of addresses the compute
r will respond to (by
filtering out any which are not within the allowed range):
255.255.255.0
Means it will respond to computers which have IP addressing matching at least th
e 3 first numbers. So a
computer with an address of 192.168.1.90 and subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 will o
nly talk to other computers
with addresses in the range 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255 (except 90 of course!). L
arge networks often use SUBNETs
to split up larger networks into sections so that they run more efficiently.
Note: You will not be able to set the SUBNET MASK to wider than 255.0.0.0. The
Raspberry Pi defaults to a
subnet mask of 255.255.0.0, which is perfect for most situations.
TROUBLE-SHOOTING:
Steps to check:
1. Check the IP address which get set on both machines (both should be in range
169.254.x.x).
On RPI use one of the following commands:
hostname -I
ifconfig
On PC use the following (or look it up from the Network & Sharing Center and loo
k at the adaptor properties):
ipconfig
If this fails, check the cmdline.txt file is right/cable connected etc. You
can use the following to force
the IP address on the RPI (for testing the rest
but this won t be set next time yo
u reboot):
sudo ifconfig eth0 169.254.0.2
Check you can ping each of the addresses from the other computer (where 169.
254.0.xxx should match the
computer you want to talk to). Test both directions.

ping 169.254.0.xxx
If this fails, check PC s firewall and disable wifi (sometimes the ping comman
d will try using the PC s
wifi instead)
Check you can connect via SSH (using putty)
- This should work if you can already ping the other machine (it is unlikely to
work if you can t ping it).