Welcome to the Cumulus Support forum.

Latest Cumulus MX V3 release 3.28.6 (build 3283) - 21 March 2024

Cumulus MX V4 beta test release 4.0.0 (build 4018) - 28 March 2024

Legacy Cumulus 1 release v1.9.4 (build 1099) - 28 November 2014 (a patch is available for 1.9.4 build 1099 that extends the date range of drop-down menus to 2030)

Download the Software (Cumulus MX / Cumulus 1 and other related items) from the Wiki

Headless Set-up for Pi

From build 3044 the development baton passed to Mark Crossley. Mark has been responsible for all the Builds since. He has made the code available on GitHub. It is Mark's hope that others will join in this development, but at the very least he welcomes your ideas for future developments (see Cumulus MX Development suggestions).

Moderator: mcrossley

Post Reply
SunDial
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue 03 Jan 2017 8:12 pm
Weather Station: OS WMR928N
Operating System: OPi Armbian 5.75 Ubuntu Bionic

Headless Set-up for Pi

Post by SunDial »

Hi all,

I would like to set up my Orange Pi Lite (Cumulus already installed) to be completely headless and with access not only via SSH (set up and working) but additionally with remote access to the console as well. I am using the Armbian_5.75_Orangepilite_Ubuntu_bionic_next_4.19.20 (Ubunto 18.04) image on my Opi Lite that has an issue with RDP access to the Pi if a console logon is present. Ideally, I'd like to leave Autologon set up as it is currently with my su pi account logged on after booting and remote connect to the console session whenever I need to do stuff, checks, etc. However, it looks like RDP console access (mstsc.exe /c) from Win10 cannot connect to the console on Linux hosts. So, I then thought of VNC but I'd prefer to use whatever is native to the Armbian/Linux OS image, if possible. If I were to try to disable Autologon through the nodm display manager config file I presume that would stop the autologon, but I've not looked into this yet.

I guess I'd like to know if anyone else uses this type of set-up and has already worked out a reliable configuration of the login config to achieve either remote console access or perhaps just an RDP session with autologon to the console disabled to enable this type of connection?

Thanks,
Adam
SunDial
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue 03 Jan 2017 8:12 pm
Weather Station: OS WMR928N
Operating System: OPi Armbian 5.75 Ubuntu Bionic

Re: Headless Set-up for Pi

Post by SunDial »

If anyone is interested in connecting directly to their Pi's console session (rather than a non-console VNC or RDP session) you can find the set-up procedure here: https://www.megaleecher.net/Raspberry_Pi_VNC_Setup.

It's written for the Raspberry Pi but worked for my Orange Pi Lite with the latest Armbian (Debian) Ubunto Bionic 18.04 installed on it. I have chosen to install XCFE (from armbian-config), the default desktop GUI for Armbian, and x11vnc is now configured to load automatically with it. If you want VNC to load automatically on start-up outside desktop GUIs like XCFE or LXDE I believe you would need to follow something like the procedures described under the following links, which automatically restart the x11vnc service if it fails.:

https://www.lazysystemadmin.com/2009/08 ... an-be.html
https://tecadmin.net/setup-x11vnc-serve ... linuxmint/

Hope this is useful.
Last edited by SunDial on Sat 18 May 2019 2:39 pm, edited 4 times in total.
User avatar
mcrossley
Posts: 12695
Joined: Thu 07 Jan 2010 9:44 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
Operating System: Bullseye Lite rPi
Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Headless Set-up for Pi

Post by mcrossley »

I'll stick with a GUI-less distro and SSH ;)
SunDial
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue 03 Jan 2017 8:12 pm
Weather Station: OS WMR928N
Operating System: OPi Armbian 5.75 Ubuntu Bionic

Re: Headless Set-up for Pi

Post by SunDial »

I may end up there myself eventually, ;)
Post Reply