Setting up a Raspberry Pi without a Monitor, Keyboard, or Network

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is very similar to my previous post about sharing internet access from Ubuntu to a new Raspberry Pi.

In this, I will show how you can start using your Raspberry Pi without a monitor, keyboard, Ethernet network, or wifi connection.

I am not going to explain how to set up the Pi, that is covered in many other places. I suggest following the guide on the Raspberry Pi website. Follow the headless instructions, but I will show how to connect to it when you don’t have an Ethernet or wifi network.

My Setup

I have -

Ubuntu on my laptop (but similar steps should work on other OSes)
Raspberry Pi 4 with the 64-bit Lite OS
an Ethernet cable connecting the two devices

Follow the headless setup instructions

Install the OS on the SD card, give your Pi a name, for example pi4, and enable SSH. Don’t put in any wifi credentials, because you don’t have a network to connect to

On the Ubuntu computer where you imaged the SD card, plug in an Ethernet cable. Don’t connect it to the Pi just yet. It doesn’t have to be a crossover cable, a regular Ethernet cable will work.

1. The Ethernet Connection

Go to Settings → Network.

There might be a few sections - the top one is probably the one you need. It might be called Wired, Ethernet, PCI Ethernet, or something similar.

Network Connections

2. Changing the Profile

Click the gear icon to edit the profile, move to the IPv4 tab, and change the method to Shared to other computers. Click Apply.

3. Connecting the Laptop and the Pi

If you haven’t done so already, plug the cable into the laptop and the Pi. The Pi should get an IP address from the laptop via DHCP.

4. Finding the Pi’s IP Address

I know the name of my Pi is pi4, so I can ping it at pi4.local to see its IP address -

ping -c1 pi4.local

If I forgot the name of my Pi, I can check the address the laptop handed out over the cable:

sudo cat /var/lib/NetworkManager/dnsmasq-*.leases

This will show something like -

1793837033 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx 10.42.0.23 pi4 yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy

The IP address is in the middle of the line.

5. SSH into the Pi

I can ssh to the Pi using the name or the IP address -

ssh pi4.local
# or 
ssh 10.42.0.23

That’s it, you set up Pi and connected to it without any network.

6. Resetting the profile

After you disconnect the Pi, change the profile back to the original method (probably Automatic (DHCP)), so that when you plug the laptop into a router, it gets an IP address from the router.

Sharing Internet Access from a Ubuntu Laptop to a Raspberry Pi

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This and the next post are going to be almost identical because the one technique achieves two distinct goals, and I want each title to reflect just one goal.

In this, I will show how to share a laptop’s internet with the Pi. In the next post, I will show how to SSH to the Pi from a laptop if you have no monitor, keyboard, or shared network.

I recently got a Raspberry Pi 4, and sometimes I’m out and about with it and my laptop. If I want to SSH into the Pi, a few things have to align -

the laptop and the Pi need to be on the same wifi network
that wifi network needs to allow communication between devices
the Pi needs to be authenticated with the wifi network, but I don’t have a monitor or keyboard with me.

If I connect the Pi to my laptop with an Ethernet cable, then I can ssh to the Pi and work with it. A happy side effect is that the Pi will have internet access, too, using my laptop’s wifi connection - my laptop becoming a router for the Pi.

My Setup

I have -

Ubuntu on my laptop
Raspberry Pi 4 with the 64-bit Lite OS
an Ethernet cable connecting the two devices

Plug the cable into the laptop and the Pi. It doesn’t have to be a crossover cable, a regular Ethernet cable will work.

1. The Ethernet Connection

Go to Settings → Network.

There might be a few sections - the top one is probably the one you need. It might be called Wired, Ethernet, PCI Ethernet, or something similar.

Network Connections

2. Changing the Profile

Click the gear icon to edit the profile, move to the IPv4 tab, and change the method to Shared to other computers. Click Apply.

3. Connecting the Laptop and the Pi

Plug the cable into the laptop and the Pi. The Pi should get an IP address from the laptop via DHCP.

4. Finding the Pi’s IP Address

I know the name of my Pi is pi4, so I can ping it at pi4.local to see its IP address -

ping -c1 pi4.local

If I forgot the name of my Pi, I can check the address the laptop handed out over the cable:

sudo cat /var/lib/NetworkManager/dnsmasq-*.leases

This will show something like -

1793837033 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx 10.42.0.23 pi4 yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy

The IP address is in the middle of the line.

5. SSH into the Pi

I can ssh to the Pi using the name or the IP address -

ssh pi4.local
# or 
ssh 10.42.0.23

The Pi should now have internet access.

From the Pi, try pinging 9.9.9.9 and quad9.com to verify that the Pi has internet and DNS access.

6. Resetting the profile

After you disconnect the Pi, change the profile back to the original method (probably Automatic (DHCP)), so that when you plug the laptop into a router, it gets an IP address from the router.

Future posts

I will cover how to do the above when the laptop is running a VPN. Here is that post.
Having to change the profile manually each time is a bit of a pain. But it is possible to set up multiple profiles for the same interface and have the laptop pick the right one by itself.

DHCP | no dogma blog

Setting up a Raspberry Pi without a Monitor, Keyboard, or Network

My Setup

Follow the headless setup instructions

Sharing Internet from Laptop to Raspberry Pi

1. The Ethernet Connection

2. Changing the Profile

3. Connecting the Laptop and the Pi

4. Finding the Pi’s IP Address

5. SSH into the Pi

6. Resetting the profile

Sharing Internet Access from a Ubuntu Laptop to a Raspberry Pi

My Setup

Sharing Internet from Laptop to Raspberry Pi

1. The Ethernet Connection

2. Changing the Profile

3. Connecting the Laptop and the Pi

4. Finding the Pi’s IP Address

5. SSH into the Pi

6. Resetting the profile

Future posts