Raspberry Pi (Zero W) quick start guide – headless.

Right, you have a Raspberry Pi (Zero W), Micro SD and power.

You want to have SSH enabled and have the device connect to your local network without the requirement of a keyboard, UI or network cable.

Put your Raspbian image onto the SD micro as per normal (Etcher) or however, you choose.  Then view the contents on the SD card. You’ll be in the /boot

Create a file called andssh this is essentially all that’s need for SSH service being enabled when you stick the card into the Raspberry Pi for the first time.

Now for Wi-Fi: As per this update post:

The latest update to Raspbian

Create a file called.  wpa_supplicant.conf in /boot/ so you have /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf

Paste this in there with your relevant details where the quote are:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={ 
ssid="MySSID" 
psk="MyPassword" 
}

Done! Stick it in the Pi and away you go.

If you need to find the devices IP on the network, tools like arp and a OUI checker  are handy as well as nmap

Example:

sudo nmap -O 10.0.0.1-50 or sudo nmap -O 192.168.0.1/24

Then connect to it with ssh pi@<ip>

First this you should do is change the default password from rasberry to something else. Or create a new user and password / SSH key, then disable the userpi.