Setting Up a Raspberry Pi for Dev Side-projects

The Raspberry Pi is a great device for dev side-projects, such as a home media station, an IoT device, or a local server. Here are some of my go-to configurations when setting one up.

Booting with Connectivity

  • Create a wpa_supplicant.conf in the boot directory for wireless connections
  • Create a ssh file in the boot directory to enable SSH

OpenSSH

  • OpenSSH options are set in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
# disable root login
PermitRootLogin no

# allow only specific users
AllowUsers user1 user2

# allow only specific groups
AllowGroups groupA groupB

# change sshd port number
Port 123

# change login grace time
LoginGraceTime 1m

# restrict the interface to login
ListenAddress 192.168.1.123
ListenAddress 192.168.0.456

# disconnect ssh when no activity
ClientAliveInterval 300
ClientAliveCountMax 0

Security

Add User and Password

sudo /usr/sbin/useradd --groups sudo -m user123
sudo passwd user123

Reset Root Password

sudo passwd root

Disable Default Pi Account

sudo passwd --lock pi
Nicholas Nadeau, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Nicholas Nadeau, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Founder / Fractional CTO

Nicholas Nadeau is a fractional CTO empowering startups with next-gen technology expertise, and a passion for driving corporate innovation. Stay informed on cutting-edge hard tech trends - subscribe to my newsletter. Ready to innovate? Discover my services and accelerate your growth.

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