Using RaspberryPi without a monitor

Question

I just recently bought a raspberrypi4 from an online distributor, and wanted to tinker with it for my IoT project, however I only recently discovered that I can't connect it to a 5k monitor. I have an macbook, with which I created a raspbian image on a microsd, but I am unable to connect my new gadget to the monitor I have going with my macbook. I was curious about the following possibilities:

• is SSHd enabled by default if I boot off a newly created image of raspbian, and
• is there a way for me to enable vnc or something similar to log into the gui from my mac?
• do i have any other options, like modifying settings from vmware on my mac if I can get the microsd with raspbian detected by vmware, and running?

Answer 1

As Joan answered ssh will be enabled if you place a file named ssh in the FAT32 directory on the SD Card - the only one macOS can see.

You can then enable VNC, and if the Pi4 has no monitor you will NEED to set default resolution.

You should install the RealVNC viewer on the Mac. The Mac's inbuilt VNC can be made to work (with limited functionality) but requires customised settings and setting a VNC password on the Pi.

Answer 2

SSH will be enabled if you place a file named ssh in the boot directory.

The boot directory is FAT formatted so may be written from Windows, Macs, and Linux. To confirm you are in the correct directory it also contains (amongst many others) files named config.txt and cmdline.txt.

Answer 3

Once you have ssh enabled as per Joans post you can run sudo raspi-config and enable VNC from there - 5/P3 are the menu options in my version of the program.

I would also set a default resolution to the size you need from this menu - without it VNC can refuse to open. 7/A5 are the options for this.

You can also take the option 7/A1 to use all the SD card while you’re in the last menu.