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I'ver never worked with any Raspberry model before and now one of my university courses requires me to. Since I don't have any spare peripheral devices to connect the raspberry to I'm trying to access it via my windows laptop. Now the problems already began when I tried to connect it to my router directly via Ethernet-cable. The raspberry doesn't show up on my routers configuration page and I can't find it by scanning my network for devices.

Is there anything I can do in this situation?

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  • Do you have a screen and keyboard you can attach temporarily? What do the ACT and PWR lights do on boot? Are the ethernet link lights on when the cable is connected to the router/do they come on at any point?
    – goldilocks
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 14:40
  • I have a keyboard but no suitable screen. I will ask a friend tomorrow. on boot the green ACT starts flickering and stops after a few seconds, the red pwr one stays red while power is connected. the ethernet leds (orange and green) are lit while the raspi is connected to the router.
    – Peter
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 14:50
  • Alright. I've added an answer so you have something to start with when you get the screen connected. You could also dig around and set some stuff up on the card, boot it, take it out again, check output, etc., but I think that will absorb a lot of today unnecessarily.
    – goldilocks
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 15:15

1 Answer 1

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on boot the green ACT starts flickering and stops after a few seconds

Sounds good. This means the pi has at least booted the OS. I'm presuming below that you are using Raspbian or some other GNU/Linux distro.

Note that the first time you boot Raspbian, it expects to guide you through a configuration process. Although I don't think this should have impacted the ethernet connectivity, I can't say for sure.

the ethernet leds (orange and green) are lit while the raspi is connected to the router.

I believe this indicates there is a good link layer connection between the pi and the router.

Is there anything I can do in this situation?

Since this is for university, you might as well try to diagnose this with some standard low level tools. After completing the configuration process mentioned above, start by disabling network autoconfiguration; it is evidently not working for you anyway.

Reboot, then check the output of ip link. It should mention two interfaces, lo and eth0; the latter will be state DOWN. Set it up with:

sudo ip link set eth0 up

Presuming your router uses DHCP, you should now be able to get an IP with:

sudo dhclient -v eth0

This may take a few seconds and it will spit lines about discovery and obtaining a lease, then exit into the background. You can double check the assigned address with ip addr.

At that point the pi should be visible on the router interface. If the LAN is not isolated you should be able to, e.g., ping 8.8.8.8. If that works, try ping google.com; if that works you have an IP and DNS, i.e., normal internet.

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