Connect to Raspberry Pi 3 via ssh on a remote network

Question

I need to use Raspberry Pi 3 as a device that would power a dashboard screen on a TV display. It would use a Chromium browser launched from command line via ssh in fullscreen/kiosk mode at a particular URL.

The tricky bit is that I need to set up the Pi, give it to someone else who would take it to its intended location (in another country) connect power and TV, and plug a network cable into it.

Ideally it would require no further action from them.

I would like to set up the Pi so it "homes in" and let's me know it's address. Once I see that Pi is online, I should be able to connect to it via ssh and run commands on it.

I'm thinking along the lines of some dynamic DNS. And some localtunnel service, since I assume it will be an internal network and might even have some ports blocked/not forwarded.

How would you approach this problem and what technology stack would you suggest to use?

Answer 1

You can use Dataplicity.

It lets you ssh to your raspberry without bothering with network configurations. It's free for one device.

Answer 2

This is handy if you don’t want to roll your own.

RealVNC and Pi

Answer 3

I've written a php page hosted in some shared hosting of mine. My pi wgets this page every minute through cron.

Basically the script stores the up that it was accessed from (external ip of my home router) and the time stamp in a couple of text files at the end of the script. Now each time its run it checks if the up is different from the current one on file and also if the time stamps is >90 after the one in file. If either is true it writes the current info to a MySQL table for record keeping. Do Joe I know when the up has changed and when/duration of any downtime!

Next step is to link with my hosts API to update a dns record - then I'll have my own dynamic dns solution!

You'll also need your foreigner to open port 22 on their router and port forward it to the pi's up address on the lan.

Good luck and message if you'd like to grin my code so far!