Beginners Guide: Locating your board, connecting to it.

[Ptheven]

This is a brief guide for beginners who are visiting the forum. I will be going through the following: 

Finding out the IP address of your Rock64 Board when its not connected to a display (Headless) 
Connecting to your board via SSH
Setting up a Hostname (to connect to your Board even if the IP address is Dynamic)
Setting up a Static IP and fixing DNS

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Prerequisites:

Rock 64 SBC

MicroSD card flashed with Linux

• The tool has been updated, but the pictures/description haven't, please ensure that ROCK64 is selected and the appropriate Disk image is flashed to the SD card. 
  

Ethernet Connection

Android/iOS device with access to the app store. 

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Finding out the IP address of your SBC





The first step, before plugging in your Rock64 would be to use a Network scanning app to find out and list all the devices on your network. I personally use Fing: 

Google play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...fing&hl=en

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/fing-net...21107?mt=8

I have an Android phone, the iPhone interface should be largely similar. 

After the app is installed, run a network scan. Note the number in the top right corner, denoting the number of currently connected devices. 




Then, turn on the Rock 64 Board. While you wait for it to turn on, You might want to change some settings to make it easier to find your new device. 

Tap on the Wifi Network name to open up the Local Network settings page: 




Select "Sort Devices" and choose "Last Change" 



That should result in any new devices being listed near the top. The Rock64 Board should have booted by now. You'll know by checking the LEDs: Green - DC connected, White - Power, Red - Standby



Now that the board has booted up, go back to the main Fing Screen and click the refresh button to initiate a new scan. if the Rock64 successfully booted and connected to the network (via DHCP), you should see a new item on the list: 



As you can see, there are a few more devices on my network, the Rock64 (the other device was my phone that came out of deep sleep, it had "Apple" written on the left, so I knew that wasnt the Rock64). 

We have the IP address of the Rock64, but we can do one more step to confirm, click on the item to open its page, then select "scan services" 



The app will commence a scan, and within a few seconds, you should see one service discovered: 



This confirms that the device is most likely the Rock64, unless you have had another device connected to your Wifi network that happens to be running an SSH server. 




Note down the IP and MAC address. Depending on your Router (and DHCP) configuration, rebooting your Rock 64 board or your Router might result in the IP address of the Rock 64 Changing. However, the MAC address should stay the same. Simply do a scan using the app to find the IP address of your board if you suspect the IP address has changed.

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