Raspberry Pi wifi desktop stream/control?

[Deleted User]

Hello all!

So recently in my college course, we got given some Raspberry Pi 3B's.

Its a nifty little computer, but I hate having to swap out my monitor cable to use it, and thus being unable to use my main rig at all.

I was wondering if there was a way to

1) Have the Pi host itself as a router, so my computer can connect to it wirelessly.
2)Send the Pi's video output to my main computer, and control it with my mouse and keyboard, ala Teamviewer.

The reason why I wanna use the Pi as the wifi host, is so I don't need a router at all. Just plug it into a battery bank and work away on my main, or even my laptop.

Thanks in advanced to any replies. SERIOUSLY hoping this is possible, as it'd making things so much damn easier.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

So I'm not sure about the first one, but for the second one you could theoretically pick up a cheap HDMI capture device for your PC and use the OBS preview window to see the Pi's desktop, and Synergy to control it with the PCs mouse and keyboard

 

[Deleted User]

So I'm not sure about the first one, but for the second one you could theoretically pick up a cheap HDMI capture device for your PC and use the OBS preview window to see the Pi's desktop, and Synergy to control it with the PCs mouse and keyboard

Meh, Ive already though of that, but I really don't wanna lug around cables. I'd be far happier to just plug it ni and away I go. However, its the last solution I'll go for if it's really the only one possible.

 

[Seriel]

The simplest way to do this would be to somehow create a wifi hotspot on the Pi, then install something like a VNC server and connect to that through a VNC client on your computer. That functions similarly to TeamViewer.

 

[Hayato213]

Nope doesn't work that way, you can't use the Pi as a router for your internet, but you can use it as in a way to host file to access from your main computer.

 

[Enkuler]

Using raspi-config, you should be able to enable VNC somewhere. Then you run vncserver on your pi (by ssh the first time, and you probably want that to be automated next times) and you'll be able to use RealVNC to remote control a desktop on your Pi.
More info here https://www.realvnc.com/fr/connect/docs/raspberry-pi.html

Now, does that work if you're on the go and the Pi is a wifi router? No clue.

 

[Deleted User]

The simplest way to do this would be to somehow create a wifi hotspot on the Pi, then install something like a VNC server and connect to that through a VNC client on your computer. That functions similarly to TeamViewer.

Using raspi-config, you should be able to enable VNC somewhere. Then you run vncserver on your pi (by ssh the first time, and you probably want that to be automated next times) and you'll be able to use RealVNC to remote control a desktop on your Pi.
More info here https://www.realvnc.com/fr/connect/docs/raspberry-pi.html

Now, does that work if you're on the go and the Pi is a wifi router? No clue.

I'll give these a shot. I KNOW the pi can be used as a router, because my tutor explicitly stated we'd be doing it. I just wanna try something and get ahead, persay.

 

[Enkuler]

I'll give these a shot. I KNOW the pi can be used as a router, because my tutor explicitly stated we'd be doing it. I just wanna try something and get ahead, persay.

It can indeed, you can even have a nice GUI and stuff to control your access point https://github.com/billz/raspap-webgui
The thing is, I don't know if your VNC stuff would work correctly if you use your Pi as a wifi router that does not have any kind of valid internet access to begin with or if the Pi itself is the router (as opposed to having the Pi and your laptop both connected to a router that is neither of both). Maybe the AP wouldn't work without an internet connection, or maybe it would work but you'd have problems on the VNC side of things for some reason. No idea.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Nope doesn't work that way, you can't use the Pi as a router for your internet, but you can use it as in a way to host file to access from your main computer.

You can definitely use your Pi as a router no problem. You shouldn't, because of hardware restraints, but you definitely can.

@OP, the best solution would be to setup a DHCP server, and Hostapd, connect to the Pi, and then see if you can use a VNC/RDP server at the same time. As mentioned above, Raspbian does let you enable VNC in the Raspi-config. Then just connect and go.

The problem, though, is I dunno if you can actually setup the Pi so it can both act as a DHCP server, and run a VNC client all at once using the one wifi adapter. It's possible you might have to connect to the Pi using an ethernet cable so you can access the VNC server. At worst, you might need to pickup a second wifi adapter for the Pi to use.

 

[Seriel]

The problem, though, is I dunno if you can actually setup the Pi so it can both act as a DHCP server, and run a VNC client all at once using the one wifi adapter. It's possible you might have to connect to the Pi using an ethernet cable so you can access the VNC server

You can do that as long as the WiFi adapter supports AP mode.

 

[Deleted User]

You can definitely use your Pi as a router no problem. You shouldn't, because of hardware restraints, but you definitely can.

@OP, the best solution would be to setup a DHCP server, and Hostapd, connect to the Pi, and then see if you can use a VNC/RDP server at the same time. As mentioned above, Raspbian does let you enable VNC in the Raspi-config. Then just connect and go.

The problem, though, is I dunno if you can actually setup the Pi so it can both act as a DHCP server, and run a VNC client all at once using the one wifi adapter. It's possible you might have to connect to the Pi using an ethernet cable so you can access the VNC server. At worst, you might need to pickup a second wifi adapter for the Pi to use.

If the worst is having to use a second wifi adapter, say through the usb, that's not a problem, as I actually have a couple of them spare in a box literally right besides me.

Ofcourse, would be preferable if not, but I'll take a shot anyways.

I'm also gonna post this question up on the official pi forums, just incase there's someone more knowledgeable there.

Thanks for your answers folks, keep em coming!

 

[Deleted User]

Hey all, just a little update, after getting all my assignments done for the week, I sat down this weekend and took a good long crack at it.

I got it working using the first section of this page. I went no further than, and didn't do
Using the Raspberry Pi as an access point to share an internet connection (bridge)
as it was unnecessary for my needs, though feel free to try it if you may need it.

Then, just setup VNC Server, enable it. Connect from your viewing device using the wireless name and passphrase you used during the tutorial. In that exact tutorial, the pi will always have 192.168.4.1, so once connected to it like you would a router, use VNC Viewer to connect to that ip, and you're now viewing the pi wirelessly. It even works without A) a monitor and B) without logging in, though you'll be prompted with the usual pi user login screen if you have it set.

Oh, and pro-tip, don't give your wifi a key that's above 63 characters. I gave it 64, thinking 64 would be the nice round number, but that makes it fail to startup the "router" function at all.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

I know this thread is a bit older but this seems overly complicated for what you want to achieve

Also the Raspberry Pi just runs regular Linux. If you just want to play around and learn you should probably look into virtualization (you get free enterprise grade virtualization with Hyper-V with Windows 10) as that gives you the possibility to create snapshots and quickly revert to a prior state if you mess things up. Pretty much all that you can do on a virtualized debian you can also do on raspbian (debian for Raspberry Pi), provided the application compiles on ARM, which it does in most cases.

pro-tip: if you want to learn about networking I STRONGLY recommend looking into GNS3 or EVE-NG. They're Network simulation applications that let you run lots of different devices like enterprise routers, switches, firewalls, PCs or even just generic virtual machines. If I have a more complex network design to do I often build everything in one of these, make sure everything works, document it and then just shove all the configurations on real world, physical devices and take them to the customer.