I just got a new Raspberry Pi Zero W (the wireless version) and didn’t feel like hooking it up to a monitor and keyboard to get started. I really just wanted a serial console for starters. Rather than solder in a header, I wanted to be really lazy, so decided to use the USB OTG support of the Pi Zero to provide a console over USB. It’s pretty straightforward, actually.

Install Raspbian on MicroSD

First off is a straightforward “install” of Raspbian on your MicroSD card. In my case, I used dd to image the img file from Raspbian to a MicroSD card in a card reader.

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dd if=/home/david/Downloads/2017-04-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img of=/dev/sde bs=1M conv=fdatasync

Mount the /boot partition

You’ll want to mount the boot partition to make a couple of changes. Before doing so, run partprobe to re-read the partition tables (or unplug and replug the SD card). Then mount the partition somewhere convenient.

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partprobe
mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/boot

Edit /boot/config.txt

To use the USB port as an OTG port, you’ll need to enable the dwc2 device tree overlay. This is accomplished by adding a line to /boot/config.txt with dtoverlay=dwc2.

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vim /mnt/boot/config.txt
(append dtoverlay=dwc2)

Edit /boot/cmdline.txt

Now we’ll need to tell the kernel to load the right module for the serial OTG support. Open /boot/cmdline.txt, and after rootwait, add modules-load=dwc2,g_serial.

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vim /mnt/boot/cmdline.txt
(insert modules-load=dwc2,g_serial after rootwait)

When you save the file, make sure it is all one line, if you have any line wrapping options they may have inserted newlines into the file.

Mount the root (/) partition

Let’s switch the partition we’re dealing with.

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umount /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sde2 /mnt/root

Enable a Console on /dev/ttyGS0

/dev/ttyGS0 is the serial port on the USB gadget interface. While we’ll get a serial port, we won’t have a console on it unless we tell systemd to start a getty (the process that handles login and starts shells) on the USB serial port. This is as simple as creating a symlink:

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ln -s /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service /mnt/root/etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty@ttyGS0.service

This asks systemd to start a getty on ttyGS0 on boot.

Unmount and boot your Pi Zero

Unmount your SD card, insert the micro SD card into a Pi Zero, and boot with a Micro USB cable between your computer and the OTG port.

Connect via a terminal emulator

You can connect via the terminal emulator of your choice at 115200bps. The Pi Zero shows up as a “Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB Serial Gadget (CDC ACM mode)”, which means that (on Linux) your device will typically be /dev/ttyACM0.

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screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200

Conclusion

This is a quick way to get a console on a Raspberry Pi Zero, but it has downsides:

  • Provides only console, no networking.
  • File transfers are “difficult”.