Verifying the Raspberry Pi Installation on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

This article will guide you through the process of verifying if your Raspberry Pi OS is installed and running on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 instance. We will demonstrate this using the command l …


Updated October 26, 2023

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This article will guide you through the process of verifying if your Raspberry Pi OS is installed and running on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 instance. We will demonstrate this using the command line interface and provide step-by-step instructions.

To check if Raspberry Pi OS is installed on AWS, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to your AWS account and navigate to the EC2 dashboard.

  2. In the left navigation pane, click on “Instances” under the “Instances” section.

  3. Select the instance you want to verify if it is running Raspberry Pi OS.

  4. On the top right corner of the page, find the “Connect” button and click on it. This will open a new window with instructions on how to connect to your EC2 instance using SSH (Secure Shell).

  5. Copy the command starting with ssh -i and paste it into your terminal or command prompt. Make sure you have an SSH client installed on your local machine. If not, you can install one based on your operating system (e.g., PuTTY for Windows).

  6. Once connected to your instance, run the following command to check the operating system:

cat /etc/os-release

This will display information about your Linux distribution, including the name and version. If you see “Raspbian GNU/Linux” or “Ubuntu” (depending on which Raspberry Pi OS image you used), it means Raspberry Pi is installed.

  1. To verify that the Raspberry Pi desktop environment is running, run:
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

This will display the current desktop session in use. If it returns “LXDE” or “LXQt”, you are running the Raspberry Pi default desktop environment.

  1. To verify that the necessary Raspberry Pi packages are installed, run:
dpkg -l | grep raspberrypi

This will list all installed packages related to Raspberry Pi. You should see packages like raspberrypi-kernel, raspberrypi-bootloader, and raspberrypi-firmware.

  1. To check the kernel version, run:
uname -a

The output will display information about your Raspberry Pi OS, including the kernel version.

  1. Finally, you can verify that the system is up to date by running:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This command will check for and install any available updates. If everything is working correctly, you should see messages indicating that your Raspberry Pi OS instance on AWS is fully functional and up-to-date.

Congratulations! You have successfully verified if Raspberry Pi is installed on AWS. Remember to always keep your system updated and secure by regularly running the above command and following best practices for securing your EC2 instances.