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Install NetBird on the Raspberry Pi

Start by downloading Raspberry Pi Imager for your operating system and inserting a microSD card with at least 8GB of capacity, though 32GB is recommended for breathing room.

Open Raspberry Pi Imager and choose Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (64-bit) from the "Other general-purpose" OS section under Ubuntu. Select your microSD card as the storage destination, then click the gear icon to configure the advanced options. Here you'll set your hostname to something memorable like netbird-pi, enable SSH with password authentication, and configure your username and password. If you're not using Ethernet, add your WiFi credentials here as well, along with your locale and timezone settings.

Write the image to the card, insert it into your Pi, and power it on. It may take a couple minutes to complete its first boot sequence.

Post-Install Setup and NetBird Installation

Initial Connection

Once your Pi boots, which typically takes 2-3 minutes on first run, connect via SSH using either the hostname you configured or the IP address assigned by your router:

ssh username@netbirdpi.local
# Or use the IP address if mDNS isn't working
ssh username@192.168.1.xxx

System Updates

First, ensure your system is up to date:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install NetBird with One Command

NetBird provides a simple one-line installation script that detects your system architecture, adds the NetBird repository, installs the latest stable version, and configures the service to start on boot:

curl -fsSL https://pkgs.netbird.io/install.sh | sh

Connect to Your NetBird Network

Run the following to authenticate and join your network:

sudo netbird up

This will present you with an Authentication URL. Open it in your browser, log in with your NetBird account, and approve the device. Alternatively, you can authenticate with a setup key. Learn more about generating setup key, learn more about that here.

Once the device is connected it should show up under the Peers page on the NetBird dashboard. Here we can quickly assign the Raspberry Pi a group. Within the Groups column click the pencil to edit and add the peer to a new group, this can be something like “RaspberryPi”.