Connecting+wirelessly+to+the+Pi

=Controlling the Raspberry/Piphone remotely over Wifi with RealVNC=

When the RaspberryPi and Piphone assembly is installed inside a payphone, it can be convenient to control the Raspberry Pi remotely --for example so you can do software updates without having to unlock/open the payphone, disconnect everything, hook up tho Pi to a keyboard and display, then reverse everything when done. One option that works well for us is to use a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) application, a desktop sharing system that lets you remotely control another computer. We've had good success with the free version of RealVNC (http://realvnc.com), with the server version now available for the Raspberry Pi and viewer versions available for pretty much any computer, phone or tablet. **What you'll need:** **Installing the software:** > (we have tested this successfully on a Chromebook, an iPad mini, and a Nexus 6 android phone)
 * 1) the Raspberry Pi needs to be connected to a local network (internet access is needed for downloading the software, but not for running RealVNC). An easy way to do that is to set up WiFi on the Pi, using a WiFi USB stick. You could also use an ethernet cable connecting the Pi inside the payphone to a router outside.
 * 2) a device (PC, tablet, or smart phone) able to connect to the same network. From it, you will control the Pi.
 * 1) download and install VNC Server on the Raspberry Pi. You can install the free version, or buy a license for the encrypted version. Follow the instructions at http://www.realvnc.com/products/vnc/raspberrypi/. They are self-explanatory, except maybe where they say "use raspi-config  to Enable Boot to Desktop automatically " For that, see #2 below .
 * 2) You will want to set up your Pi to start the graphical desktop automatically upon boot, otherwise VNC viewer users won't be able to connect. To do this, open a terminal, type: "sudo raspi-config", then use arrows to navigate to "3. Enable Boot to Desktop/Scratch", then choose the second boot option "Desktop Log in as user 'pi' at the graphical desktop". Pick  and exit
 * 3) Reboot the Pi.
 * 4) Under , pick  which will open a window with some info on how VNC Server is doing. One important bit is the IP address listed under "Connectivity" -- you'll need that to connect to the Pi from your VNC Viewer device.
 * 5) download and install VNC Viewer on the device you will use to remotely connect to the Pi. The various versions are available at http://www.realvnc.com/download/viewer/
 * 1) start the VNC Viewer, give it the Pi's IP address, enter the login/password, and you should see the Raspberry Pi desktop on your viewer device.

1) Error messages:
After installation, we got two error messages (in the VNC window): These didn't prevent from connecting the viewer and can be resolved by selecting different ports (click the  button)
 * Port conflict preventing VNC connections over TCP
 * Port conflict preventing HTTP connections

**2) Display resolution issues:** Because the Raspberry Pi is not connected to a display, it defaults to its lowest resolution (640x350). This was useable, but didn't use the screen space on the Chomebook. To change this, you need to modify the Pi's /boot/config.txt file. Open it in the nano editor from a terminal window with:

$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt

By default, all the lines in that file start with #, which turns them into comments and disables the commands after the #. Find the following lines, uncomment them (i.e. remove the #) and set the parameters as appropriate for your viewer device. With our Chromebook, we set 3 parameters (for extensive details on the various display settings available, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5851):

hdmi_force_hotplug=1 hdmi_group=1 hdmi_mode=16

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: **don't set "hdmi_group=2"**, because that would force the Pi's sound to go out through the HDMI port rather than the audio port (which we use to connect to the handset via the PiPhone)