Headless install: Pi keeps refusing connection.

[ralfrottmann]

Here is what I've done:
- Downloaded Raspbian Jessie Lite Release 2017-03-02.
- Used Etcher on the Mac to burn the image to the SD card.
- Created an empty ssh file in /boot via touch /Volumes/boot/ssh and confirmed it was successfully created.
- Put the SD card into the Pi, hooked it up via Ethernet and plugged in USB power.

The Pi boots and grabs an IP address. I can ping it. However, when I try to ssh into it via ssh pi@192.x.x.x I get ssh: connect to host 192.x.x.x port 22: Connection refused.

When I remove the SD card and put it back into my MacBook, I do see that the ssh file has been removed, which to me confirms that the Pi did in fact "see" it on boot.

Why does the connection get refused? I do need to find a way for a completely headless setup. This is getting really tedious. Any help or advise is greatly appreciated.

[allfox]

Greetings.

I'm not sure I meet the same problem. Just my own story.

I have a Pi that when booted, can not connect via link local address, but would work with static address. It replys connection refused to link local address.

I read your situation is the DHCP address not working. So maybe it worth a try to the link local address, aka ssh pi@raspberrypi.local

I also find that it seems relate to system time. Wait for some time, it would fix itself. I dont know its the PC cache or the Pi NTP doing the trick.

Conect Pi to Internet, then be patient for 5 min, see if it fixed.

[Martin Frezman]

The obvious answer is: Hook up a keyboard, mouse, and screen, and figure out what went wrong. Once you figure out which step didn't get done, then you'll know how to do it over "completely headless".