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Quick Start

K7S_K7F supports both Android and Linux. When Linux is in use, like most Pi products, K7S_K7F can work in headless mode (no display connected, access via SSH) and desktop mode (Ubuntu, Armbian, Debian desktop).

To start using KICKPI K7S_K7F, you need to prepare the following items:

  • Power Supply
  • Display and Display Cable
  • Boot Media
  • Keyboard and Mouse
  • 4G/Ethernet (optional)

Note

If you want to use K7S_K7F as a headless device accessed via network, please refer to SSH Connection section below.

Tools Preparation

Power Supply

Power Mode Voltage/Current
DC 12V/1.5A (1.5A is the baseline, or above)

Installation diagram:

6ff69aae24748e3a4c29523b9af44e1c

Display

K7S_K7F is equipped with multiple display interfaces, supporting HDMI and LVDS output.

Interface Maximum Resolution Support
HDMI 4096x2160@120Hz
LVDS LCD 2560x1440@60Hz

HDMI

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LVDS LCD

Warning

When using a display with high brightness on the LVDS interface of K7S_K7F, ensure the power supply voltage ≥ 12V and current ≥ 3A.

① LVDS Backlight Power Supply
DC_12 V
DC_12 V
BL-PWM
BL-EN
GND
GND

image-20260402143140017

② LVDS Display Differential Signal Pair
Pin Number Function Pin Number Function
1 GND 16 GND
2 D0N 17 LCD_PWM_BL
3 D0P 18 LCD_TE
4 GND 19 VCC3V3_LCD
5 D1N 20 LCD_RST
6 D1P 21 LCD_ID
7 GND 22 LCD_PWREN
8 CLKN/AUXN 23 TP_I2C_SCL
9 CLKP/AUXP 24 TP_I2C_SDA
10 GND 25 TP_INT
11 D2N 26 TP_RST
12 D2P 27 GND
13 GND 28 5V0
14 D3N 29 5V0
15 D3P 30 5V0

Boot Media

KICKPI K7S_K7F comes with eMMC (embedded Multi Media Card) on-board by default, and has Android 14 operating system pre-installed. External boot media is not required. However, for subsequent use, if you want to change the operating system or boot from TF card, you need to prepare a TF card with ≥ 16GB storage capacity.

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Keyboard and Mouse

KICKPI K7S_K7F has 2 USB 3.0 ports. You can use any USB port to connect a keyboard or mouse.

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4G/Ethernet

K7S_K7F accesses the internet via 4G/Ethernet, requiring corresponding hardware.

4G

K7S_K7F supports 4G Quectel EC20/EC200M(4G Quectel EC20/EC200M modules are region-specific. Always verify that the module is compatible with your intended country of use, as this is essential for proper network registration and reliable connectivity.) modules. To access the internet via a SIM card, you need to install a 4G module.

Tip

A SIM card needs to be installed at the marked position in the diagram.

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Ethernet

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Buttons

  • RESET: Short press to hot reset device once.

  • POWER: Short press to put device to standby/wakeup (shutdown in Ubuntu). Long press to force power off device.

  • RECOVERY: RECOVERY button is detected by U-boot, not SoC's Init code, so its function is implemented in U-boot. No matter what OS has been installed in eMMC (Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Armbian), press and hold with a power-on action will put device into loader mode, cooperating with RockChip's flashing tool to install OS Image into eMMC (Armbian installation is slightly different when using the flashing tool, please refer to Armbian Image Installation section). Also, when the already installed OS is Android, press and hold RECOVERY button with a power-on action and with NO USB cable connected to perform image installation, device will boot into Android recovery mode, allowing user to do factory reset and other operations.

  • MENU: Additional expansion button, no default function, user-customizable.

  • MASKROM: Located on the bottom side of the board. It is used for installing OS Image to on-board eMMC. When pressed and held with a power-on action, SoC's Init code will put device into MASKROM mode, cooperating with RockChip's flashing tool to install Image into eMMC. MASKROM mode tricks SoC init code into thinking eMMC has nothing programmed, even without U-boot or U-boot is corrupted and unable to work correctly. It gives people a chance to reprogram eMMC after bricking it.

image-20260402165925307

image-20260402165709787

System Startup

User and Password

For any Linux distro Image we released, default user and password for different distros are as follows:

System Username Password
Debian12 linaro linaro
Debian12 root root
Ubuntu24.04 kickpi kickpi
Ubuntu24.04 root root
Armbian kickpi kickpi

Hardware Installation

In the installation diagram below, we have installed power supply, HDMI display, mouse, and keyboard to KICKPI K7S_K7F (If you only have a power supply, you can check whether the system boots successfully via LED status).

Warning

FPC Antenna has bare metal surface, should avoid direct contact with the board. The antenna may also generate electromagnetic interference, harming DDR signals. Please place the antenna spatially away from DDR and SoC.

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LED Status Indicator

When no display is connected, you can tell the system working status via the LED indicators.

  • The board has two LED indicators. Green LED is the power indicator, and blue LED is the heartbeat indicator.

Success

Normal status: Green LED is steady on, blue LED is blinking.

Failure

If green LED is off when device is powered on, please check power supply or short circuit issue. Green LED draws current directly from DC power without any external control. If the blue LED is off or steady on (no blinking), kernel panic or died. Blinking is controlled by a kernel driver. All our released OS Images work this way: Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Armbian.

System Desktop

KICKPI K7S_K7F supports Android, Ubuntu, Debian, and Armbian operating systems. If you cannot distinguish which OS is installed, you can check the desktop after system boot to identify the OS.

Android14.0

android

Ubuntu24.04 xfce

Ubuntu_xfce_desktop

Debian12 xfce

Debian_xfce_desktop

Armbian Ubuntu24.04 gnome

Ubuntu_gnome_deskptop

Installing Operating System

KICKPI K7S_K7F has on-board eMMC and boots from eMMC directly. If you need to replace the system on eMMC or want to sideload another OS from other storage devices (e.g., TF card), please read this chapter and proceed.

Obtaining Image

Obtain KICKPI K7S_K7F image files from OnDrive.

├── Android14       // Android 14 Tablet Desktop Image
├── Armbian         // Armbian Ubuntu2404 Image
├── Debian12        // Debian12 xfce Desktop Image
└── Ubuntu2404      // Ubuntu2404 xfce Desktop Image

Android, Ubuntu, Debian Image Installation

Warning

Android, Ubuntu, and Debian systems share the same installation method. Armbian image differs from Rockchip's official image format and cannot be installed using the same method. For Armbian Image Installation, please read the separate section below.

USB Installation

Install OS Image to the on-board eMMC via USB TYPE-C or USB TYPE-A (To boot from TF card or install Image into eMMC via TF card, please read SD Installation).

Hardware Installation
  • Hardware: Windows PC/laptop, DC 12V/1.5A power adapter, HDMI display (optional), USB TYPE-C (ensure host has TYPE-C port) or USB TYPE-A data cable (some cheap TYPE-C cables only provide current, make sure to use one capable of data exchange). Some users reported that when using TYPE-C to TYPE-C cable, installation fails occasionally; switching to USB-A to TYPE-C cable works fine.

Tip

FPC Antenna has bare metal surface, should avoid direct contact with the board. The antenna may also generate electromagnetic interference, harming DDR signals. Please place the antenna spatially away from DDR and SoC.

image-20260402171605511

image-20260402165709787

Installation Steps
  • Download USB driver DriverAssiant, open DriverInstall.exe in the extracted folder.

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  • Download RKDevTool, open RKDevTool.exe in the extracted folder.

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  • Connect board and PC with USB TYPE-C cable, put board into MASKROM mode, RKDevTool will detect a MASKROM device.

Note

MASKROM mode entry:
When board is powered off, press and hold the MASKROM button on the back of the board (don't let loose), apply power. The green LED will be steady on, release the MASKROM button, connect the USB cable, the flashing tool will detect a MASKROM device.
When board is powered on, press and hold the MASKROM button on the back of the board (don't let loose), then short press the RESET button once, the flashing tool will detect a MASKROM device, release the MASKROM button.

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  • Select image file and flash.

1. Click Upgrade Firmware to switch to the firmware upgrade tab, click Firmware, select the target image update-*.img to install.

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2. Click Upgrade, wait for flashing to complete.

Success

If the board is connected to a display, do not power off immediately after flashing completes, the system will boot automatically. Wait for the board to show the desktop.
If installing without a display, do not power off immediately after flashing completes, the system will boot automatically. Check the LED status: green LED steady on, blue LED keeps blinking!

image-20260114100519507

SD Installation

K7S_K7F has a SD card slot (microSD aka. TransFlash or TF) which can also serve as a bootable device. In K7S_K7F's boot sequence, SD card has higher priority, so the device always tries to boot from SD card first; when no mountable SD card is detected, it then boots from on-board eMMC. Since SoC vendor's official tools use terminology SD (microSD) instead of TF, we use SD card in this context, TF and SD mean the same thing.

With SoC vendor's tool, we can make 2 types of booting cards. SD Boot Card works like a portable edition OS (e.g., Windows PE). It is used to power the device for maintenance and repair purposes, and can also be used to verify your own customizations. The second type is SD Installation Card. You create this kind of booting card when you want to use it to install a new Image into on-board eMMC. It contains a specific script to create partitions, format FS, and copy files to eMMC. Make sure you understand what you need and create the right SD card.

Note

Supported SD card filesystem formats: exfat, NTFS
SD Boot Card (SD Boot): Contains bootloader and complete system image, supports device booting directly from TF card, used in scenarios like on-board storage failure, development debugging.
SD Installation Card (Upgrade Firmware): Stores firmware image and installation script, used to install or upgrade firmware to the device's on-board storage (e.g., eMMC).

Steps

  • Download SDDiskTool, open SD_Firmware_Tool.exe in the extracted folder, insert TF card into your PC.

Note

SDDiskTool default display language is Chinese. To change to English, find the config.ini file as shown below, change Selected=1 under [Language] to Selected=2, save, and restart SDDiskTool.

SD Boot Card

When both on-board eMMC and the SD Boot Card contain OS systems, the system boots from SD card by default.

eMMC erase

Note

When the on-board eMMC has been pre-installed with the Android operating system, and the SD card has been flashed with another Linux system and you attempt to boot from the SD card, the boot process will fail. The reason is that the device's boot procedure prioritizes booting into the U-boot bootloader on the on-board eMMC — when no mountable SD card is detected, the device directly loads the kernel and rootfs from the on-board eMMC; when an external SD card is detected, the U-boot on the on-board eMMC will try to transfer control to the U-boot on the SD card. However, the Linux system comes with a different version of the bootloader (U-boot), which is incompatible with the U-boot version on the on-board eMMC, and the latter cannot load the Linux's U-boot. In this case, we need to erase the existing system on the on-board eMMC.

Steps

1. Download USB driver DriverAssiant, open DriverInstall.exe in the extracted folder.

image-20251117112611028

2. Run RKDevTool, power off board, press and hold RECOVERY button (don't let loose), power on. When RKDevTool status bar shows Found One LOADER Device, release RECOVERY button.

image-20260126140500595

3. Choose Advanced Function tab, click EraseAll. This action will erase data from on-board eMMC.

image-20260121134844278

4. Left text view shows erased.

image-20260121134923143

Step1. Create SD Boot Card

1. Select the SD card.

2. Select SD Boot.

3. Download image, click Firmware to select the installation image update-*.img file.

├── Android14       // Android 14 Tablet Desktop Image
├── Armbian         // Armbian Ubuntu2404 Image
├── Debian12        // Debian12 xfce Desktop Image
└── Ubuntu2404      // Ubuntu2404 xfce Desktop Image

4. Click Create SD Boot Card, please wait patiently for the TF boot card creation to complete.

Note

During the creation of the TF boot card, SDDiskTool will ask whether to format the TF card. If TF card formatting succeeds, it may prompt "burning failed" — simply recreate the card.
If SDDiskTool shows formatting failure, please read the Q&A section below.

image-20260121163209922

5. TF boot card creation completed.

image-20260114142318827

6. Power off the board, connect the display and insert the SD boot card, power on again, check whether the system boots into the desktop normally.

Note

During the first boot, the display may stay on the ROCKCHIP KERNEL LOGO screen for a long time (approximately 2~5 minutes). The display may also turn off and on repeatedly during this time, which is normal. Please wait patiently for the system to boot into the desktop.

SD Installation Card

Note

The OS image on the SD Installation Card will automatically overwrite the image on eMMC.
If SDDiskTool shows formatting failure, please read the Q&A section below.

1. If your SD card is larger than 16GB, you may encounter installation failure. Please modify SDDiskTool_v1.74/config.ini, specify the format as NTFS, save, and restart SDDiskTool.

USER_DISK_FS=NTFS

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2. Follow the steps shown in the diagram below.

image-20260121162940300

3. SD Installation Card creation completed.

image-20260114155535842

4. Power off the board, connect the display and insert the TF Installation Card, power on again. The display will show an installation progress bar and text like "check userdata/oem partition success".

Success

When installation is done, the display will show "Please remove SD CARD!!!, wait for reboot". At this point, remove the SD card, wait for the system to reboot (for the first system boot, do not power off immediately, wait for the system to boot into the desktop normally).
When no display is connected, after both the blue and green LEDs are steady on, remove the TF card. The board will automatically reboot, and the blue LED will keep blinking.

Armbian Image Installation

Obtaining Armbian Image

Download KICKPI K7S_K7F image from OnDrive.

USB Installation

Install Armbian image to on-board eMMC via USB TYPE-C or USB TYPE-A (To boot Armbian system from SD card, please read SD Boot Card).

Hardware Installation
  • Hardware: DC 12V, HDMI display (optional), USB TYPE-C or USB TYPE-A

Tip

Connecting a display makes it easier to observe whether the image flashing is successful. K7 supports multiple display connections, only HDMI connection is demonstrated here.

image-20260402175656247

Installation Steps
  • Download USB driver DriverAssiant, open DriverInstall.exe in the extracted folder.

image-20251117112611028

  • Download RKDevTool, open RKDevTool.exe in the extracted folder.

6f52ad7c-b238-450a-8412-7c3dc8bc244b

  • Connect board and PC with USB TYPE-C cable, put board into MASKROM mode, RKDevTool will detect a MASKROM device.

Note

MASKROM mode entry:
When board is powered off, press and hold the MASKROM button (don't let loose), apply power. The green LED will be steady on, release the MASKROM button, connect the USB cable, the flashing tool will detect a MASKROM device.
When board is powered on, press and hold the MASKROM button (don't let loose), then short press the RESET button once, the flashing tool will detect a MASKROM device, release the MASKROM button.

image-20251107102611421

  • Unlike Android and other Linux distros, Armbian cannot be installed simply as a whole image. Please read the following details.

1. Click Download Image tab. You can see many partitions in the partition table area, e.g., Loader, Parameter, etc.

image-20260114162811326

2. Right-click anywhere inside the partition table area to open the pop-up menu. In the menu, click Load Config, and then select the armbian_*.cfg file.

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3. After loading config to apply armbian.cfg, the partition table area changes to reflect the config inside armbian.cfg, leaving only two partitions (Loader and Image). We need to specify img/bin for each partition. First, specify img/bin for the loader partition: click the area marked (1), select the MiniLoaderAll_rk3576.bin file.

image-20260126110736708

4. Select the Image partition configuration: click the area marked (2), select the Armbian-*.img image file.

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5. Check both lines' checkboxes as shown in the diagram and also check the Write by Address option (Must be checked!).

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6. Click Run, wait for installation to complete, and check whether the Armbian desktop appears on the display.

Success

If the board is connected to a display, the board will reboot automatically after installation is done. Wait for the display to show the system desktop.
If installing without a display, you can't see the reboot process. Check the LED status: green LED steady on, blue LED keeps blinking! During installation, blue LED is off all the time. So when it starts blinking, it means the board has rebooted.

image-20260114163923086

SD Boot Card

eMMC Erase

Note

When on-board eMMC has already been installed with other OS (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, Android), and the SD card has been flashed with Armbian and you need to boot from SD, it will fail. The reason is that the boot procedure will first boot into on-board eMMC's U-boot. When no SD card is mounted, the board directly loads on-board eMMC's kernel and rootfs. When an external SD card is mounted, on-board eMMC's U-boot will try to transfer control to U-boot on the SD card. But Armbian has the newest bootloader (U-boot) version which is not compatible with the older version U-boot on the on-board eMMC. The older version U-boot cannot load Armbian's U-boot. In this case, we need to erase the on-board eMMC's system.

1. Download USB driver DriverAssiant, open DriverInstall.exe in the extracted folder.

image-20251117112611028

2. Run RKDevTool, power off board, press and hold RECOVERY button (don't let loose), power on. When RKDevTool status bar shows Found One LOADER Device, release RECOVERY button.

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3. Choose Advanced Function tab, click EraseAll. This action will erase data from on-board eMMC.

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4. Left text view shows erased.

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Step1. Create SD Boot Card

Preparation

Steps

1. Connect Storage Card: Insert the SD card into your computer via a card reader.

2. Launch Software: Open the installed balenaEtcher as Administrator.

3. Select Image: Click "Flash from file", select the downloaded Armbian-*.img system image file.

4. Select Target: Click "Select target drive", choose the SD card device you just inserted.

5. Start Flashing: After confirming the information is correct, click "Flash!".

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6. Installation Complete: Wait for the program to automatically complete verification and prompt success, then close the window.

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If the image is undamaged and the situation shown in the diagram occurs, the issue may be poor USB port contact. Please replace the USB port and try again.

1769678473395_c034b3cb1f034c538ceb60a7b96355e4

Step2. Boot Device Using SD Card

Note

First Boot Guide
1. Be Patient: After the first power-on, the system will automatically perform initialization configuration. Do not power off or restart during this process.
2. Completion Sign: When the screen displays the graphical desktop or command-line login prompt, it indicates boot is complete and ready for use.

1. Power Off Device: Ensure your target board or device is completely powered off.

2. Insert Boot Card: Insert the created TF boot card into the corresponding slot on the device's board.

3. Power On and Boot: Apply power to the device, the system will begin booting from the TF card.

4. Wait for Boot Completion: The system will boot normally. The first boot may take several minutes for initialization, please wait patiently for the system to enter the desktop.

System Configuration

In this chapter, you can use Mobaxterm for serial debugging, ADB for Android system development debugging, and SSH for remote connection.

Account and Password

Default usernames and passwords for different systems are as follows:

System Username Password
Debian11 linaro linaro
Debian11 root root
Ubuntu20.04 kickpi kickpi
Ubuntu20.04 root root
Armbian kickpi kickpi

Serial Debugging

Connect to K7S_K7F device using a serial debugging tool to get a console. Please check the pinout diagram below to find the UART pins.

K7S_K7F DEBUG UART Pins

  • Physical Image

image-20260402173328752

Tool Preparation

  • Software: Mobaxterm
  • Hardware: Serial Debug Cable, aka USB-TTL debug cable

Note

Red: VCC (no need to connect); Green: TX; White: RX; Black: GND. If you can't get Serial Port output in Mobaxterm, just switch the green and white wires and try again.

image-20251110111232659

Hardware Installation

  • Diagram

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Mobaxterm Configuration

1. Click session to create a new session window.

2. Select the session window type as serial.

3. Select the serial COM port number (Check COM number by opening Windows Device Manager -> Ports interface).

4. Set Speed(bps) to 1500000.

5. Start the session window.

As shown, after clicking OK, you will enter the command-line input window.

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When the board is powered on and connected to the computer, Mobaxterm outputs boot information as follows.

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Connection successful. Press Enter in the command-line interface to input commands, successfully logging into the board console.

image-20251110110128039

ADB

Android system supports ADB functionality. ADB (Android Debug Bridge) is an Android system debugging bridge tool. It supports connecting to devices via USB or network, enabling device management and debugging operations such as app installation, file transfer, command execution, etc.

Tool Preparation

  • Hardware: USB Type-C or USB Type-A data cable
  • Software: ADB_Tool

Hardware Installation

Connect one end of the data cable to the board, the other end to your host PC.

image-20260402175312478

ADB Installation

1. Extract the compressed package, e.g., to Windows path D:\ADB\adb-tools.

2. Open cmd window, switch to the extraction directory.

cd D:\ADB\adb-tools

3. Run the command. Successful run indicates installation success.

adb --version

image-20251030103509920

4. Start ADB debugging.

.\adb.exe shell

SSH

SSH stands for Secure Shell, an encrypted network transmission protocol. Its core function is to securely remotely log into servers, execute commands, or transfer files in insecure network environments.

Account and Password

Default usernames and passwords for different systems are as follows:

System Username Password
Debian12 linaro linaro
Debian12 root root
Ubuntu24.04 kickpi kickpi
Ubuntu24.04 root root
Armbian kickpi kickpi

IP Address Acquisition

DHCP automatically assigns IP addresses; no settings are needed. Device IP can be obtained in multiple ways.

  • Within the system: Connect the board to a display, log into the system, use ifconfig eth0 to get the IP address.
  • Via serial port: Enter ifconfig eth0 in the serial terminal to get the IP address (Serial connection refer to Mobaxterm section above).

SSH Connection

Enter the command in the command line to perform SSH connection:

ssh <username>@<IP>

Example:

PS C:\Users\16708> ssh kickpi@192.168.77.186
The authenticity of host '192.168.77.186 (192.168.77.186)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:635IZrLQdeYlWWl3SCdLxu9fxLEPmStBapj4APCjzZE.
This key is not known by any other names.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.77.186' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
kickpi@192.168.77.186's password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.1.75 aarch64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/pro

This system has been minimized by removing packages and content that are
not required on a system that users do not log into.

To restore this content, you can run the 'unminimize' command.
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

kickpi@kickpi:~$

Q&A

  • SDDiskTool Formatting User Disk Failure?

Cause: SD cards larger than 32GB need to use NTFS file system format.

Solution: Modify SDDiskTool_v1.74/config.ini, specify the format as NTFS, save, and restart SDDiskTool.

USER_DISK_FS=NTFS

image-20260114150058808

  • Armbian Image Flashing Failure?

If you encounter the following boot failure message, it indicates Armbian image flashing failed and cannot proceed.

image-20250917165634041

Solution:

First, flash an Android/Linux full package image to restore the system.

Second, redo the Armbian image flashing.

  • ROOT User Login Failed?

1. Check if configuration was successful

Run the following commands. If the output is PermitRootLogin yes, it indicates configuration success:

console$ cat /etc/ssh/ssh_config | grep PermitRootLogin
PermitRootLogin yes
console$ cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep PermitRootLogin
PermitRootLogin yes

2. Root user login configuration

Modify SSH configuration files:

console$ vim /etc/ssh/ssh_config
+ PermitRootLogin yes
console$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
+ PermitRootLogin yes
console$ sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart