Hi there,
I’m using Anthias through the Raspberry Pi Imager (Other specific-purpose OS). Is there a way to enable SSH on this image?
I’m asking since I’d like Anthias to display an internal web page which has a HTTPS certificate I’m handling. So I’d need to add my root CA to the trusted store on the RPi running Anthias.
Any idea?
Search the forums for how to enable SSH on raspbian OS, but if you are using the Balena OS version, as nico has mentioned in other forums, you cant do this the normal way since the balena OS is not the same as raspbian OS… too much to explain but basically not impossible to ssh into the containers on balena OS but that is outside the scope of some help/support for anthias here, the easiest thing would be anthias running on raspbian OS lite, then ssh is as easy as putting a blank file named ssh.txt on the SD card’s boot directory.
Thanks @ealmonte32, SSH is working now using Rabian OS lite; I’ve got some issues with Anthias installation though and will open a separate thread if I’m not able to get this sorted.
Hello, @diode! We just made updates to the install script, which is used for installing and/or updating your Anthias instance.
As for running the install script on a fresh install, you need to do a reboot and run ~/screenly/bin/upgrade_containers.sh most of the time.
After pulling the images from Docker Hub, the script will check to see if a reboot is required (which is more likely due to doing a dist-upgrade, which upgrades the Linux kernel version from 5.x, which is the default upon imaging Raspbian via the imager app, to 6.x.
If you’re trying to run the script again, given that you said yes for the system-upgrade during a fresh install, a reboot may not be required.
Feel free to create issues and post topics as you see fit. Thanks!
Updated October 2026. The advice this post used to give was wrong, so here is the correct answer.
It previously said you could turn SSH on with the gear icon in Raspberry Pi Imager. That works for Raspberry Pi OS, but the Anthias entry in the Imager is not Raspberry Pi OS. It is a balenaOS image, and it does not read the Imager’s settings for SSH, username or wifi. Switching them on has no effect.
There is no SSH on these. The image is prepared to join the Anthias fleet that we run, so there is no balena dashboard of your own to open a terminal from either. That is the trade for an image that boots straight into Anthias and keeps itself updated with no command line at all.
Install Anthias on top of Raspberry Pi OS Lite instead. You set the Pi up yourself, so SSH behaves exactly as it normally does and the machine stays yours:
bash <(curl -sL https://install-anthias.srly.io)
The full walkthrough is in the install guide. When you write the Raspberry Pi OS Lite card, the gear icon in the Imager does work, because that genuinely is Raspberry Pi OS. Turn on SSH there and set your username and password before writing.
If you would rather stay on balena, you can run your own fleet. Because the devices are then yours, you get balena’s own terminal and SSH.
The reason for wanting SSH here was to add a private root CA so the viewer would trust an internal HTTPS page. On a Raspberry Pi OS install there is a script that does exactly that:
~/anthias/bin/add_certificate.sh /path/to/your-ca.crt
It installs the certificate for both the server and the viewer, including the separate store the browser engine uses, which is the part that is easy to miss when doing it by hand.