Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi#

Broadcom-based ARM SBC family from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The default SBC of the trade; mature kernel support, ubiquitous community recipes, and the largest accessory ecosystem in the hobby and pentest worlds. The operator reaches for a Pi first and only deviates when the Pi runs short on cores, neural compute, or x86 binaries.

Lineup#

Board

SoC

RAM

Note

Pi 5

BCM2712, 4× Cortex-A76 @ 2.4 GHz

2 / 4 / 8 / 16 GB

Current flagship. PCIe 2.0 via FFC, dual MicroHDMI, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0. Active cooling recommended.

Pi 4 Model B

BCM2711, 4× Cortex-A72 @ 1.5–1.8 GHz

1 / 2 / 4 / 8 GB

The mature workstation. USB-C power, GbE, two MicroHDMI.

Pi 3 Model B+

BCM2837B0, 4× Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz

1 GB

The legacy Pi still drives the cheap-bench tier; PoE hat support.

Pi Zero 2 W

BCM2710A1, 4× Cortex-A53 @ 1 GHz

512 MB

65 × 30 mm. Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 4.2. Fits inside a USB wall adapter; the operator’s preferred implant chassis.

Compute Module 4

BCM2711, 4× Cortex-A72

1 / 2 / 4 / 8 GB

DDR2 SO-DIMM-style module; the operator’s choice for custom carrier boards.

I/O#

Interface

Notes

40-pin GPIO header

Standard since Pi B+. 28 GPIO pins, 3.3 V logic; UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, I2S on dedicated pins.

USB

Pi 5 / 4: 2× USB 3.0 + 2× USB 2.0. Pi 3: 4× USB 2.0. Zero 2 W: one USB OTG (operator’s HID-injection edge).

Network

Pi 5 / 4 / 3 B+: Gigabit Ethernet. All current Pis except the original Zero have on-board Wi-Fi.

Display

Pi 5 / 4: 2× MicroHDMI. MIPI DSI for direct-attached touchscreens.

Camera

MIPI CSI-2 connector; Pi 5 has two.

Storage

microSD on every board; Pi 5 adds NVMe via the PCIe FFC.

Operator use#

  • Dropbox / implant. Zero 2 W inside a USB wall adapter or KVM dongle; Wi-Fi callback to the operator’s C2.

  • Wi-Fi pentest platform. Pi 4 or Pi 5 with an Atheros or Realtek monitor-mode adapter; runs Kali Linux ARM cleanly.

  • SDR host. Pi 4 / 5 with HackRF, RTL-SDR, BladeRF.

  • C2 redirector. Cloud-fronted nginx on a leased VPS used to be the play; a Pi 4 in a closet on the target network is the modern callback alternative.

  • Pwnagotchi. Pi Zero or Zero 2 W running the Pwnagotchi firmware; captures WPA handshakes in the wild.

  • Hardware lab head node. Pi 4 / 5 with OpenOCD, a CH341A SPI programmer, and a BusPirate sits between the operator and a row of target boards.

Tools#

Tool

Effect

rpi-imager

Flash an OS image to microSD or USB; the operator’s first step.

raspi-config

Enable SSH, set hostname, expand filesystem, tweak boot options.

pinctrl (Pi 5), gpio (Pi 4 and older)

Inspect and toggle GPIO from a shell.

libgpiod (gpioget, gpioset)

The forward-looking GPIO interface; works on Pi 5 and across all current kernels.

RPi.GPIO, gpiozero, pigpio (Python)

Scripted GPIO. gpiozero is the easiest.

Kali Linux ARM

Pentest distribution with hundreds of tools preinstalled; the operator’s default image on a Pi 4 or 5.

DietPi

Minimal Debian image; smaller footprint than Pi OS.

References#

Contents