How to check if your pwnagotchi is working

Sometimes your Pwnagotchi’s screen might not be working, but the Raspberry Pi’s activity LED is still blinking. This usually means the device itself is powered on and possibly running, even if the display isn’t. Here’s how to confirm if your Pwnagotchi is actually working.

The most reliable way to check if your Pwnagotchi is working is by trying to connect to it via SSH. This assumes you know its IP address.

1. Connect via SSH: Open your terminal and connect to your Pwnagotchi. Replace your_pwnagotchi_ip with your device’s IP address. The default password is raspberry if you haven’t changed it.

ssh pi@your_pwnagotchi_ip

If you didn’t change the default settings and followed the official tutorial, this is the SSH command:

ssh pi@10.0.0.2

If the SSH is not available, it can be some issue with the network connection. You can find some help bellow.

3. Check Pwnagotchi Service Status

Once you’re successfully connected via SSH, you can directly check the status of the Pwnagotchi service.

sudo systemctl status pwnagotchi

4. Look for “Active: active (running)”

In the output, you should see a line starting with Active:. If it says Active: active (running) in green, your Pwnagotchi is working as expected. If it’s stopped or failed, it will indicate that.

5. Check log files

If the service appears to be running but you suspect issues, checking the Pwnagotchi logs can provide more details.

sudo journalctl -u pwnagotchi -f

This command will show you real-time logs of the Pwnagotchi service. Look for any error messages or unusual behavior that might indicate a problem. Press Ctrl+C to exit the log view.

You can also use grep to find for errors:

sudo journalctl -u pwnagotchi | grep "ERROR"

If SSH is not available

If for some reason you cannot access your Pwnagotchi via SSH (e.g., the network is down, or the device is unresponsive), you have a few options:

1. Physical Reboot (Power Cycle)

The simplest method is to unplug the Pwnagotchi from its power source, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in. This performs a hard reboot. While effective, it should be a last resort as it doesn’t gracefully shut down the system.

2. Connect a Screen and Keyboard

If your Pwnagotchi setup allows, you might be able to connect a mini HDMI display and a USB keyboard directly to the Raspberry Pi. This will give you a console interface to log in and troubleshoot or restart.

Once you see the login prompt, enter your username and password.

Then, you can use the sudo systemctl restart pwnagotchi command as described above.

Important

Remember to be careful when power cycling your device, as improper shutdowns can sometimes lead to SD card corruption.