Yes. This is home-made out-of-band management, like HP’s iLO, Dell’s iDRAC, or generic IPMI. Not only is it a virtual KVM (keyboard/video/mouse), you can pass the host’s power button through this device so you can remotely power on or reset a hung or powered-off system, or mount and boot from a virtual floppy or ISO to completely reinstall the remote system.
Comment on PiKVM Build and Deploy
cygnus@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
So it’s a computer that lets you remotely control another computer? Is the advantage over SSH or remote desktop etc that you can interact with stuff outside the OS, like in BIOS?
misophist@lemmy.world 5 months ago
redcalcium@lemmy.institute 5 months ago
That’s basically it. It guarantees you can always access your computer remotely, even if you broke your ssh, or accidentally messed up your network config, or can’t boot due to filesystem corruption and need to run fsck from recovery mode.
Prizephitah@feddit.nu 5 months ago
Exactly, it isn’t a replacement. It is redundancy in the form of a screen with keyboard and mouse directly connected, but accessibly from remote (my couch). It is far from my primary interface with the server.