Built a nice little PiKVM and deployed it in my NAS. The NAS is heavy and placed in a dark half-height place under the stairs so it’s awkward when things go wrong and you need hardware access.
Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to get a motherboard with IPMI/BMC?
cygnus@lemmy.ca 10 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?
redcalcium@lemmy.institute 10 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 10 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.
misophist@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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.