Submitted 5 months ago by Prizephitah@feddit.nu to selfhosted@lemmy.world
https://feddit.nu/pictrs/image/7e4be15f-4896-4ed3-852c-3318a98538a6.jpeg
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?
Would’ve loved to gotten one of those. But the power consumption of a Xeon is a bit higher than I’d like. This was a nice to have, not need to. It was a Christmas gift from my wife 🥰
Aww, nice gift!
I’m using a workstation board in my server. Asus Pro WS W680M-ACE SE along with a Core i5-13500. Intel support ECC for consumer CPUs but only when using workstation motherboards :/. The IPMI on this board works well though.
Maybe, but power consumption can get steep with some server boards/chassis which might tip the balance over time.
Don’t have some Intel CPUs Intel vPro making you also able to control the PC in a LVM manner?
I havent tried it yet but my (so far) research suggests its possible and it would be a useful feature for those repurposing old workstation pcs as servers.
I think so, but I don’t have any vPro capable CPUs so I haven’t been able to try it.
What hardware are you using to attach the Pi the PCI slot?
I have a stock PiKMV V3 attached to my home server that seeing this I now need to upgrade!
It’s part of my PiKVM-kit. geekworm.com/products/pikvm-a8
It’s also PoE which is very nice.
Not OP, but looks like the Geekworm KVM-A8. They also make a version using the CM4.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| PoE | Power over Ethernet |
| RPi | Raspberry Pi brand of SBC |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| SSH | Secure Shell for remote terminal access |
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Which pins go to the motherboard other than power/reset? Is that USB connector just passing through the keyboard and mouse signals?
There is power/reset and power/hdd LEDs as well as a USB 3 header for mouse and keyboard and flash/disc emulation. That way you can mount an image and boot from that if you want. Super handy for re-installs or troubleshooting tools.
So this board allows you to remotely control the PC you put it in?
Is there a reverse project, that allows a PC to act as a PiKVM for another PC or laptop so they can be controlled remotely?
Yes.
Not aware of any such project. I’d assume you’ll need some hardware anyways as you need it for the level of access (ATX etc.). Not sure how that would be preferable to this.
I was thinking more about the basics, like USB input and getting the image+sound. For that you could get away with a special USB cable and a capture card. I’m just not aware of any software for it, I don’t think the original PiKVM stuff was ever ported to PC.
An IP graphics card?
Interesting. When is this more convenient than a virtual desktop (if it is what I guess it is)?
So what does it do?
For me a KVM is a switch for keeb, mouse and eventually a screen (or a virtual machine :-)
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?
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.
misophist@lemmy.world 5 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.