10 ms·
Raspberry Pi KVMs Compared: TinyPilot and Pi-KVM v3
- whalesalad 5y agoI want one of these with an LTE modem on it so that I can drop it in the rack (non-datacenter) and remote-in regardless of the WAN condition.
- burnte 5y agoI've been trying to design one that takes VGA in as that's what servers come with. An LTE modem is trivial to add.
- jhgb 5y agoSo is a VGA digitizer that plugs into a USB port, presumably?
- burnte 5y agoFor my design I don't want that, because then we're just making it even more complex. There's a VGA encoder I've been working on, I don't recall the chip ID but I found it in the Lantronix Spiders I have. I've been slowly trying to build a HAT with that that pipes into the Pi for everything else.
- sneak 5y agoCOTS VGA to HDMI adaptors are readily available.
- burnte 5y agoFor my design I don't want that, because then we're just making it even more complex. I'd have to have an HDMI ancoder, then a VGA to HDMI encoder that plugs into that. There's a VGA encoder I've been working on, I don't recall the chip ID but I found it in the Lantronix Spiders I have. I've been slowly trying to build a HAT with that that pipes into the Pi for everything else. Then there is no daisy chaining adapters.
- phaer 5y agoAt least the TinyPilot firmware is Open Source https://github.com/tiny-pilot/tinypilot https://github.com/tiny-pilot/tinypilot - i don't know Pi-KVM. And it's a normal RaspberryPi with a debian-based os. So you should be able to just attach an LTE modem via USB and configure it via SSH, right?
- EricE 5y agoYeah, it should be pretty easy to add an LTE modem. Configuring the networking failover might take some hands on work; it would be a huge boon if either or both projects eventually took care of that for you too. I've had enough experiences where out of band management would be well worth the cost of the cell service that this is something I could see having wide appeal.
- krasin 5y agopikvm is open source as well: https://github.com/pikvm/pikvm https://github.com/pikvm/pikvm In fact, TinyPilot is based on ustreamer, that is developed by Maxim Devaem, the pikvm creator: https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer https://github.com/pikvm/ustreamer
- osamagirl69 5y agoI am pretty sure all you would need to do is plug in a usb LTE modem to make that happen.
- deivid 5y agoi used to have one of those "hdmi over ethernet" devices which i captured with ffmpeg and used for his purpose. worked well, about 100ms latency for the capture/conversion
- paranoidrobot 5y agoIt's a Raspberry Pi, so there's no reason you can't plug a USB LTE Modem into it. You'd have to figure out how to get inbound connections - perhaps something like tailscale would do the trick.
- flatiron 5y agoTor would work too
- numpad0 5y agoAlmost weird that there isn’t endless numbers of such devices from AliExpress. Something like Wio LTE with some pieces of code from GitHub.
- mdevaev 5y agoPiKVM v3 HAT on Kickstarter right now. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mdevaev/pikvm-v3-hat https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mdevaev/pikvm-v3-hat // I'm the author ;)
- dihydro 5y agoI just backed your project because of this video. I can't wait to get my hands on it and give it a try.
- mdevaev 5y agoThanks! I'm sure you'll like it.
- geerlingguy 5y agoThanks for sending me the prototype to test; besides the labeling issue, and the fact that I accidentally fried one of the fan power cables (thought I'd burnt up the whole unit!) when I first put it together, it's already a great product. I hope you sell many more thousands, and keep improving the experience!
- mdevaev 5y agoNo problem! I'm glad for constructive comments, it will help v3 to become better. I hope PiKVM will be useful to you.
- hendersoon 5y agoSame here, I hope you sell a LOT of these, because it's still a bit expensive for my home lab stuff and I want you to benefit from economies of scale so I can buy a hat for around sixty dollars.
- rasz 5y agoyou can buy USB hdmi capture dongle for $10, its 1080@30 mjpeg, but nothing beats that price
- mtlynch 5y agoTinyPilot founder here. Happy to answer any questions about TinyPilot or KVM over IPs.
- ActorNightly 5y agoGeneral microcontroller questions if you don't mind. Lets say that I prototype something on dev board like something from Raspberry Pi, or ones from STM. Now I want to do a full product, (like the Tiny Pilot) with the microprocessor on a custom PCB board with just the necessary hardware. I understand that you have to design the schematic and then get the PCB layout done, but in terms of figuring out which pins to connect, is it just a matter of figuring it out from the microcontroller manual? Additionally, how do you end up programming the microcontrollers, do you have to have a separate programmer since you don't have all the stuff on the dev board?
- myelin 5y agoYep! It's a matter of figuring it out from the microcontroller manual / datasheet (or basing your design on one that already has it figured out.) Programming microcontrollers is done using an in-circuit programmer, which connects to a header on the board. Adafruit has a great tutorial for this: https://learn.adafruit.com/proper-step-debugging-atsamd21-arduino-zero-m0 https://learn.adafruit.com/proper-step-debugging-atsamd21-ar...
- simcop2387 5y ago> is it just a matter of figuring it out from the microcontroller manual? pretty much, you might end up tweaking which pins you use when designing the pcb because the one on the other side of the chip is just as good, but it simplifies the routing and layout of the board significantly.
- mtlynch 5y agoTinyPilot runs on the Raspberry Pi 4B, so I haven't made my own custom board yet. The Voyager 2 will use custom PCBs for the HAT, but it will still be on top of the Pi. In the next iteration, I'd like to use the Pi Compute Module to migrate to my own custom board, but I'll need to work with an EE firm on that, since I'm not knowledgeable enough about EE for that kind of project.
- mike-the-mikado 5y agoIn all this, I've not seen any mention of what "KVM" means...
- sneak 5y agoKeyboard Video Mouse. It's a device for receiving video output from a computer and providing keyboard and mouse input from a remote operator.
- jldugger 5y ago"Keyboard, Video, Mouse" is what the acronym means for anyone wondering. Some IT workers will have one at their desk to switch a single set of monitors, keyboards and mice between multiple computers. In this context, however, there's an additional expectation that these devices make this happen over a network, so that you can handle things like BIOS configuration fully remotely.
- deckard1 5y ago> so that you can handle things like BIOS configuration fully remotely. Yeah, the important distinction here is that these devices somewhat fulfill the role of a standalone IPMI[1] device. IPMI is typically built into server motherboard (SuperMicro) which allows an administrator to reboot a machine or configure BIOS over a network. Your typical KVM does not feature this. However, where these lack is that they still require a video card. IPMI built into a motherboard can run on an entirely headless system. There are also commercial versions of this, such as the Lantronix Spider KVM over IP[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Managemen... [2] https://www.lantronix.com/products/lantronix-spider/ https://www.lantronix.com/products/lantronix-spider/
- geerlingguy 5y agoGood to note—I should at least in the video have a little text overlay that shows 'KVM = Keyboard Video Mouse'. You forget sometimes how acronym-laden our industry is, and even the ones you find most basic... better to spell it out for someone who might not operate in the same area.
- gruez 5y agoWhat's the latency like on these? Almost imperceptible? I find that the delays on VNC/RDP are noticeable enough to be annoying, even on LAN.
- geerlingguy 5y agoIn my testing and my Dad's, about 100-300ms. Very noticeable, but you kinda get used to it. You can get it down to sub-100ms using a few hacks, but honestly, this kind of setup is not optimal if you need remote real-time control (e.g. for gaming or video production monitoring).
- marwatk 5y agoWhat are the hacks? I use a Pi-KVM and the latency is painful.
- louwrentius 5y agoMaybe for some context - although Jeff Geerling does provide it too in his video - most 'server' motherboards have build-in KVM. I will make the bet that build-in KVM is more responsive and those interfaces are now HTML5 based, so no nasty Java applet stuff. Motherboards / servers with KVM will consume around 8-10 watt extra, even when powered off, as the KVM solution is basically a tiny computer running Linux + proprietary software, soldered on the motherboard. Motherboards with KVM support also support IPMI or redfish for remote management. For instance: I use IPMI to force a physical machine to PXE-boot into an automated installer, to provision the OS.
- nh2 5y agoFor some more context why such a device is desirable: Mainboard-built-in KVMs provided by server vendors are usually buggy as hell closed-source horrors, with regular full-compromise holes that make running them over the Internet a complete gamble. This is why open-source KVMs that are just as secure as other normal Linux servers, and auto-upgradable, are very desirable.
- kcb 5y agoI think the main use case are home and maybe small-business servers which generally aren't built with actual server hardware. Just look at the rack in his video which was basically just a bunch of desktop PCs on their side.
- louwrentius 5y agoMy experience with HP iLO with the html5 upgrade is extremely positive, to be frank. Nothing buggy at all.
- nh2 5y agoWith buggy I don't mean whether the UI works, but bugs in low-level code that lead to remote code execution and full compromise. https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-10/product_id-23648/HP-Integrated-Lights-out-4-Firmware.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-10/p...
- m463 5y agoI wanted to implement a KVM on my pi (a while back). I had the usb hdmi capture dongle. What prevented my from finishing the project was getting power in and usb out on the pi connector. It required a custom cable that I didn't want to build myself. Are cables of this type more readily available now?
- mtlynch 5y agoThere are a couple of vendors (including me[0]) that offer a circuit board that splits the Pi's USB-C port into separate data and power ports with reverse current protection. There are cables that do the same thing, but they don't provide reverse current protection. If there's a voltage difference between the USB port on your target system and the PSU feeding your Raspberry Pi, you can mess up the system's USB port or damage your Pi.[1] [0] https://tinypilotkvm.com/product/tinypilot-power-connector https://tinypilotkvm.com/product/tinypilot-power-connector [1] https://github.com/tiny-pilot/tinypilot/wiki/Powering-your-TinyPilot-safely https://github.com/tiny-pilot/tinypilot/wiki/Powering-your-T...
- kcb 5y agoThis is probably all sorts of improper. But I've used a cable like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C5FWQND/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C5FWQND/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... . Then 5V USB-C power supply into the USB-C connector and a USB-A to USB-C cable into the motherboard which had a USB-C port. You could probably also find a USB-A male to male cable and use that if your motherboard doesn't have USB-C.
- nwmcsween 5y agoIf there was a rpi hat that had multiple connections I would probably use it, a $300 avocent 24 port KVM w/ html5 interface is much more cost effective than 24 pikvms, etc.
- 1MachineElf 5y agoMy plan is to connect a single pi-kvm to the aging Avocent in my homelab rack. The Avocent can connect to dozens of devices, but the IP interface for it is old and unreliable. Hopefully the pi-KVM will make that experience painless.
- crazystar 5y agoWhat model? It was quite expensive for one w/htlm5 interface. $400ish for a single port one IIRC
- usr1106 5y agoJeff Geerling just writes "including BIOS/UEFI". In my extremely limited experience without deep insight it works with some computers while on others the BIOS screens remain black (while the Linux console works correctly). We got it for BIOS work, but that plan did not really work out.
- Ms-J 5y agoCan this replace something like iDrac? Is there any other open source IP KVM projects out there? It's been on my mind for quite awhile.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y agoTheoretically, there's nothing to stop you from using this instead of iDRAC, iLo, etc. OpenBMC is an option if you're a manufacturer.
- getcrunk 5y agoHow does ipmi on servers provide video? I thought u just plug a specific Ethernet jack into a different lan? I'm asking this because the pikvm takes HDMI input so I'm wondering how does ipmi manage the video