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DIY IP-KVM Based on Raspberry Pi
- xupybd 3y agoAll the use cases I have for one of these would need VGA sadly.
- RockRobotRock 3y ago<$10 adapter
- xupybd 3y agoThat is actually a really good point. I must be tired. Didn't even think of that.
- anilakar 3y agoServer VGA output to HDMI capture input? Needs an active converter in that direction, not a passive pinout-changing one.
- RockRobotRock 3y agoyep
- gsich 3y agoYes. That price will get you such a device.
- westurner 3y ago/? db9 to USB https://www.google.com/search?q=db9+to+USB https://www.google.com/search?q=db9+to+USB (RS-232, Serial port, UART, USB-TTL, USB-to-serial adapter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35120757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35120757 ) /? VGA capture card https://www.google.com/search?q=vga+capture+card https://www.google.com/search?q=vga+capture+card /? HDMI capture card USB-A Linux https://www.google.com/search?q=hdmi+capture+card+USB-A+linux https://www.google.com/search?q=hdmi+capture+card+USB-A+linu... -- Intel ME Management Engine, Intel AMT, Intel vPro (ME+AMT), AMD Pro; VNC to boot-time BIOS configuration Intel AMT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Techno... : > AMT is designed into a service processor located on the motherboard, and uses TLS-secured communication and strong encryption to provide additional security.[6] AMT is built into PCs with Intel vPro technology and is based on the Intel Management Engine (ME).[6] AMT has moved towards increasing support for DMTF Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) standards and AMT Release 5.1 and later releases are an implementation of DASH version 1.0/1.1 standards for out-of-band management.[7] AMT provides similar functionality to IPMI, although AMT is designed for client computing systems as compared with the typically server-based IPMI. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/s41a17/in_2017_amd_promised_to_look_into_opensourcing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/s41a17/in_2017_amd_p... : > To understand what PSP and ME can do you need to understand CPU security rings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring . These are different levels of privilege software has on the system. > Originally the Linux kernel occupies ring 0, which is the level with highest privilege. Then user space would run in some other ring. > However with things like PSP and ME they have created rings lower then ring 0. Things like Ring -1 and -2. Intel Minix ME runs in -3 ring. vPro supports VNC over TLS. coreboot and Libreboot don't support PQ SSH, TLS, VNC, or DASH; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libreboot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libreboot, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot DASH: Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware https://www.dmtf.org/standards/dash https://www.dmtf.org/standards/dash : > DASH provides support for the redirection of KVM (Keyboard, Video and Mouse) and text consoles, as well as USB and media, and supports the management of software updates, BIOS (Basic Input Output System), batteries, NIC (Network Interface Card), MAC and IP addresses, as well as DNS and DHCP configuration.
- numpad0 3y agoThere are both VGA-HDMI and HDMI-VGA easily powered from a spare USB port, sometimes even HDMI bus power. I’ve heard the data can be converted line-by-line and timings are close enough that such devices never need to hold the complete framebuffer.
- hugs 3y agoThe project lists several DIY options for building (more like buying and plugging in) the hardware yourself. You might be able to find an off-the-shelf VGA-to-HDMI adapter/converter that would then be downstream compatible with the rest of the stack. There is discussion about VGA support in the project's GitHub Issues and Discord.
- hugs 3y agoI'm currently working on a variation of this, specifically for accessing/controlling smartphones. My hunch is that even though a hardware-based KVM approach was meant for remote manual control, it could also be extremely useful for automation (and specifically test automation). But the big question is if anyone would agree with me about that. Hope to find out soon enough...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RockRobotRock 3y agoIt works great! I got a cheaper case and modules from aliexpress, though.
- nirav72 3y agoWhich module/case did you get? I saw a bunch of them sold as BliKVM. Is that it?
- RockRobotRock 3y agoGeekworm's KVM kits are what I got.
- nirav72 3y agoyeah, I saw those on amazon. Not sure how well they worked compared to the official PikVM board/kit. I might buy the CSI-HDMI adapter from Geekworm and try it out on a Pi4.
- thewanderer1983 3y agoHere is another one about to go live on crowdsupply. https://www.crowdsupply.com/hackergadgets/pi-cast https://www.crowdsupply.com/hackergadgets/pi-cast
- progbits 3y agoI like this project but the hardware seems quite overpriced at $300+. Similar for tinypilotkvm.com. In the past I've considered making and selling a cheaper version. Aside from lack of time (or motivation), one thing which discouraged me is that I would feel bad "undercutting" someone selling open hardware.
- jermaustin1 3y ago>I would feel bad "undercutting" someone selling open hardware As a potential customer, I feel bad you feel that way.
- theodric 3y agoRoll your own. I've got one running PiKVM software on a Pi Zero 2W with an AliExpress HDMI-CSI board connected, and the whole thing bundled together with kapton tape and hanging off the USB port on a headless system. I had to mask off one pin on one of the two microUSB cables. I think I'm into it for about €50 including the Pi0. The instructions are/were on their website.
- Aurornis 3y agoYou’d be surprised at how expensive it can be to manufacture, program, test, package, warehouse, sell, ship, and support small hardware projects like this. It may seem overpriced when compared to collecting all of the pieces and putting them together for yourself, but the person trying to do this as a business has to make a big investment in up front purchasing as well as labor to get them all together and shipped out. It quickly reaches a point where doing it for an “undercutting” level price doesn’t justify the risk and effort.
- comprambler 3y agoUsed Raritans are pretty cheap on ebay. The dongles are even cheaper.
- hattmall 3y agoCan you explain what all would be needed to make a similar setup? I see the dongles for ~30 but does it need to be in a location with another piece of hardware or what?
- mcpherrinm 3y agoYou buy a KVM device like the raritan kxiii. That’s a rack-mount unit that’ll support a bunch of connected devices. For each connected device you need a dongle, which is what will plug into the display and usb ports of the server.
- comprambler 3y agoCorrect, the dongles connect via ethernet cables (not ip protocol) to the raritan unit. Then you access the raritan via IP to access the dongle outputs.
- mike_d 3y agoThere is a great video from Level 1 Techs where he explains why he started making KVMs and why it is an extremely hard problem. (Edit: I can't seem to find the video now, it might have been on another channel, but I'll keep looking) The TLDR is that manufactures don't follow specs as closely as you'd think, and as a KVM you have to handle the bugs of thousands of different manufactures for both upstream and downstream devices.
- jofla_net 3y agoi got the V3 a bit ago, was definately worth it for an out-of-box running solution. though the fan settings needed fiddling so as to not make too much noise. KVMD_FAN_ARGS="--speed-idle=50 --speed-low=60 --temp-low=50" anywhoo for those who never and are curious the lag is almost entirely on the return channel, processing the hdmi signal and getting it back to client side. it is definatley useable for programming but certainly not for any interactive graphics or gaming. i'm wondering if since its a processing bottneck if overclocking the pi would speed it up a bit... it seems to idle at around %20 usage as per the little display.
- hackcasual 3y agoV4 is a massive improvement in lag. The CM4 doubles the camera interface bandwidth, which was the bottle neck.
- mouth 3y agoHow much has video lag improved?
- hackcasual 3y agoI tested it out by playing dark souls 3, beating the first boss
- mdevaev 3y agoYou are legend! // PiKVM's dev :)
- pizza 3y agoWould love a bluetooth muxer via rpi. Have a few devices that keep conflicting with one another and acquiring the connection to my bluetooth headset. I have to go through the hassle of navigating to the offending device's bluetooth settings, disconnect it, go to my desired device's settings (which, although it reports it is connected, doesn't actually produce any sound), disconnect it, then reconnect it. Each time. I'd rather have them all stay connected (maybe one cheap dongle per endpoint) to my rpi and then route to the intended destination with just a press of a physical toggle/key/slider etc, or via phone app. Additionally would like to be able to simultaneously mix multiple audio sources to the one headset.. oh, and all of this with no latency overhead, please :)
- deegles 3y agoYou could do it with a 4 channel mixer and USB audio devices hooked up to one Bluetooth transmitter... I don't know about latency though and good luck with the cable management! Rolls MX51S Mini Mix 2 Four-Channel Mixer https://a.co/d/48XLqLi https://a.co/d/48XLqLi USB to RCA https://a.co/d/iam01Xj https://a.co/d/iam01Xj Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter 3-in-1 https://a.co/d/47TuAMn https://a.co/d/47TuAMn
- adamzegelin 3y agoProbably do-able using Pipewire/Pulseaudio. I just tried, and I'm able to pair both my Macbook Pro and iPhone to my Linux desktop PC. The PC has Kensington Bluetooth USB dongle. Both the MBP and iPhone can simultaneously play audio over Bluetooth and I can route the incoming audio to a pair of wired headphones. The volume of each stream is independently adjustable via `pavucontrol`. I also tried pairing a bluetooth headset, but the audio was choppy. Maybe too much bandwidth for 3 devices streaming audio at once? Maybe another dongle would work? Note that at one point I was experimenting with receiving BT audio on my PC. I can't remember the exact set of configuration changes needed to make this work (if any -- it might've worked out of the box). But the stack is BlueZ + Pipewire on Archlinux. Pipewire (and Pulse) have a lot of modules and config knobs. Might be possible to get auto-switch working too. They also expose a D-Bus interface, so control from some sort of e.g. Python webapp from your phone is likely.
- ajot 3y agoI've recently seen this project in Wolfgang's Channel [0]. The team behind it seem to be pretty nice about the open source nature of it and the DIY ways of getting a similar hardware doing the same thing as their own product. Kudos to them! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpKcqLcApTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpKcqLcApTQ
- renewiltord 3y agoWe have a couple of these. They're actually quite nice. I wish the Asrock Rack boards would have a similar letsencrypt integration.
- bambam24 3y ago[dead]
- gmurphy 3y agoIf price is a barrier, a less open, fiddlier, but much cheaper ($79) solution I've used recently is the Aurga viewer[0]. You have to use their awful apps to access the device, but if you can get past that, it does work - I was able to access and control the BIOS of a NUC I had in a closet. It can join a wifi network or host its own, which is useful in the field. [0] https://www.aurga.com/ https://www.aurga.com/
- girishso 3y agoLittle confused, can this be used for Remote Desktop sharing, like VNC?
- hugs 3y agoIt can... but this goes one level lower to the hardware layer... so that you can do things like reboot the computer and view/edit BIOS settings (since you're viewing the same raw HDMI signal that would otherwise show up on a real monitor display). You wouldn't be able view the BIOS with Remote Desktop or VNC because those are not available until after the operating system has launched.
- numpad0 3y agoIP-KVMs are more useful for fixing remote access without physically interacting servers. In cases where a server is stuck in BIOS, BSoD, wrong IP configured, just waiting for a RETURN key input, etc. and not responding to RDP/VNC/SSH, an operator can log into KVM to unstuck it.
- maxlin 3y agoI once wanted to build one like this, but for console devkits. That situation was and went, but I did end up wanting to have the same for all windows machines at work and home (Unity dev, so workstations, test runners even servers are desktop windows machines). My solution was: -BIOS: auto-power on when power is connected -Smart power plugs on important computers -AnyDesk for software on all machines, with unattended password set (connectable even at login screen, less annoying for licenses than Teamviewer) -(Optional) my own WoL sending / restarting / RAT program for all the machines too -(Optional) Parsec also installed, to allow remote desktop good enough latency/control wise for actually gaming remotely (which I often did!) This way, I will never be stuck in a situation that I can't access a machine that I'm away from, unless it's one of those without a smartplug and has somehow hard crashed. Costs less than 20€ per machine. I've NEVER needed to access the bios or similar remotely. I've recently played around with a lot of SBC's and have a spare capture card and cheaper sbc's that could work as OTG keyboards. Might end up building a crappy version of one of these for fun
- PaulWaldman 3y agoI went with a similar setup and the only thing I'd add to your list is using multiple NICs and having one dedicated for remote management.
- maxlin 3y agoCan I ask what is the exact point of adding more NIC's? Considering one can just hard reset the machine remotely, a network card driver goof (like I've gotten with maxwell 10gbit cards) should be clearable. Unless you mean a separate internet connection entirely?
- rfoo 3y agoI have one and indeed my only use of it is to type in BitLocker password when I'm not at home. I really hope one day I can just ssh in and unlock the disk like what I do with LUKS.
- johnklos 3y agoI'm glad projects like this exist, but I'm too lazy and more than happy to have a Pi provide a serial console and a hardware reset via GPIO over IPv6 for colocated hardware. It's much simpler ;)
- nilespotter 3y agoI thought about building one of these, but then I just switched both of my servers to boards with IPMI
- johnklos 3y agoThe problem with IPMI / iLO / iDRAC is that they're not secure. You can't safely put them on the Internet, so you need to pay your colocation provider for out of band connectivity and a separate drop. To save money, I have a switch inside of my machines and have the serial console Pi on an IPv6 address. Having a fully up-to-date, modern OS makes a world of difference.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoI am curious if there are any decent and very affordable regular KVMs (to use locally, not over IP). The cheapest one I found for a three monitor DP setup was ~$500 (Star Tech).
- mbrameld 3y agoBest value I've found is a just a cheap USB switcher for the keyboard and mouse and use the monitor input switch for video. Might not work for all use cases, but if you just have 2 computers you want to switch between it works pretty well.
- universa1 3y agoAdding to this: search for haimgel/Display-Switch[1] on GitHub, which can switch monitor inputs using DDC commands on USB connect/disconnect events. Poor man's KVM :-) [1] https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch https://github.com/haimgel/display-switch
- newsclues 3y agohttps://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-kvm-switch-triple-monitor-2computer-pne46-fxlmw https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-kvm-switch-t... Not the cheapest, but very good.
- jjeaff 3y agoJust a regular KVM? You can get them all day for $20-$30 on amazon. I use this $30 one for up to 4 systems. https://a.co/d/eDtP3BW https://a.co/d/eDtP3BW
- squarefoot 3y agoThe suggested CSI2 adapter works up to 25fps at 1080p, while this one which also declares compatibility with the Rpi goes up to 60fps at the same resolution. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002861310912.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002861310912.html
- INTPenis 3y agoOn the re-sellers page the Swedish/Norwegian re-seller Direktronik [1] are selling the unit for 6300 SEK (534 Euro). 1. https://www.direktronik.se/direktronik/natverk/kvm-switcharextenders/kvm-forlangningip-remote/kvm-switch-over-ip-full-hd/ https://www.direktronik.se/direktronik/natverk/kvm-switchare...
- rekoil 3y agoSaw that too. Insane, predatory almost. The Swiss or Netherlands based shops seemed to be the most reasonable way if you wanted to buy the HAT.
- breitling 3y agoNot sure how common knowledge this is, but there's a growing community of people using this for work from home gigs.
- Havoc 3y agoDef cheaper to diy. Think I spent around 30 bucks on the capture card and usb data/power splitter. Already had an old pi3 on hand