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Sipeed NanoKVM-PCIe
- NetworkPerson 2y agoFrom the article “It would be laughable to argue the low-end SG2002 AI SoC poses a threat to any country…” I can see a great deal of trouble capable of coming from a networked device capable of watching the screens 24x7 and potentially intercepting passwords being entered. And those are the legitimate functions for this device. Wouldn’t take much to throw a reverse shell for external access if you wanted to be particularly nefarious. Not saying there’s any evidence this kvm is malicious. But I probably wouldn’t put it in anything more than one of my toy home lab servers.
- theamk 2y agoI was worrying about typical Chinese cloud you cannot turn off (seems to be present on all cheap IP cameras), but this device is actually pretty good. For remote access, there is no cloud. But you can BYO tailscale or FRP [0] (note: I really like the FRP idea, as it's trivial to self-host) For updating, there is a central server. But at least the process seems to be manually-initiated [1]. I am not saying the firmware is backdoor-free, but at least it would be feasible to monitor/block all outgoing network connection attempts, and still have a functional device. [0] https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/kvm/NanoKVM/network/tailscale.html https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/kvm/NanoKVM/network/tail... [1] https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/kvm/NanoKVM/system/updating.html https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/kvm/NanoKVM/system/updat...
- wkat4242 2y agoWhat's FRP? Your source link speaks only of tailscale.
- stevefan1999 2y agoFor FRP do you mean https://github.com/fatedier/frp https://github.com/fatedier/frp?
- poisonborz 2y agoYou can selfhost the control server, look at headscale, all the clients support this.
- stavros 2y agoSpeaking of cameras, I got some Reolink cameras for $40 and they're great. I run then on a wifi that has no internet access, but which I can access through Tailscale, and all functionality works (except notifications, obviously), as the cameras have a LAN only mode. About this KVM, I really like the Tailscale access ability, though I'm worried about the binary blob.
- mherkender 2y agoThis is a great device but I can't imagine giving so much power and control to a closed-source, self-updating device.
- theamk 2y agoHey, billions of people use Windows and Mac OS.
- navigate8310 2y agoBut billions of people don't use Sipeed NanoKVM that gets an OOBM access to critical infrastructure
- wkat4242 2y agoYeah mine is on a non-internet-routed VLAN for that purpose. I access it through my vpn only. It doesn't even have outgoing internet access.
- znpy 2y agomany more use closed source kvm solutions built-in into servers, so... as an homelabber, i'm using HP's iLO on my gen8 microserver for example.
- smcleod 2y agoThey opened the standalone unit, assuming this will be also?
- Walter_Ego 2y agoi'm using one of the pcie ones right now, it's pretty nice. uses exactly the same firmware image as the little usb ones. i also have one of the "full" and "mini" usb ones. have connected it to the motherboard headers for power, reset, leds etc... including usb directly to motherboard header. documentation is pretty decent, was quite easy. would still be better if it contained a usb hub on the pcie port, but they've basically just modified their existing design for poe/pcie power in addition to the preexisting usb, and slapped it on a card.
- metadat 2y agoAre there feasible open alternatives to this closed-source blob? The fundamental capabilities seem nice, on paper. Also, is there Windows / Mac compatibility?
- wkat4242 2y agoThey are open sourcing it apparently. At least they promised. And yes it works fine on windows. I've got one. Haven't tried it on Mac yet though.
- egorfine 2y ago> At least they promised Would you count on a Chinese supplier fulfilling their promise given the past history of relationships with open source?
- jauntywundrkind 2y agoWorth mentioning Sophgo (CPU maker here) just got added to US Sanction list for helping China dodge semiconductor sanctions. Apparently it's the Bitmain cryptominer folk? Nice context from Tom's. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/us-govt-set-to-ban-huawei-intermediary-sophgo-over-ai-chip-supplies-partnership-skirted-us-chip-sanctions https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...
- Bluestein 2y agoWorth mentioning also, it apparently has non-configurable (to off) root:root SSH on by default, according to the comments ...
- toast0 2y agoLooks like the pcie slot is just used for power? I'd love to see something like this where the board had a basic video card, so you could use it in a system without any video output. Bonus if it also had a usb controller and a serial port, so it didn't need to loop to plugs (although some of that could happen on the internal side as well)
- wkat4242 2y agoBasically like Dell's old DRAC boards. They used to do exactly that.
- wolrah 2y agoLikewise, I have never been able to get a satisfying answer as to why no one seems to be willing or able to put the same ASpeed AST2x00 chips that it seems half the OEM IPMI/iKVM/whatever solutions use on a standard PCIe card instead of embedding it in the motherboard or using some proprietary interface. I have never been able to identify a technical barrier to doing this, the important features most people actually care about are implemented over a 1x PCIe link and USB, plus a couple of GPIOs to twiddle the power/reset button connections. Most OEM implementations also connect to the LPC bus and others on the server board to allow more in depth diagnostics, voltage logging, etc. but those are bonus features and not requirements for a useful product. I do not see any technical reason a useful generic PCIe implementation couldn't be produced, and as a result I have a strong feeling that the lack of such products is an intentional choice by one or more of the vendors involved to increase margins by pushing users who want these features up to entry level server boards instead of sticking a card in a higher-end desktop board that might better fit their needs.
- toast0 2y agoM.2 A or E might be better for this actually. A lot of boarda have slots for wifi/bluetooth with PCIe and USB. Would need a cable to a panel mount network jack and to pull in the front panel switches.
- deivid 2y agoI've been thinking about this, using the tang mega FPGAs, but it's kinda hard as a software guy
- smcleod 2y agoI have the standalone unit and other than the painfully slow 100mbit Ethernet that's too slow to upload ISOs and which also doesn't work with many modern switches - it's really nice for the price. The problem with a pcie one for me is that modern motherboards suffer from having hardly any PCIe ports - and when they do they're mashed in close to each other essentially making one useless if you have a decent GPU.
- nullify88 2y agoI run this in a 1u rack. Rather than mess with a pcie riser, you can power the kvm via an internal USB header from the motherboard to the kvm USB header directly for both power and HID.
- crest 2y agoOne the one hand adding radios (WiFi, LTe) to KVM over IP device sounds tempting on the other hand given the track record of KVM over IP devices it sound terrifying to give them the ability of bypass points of policy enforcement.
- 1oooqooq 2y agoso true. and all those things are another OS which you have zero visibility or control, but have to manage just like a production server. there's probably tons of ipmi backdoors all over the place and nobody cares much besides limiting routing to some lan.
- nixosbestos 2y agoSo have they released a kernel yet, or nah? Their updater for the standalone unit has all sorts of bug reports. I cannot figure out how these manufacturers can produce such nice hardware and such horrible software. And repeatedly, repeatedly miss the mark on understanding how important kernel/OSS releases are.
- throwaway2037 2y agoMy cynical view: Because the software is more difficult to create/maintain than hardware.
- 0xPIT 2y agoSounds like a cheap Risc V general purpose SBC with USB and video!
- 1oooqooq 2y agoand hdmi in! but no mainline kernel support, so, meh.
- freetime2 2y agoDumb question maybe, but what does this thing do? Edit - ChatGPT to the rescue: > KVM over IP (Keyboard, Video, Mouse over Internet Protocol) is a hardware solution that allows administrators to remotely access and manage servers and other devices at the BIOS level, even when the operating system is not running. It provides complete remote control, enabling tasks like system reboots, troubleshooting, and OS installations as if you were physically present with the machine.
- crest 2y agoIs there a version with a three (or even four) port VLAN capable switch? One port for the BMC, one looped back into the normal NIC and one (or two) upstream ports? Of course it would require a full height PCI bracket, but it would be perfect for colocated servers (no additional space or power requirements) and maybe cheap enough for budget hosters to offer as a reasonably priced KVM option. It would also be interesting to make the PCIe card a good enough NIC (please use an effectively universally supported chip) to avoid the loopback cables. About 99% of the time I want console access I would vastly prefer a proper serial port (≥115200 baud, 8N1, hardware flow control and break condition). Make that and power control (status, on, off, warm reset, cold reset) available via SSH over WireGuard. If done well it requires a lot less bandwidth and is more snappy. While I'm wishing for things please add mosh too ;-).
- duskwuff 2y agoFor what it's worth, the "right" way to handle this is NCSI, which allows a management interface to piggyback on the host's NIC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC-SI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC-SI Unfortunately, support for NCSI can't be added to most motherboards; it requires the NIC to support it.
- gunalx 2y agoDon't buy. Their standalone hardware unit has lots of hardware ground issues.