If you want to support the author and purchase the whole kit, here it is https://tinypilotkvm.com/ (Edit: No affiliation. Just happy to see something like this for hacking :) )
Thanks for your support!
Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
271–280 of 284 posts
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Pi Zero's power port is actually a USB OTG port. I used it in my precursor project to forward keystrokes: https://mtlynch.io/key-mime-pi/
On the web page you explicitly say to connect it to the port labelled "USB", which is not the power port.
Whoops, you're right. I misremembered. It's power on the Pi 4 and data on the Pi Zero.
Thanks for the correction!
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most interesting stuff is generally: -Remotely mounting images (ISO/FS/IMG/etc) on the host for bare-metal installs or any other purpose -Hard power options for unresponsive servers or emergencies -Heavily integrated diagnostics (fan RPMs, thermals, RAID status, etc etc) with eg. snmp output
> -Remotely mounting images (ISO/FS/IMG/etc) on the host for bare-metal installs or any other purpose For what it's worth, that stuff has always been incredibly unreliable for me. Enough so that old school PXE booting was the only way to maintain a server pool, couldn't get them to consistently reimage through the proprietary stuff. The remote power control is very nice, and I didn't see anything on this page about t…
I never had a single issue with it if I mounted it from an onsite drive. Mounting from home in my den is a bit more iffy and pretty slow. PXE is definitely better, but the iso method is nice for when that's not an option.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#274This seems to be extremely similar to what I've been working on writing up (which I'm slightly salty about :D) and it's great to see this stuff finally getting affordable. My design using the same capture card and a 3D-printed enclosure set me back just under 25€ shipped, which includes KVM, as well as USB/IP, CD emulation and power control (not to mention that you can program it to do basically anything else). I don…
I'd love to see your write-up when it's ready!
I think as more people discover this equipment, we're going to see better and more inexpensive software in this space, and hopefully all these projects can benefit from one another.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, thank YOU for making Proxmox! I'm switching over after three years of Kimchi[0], and Proxmox does everything so much better. [0] https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi
Glad to hear that you like it! For (integrated) mouse support you could take a look at a project from a good friend and colleague: https://github.com/Blub/netevent Allows passing along arbitrary input events over the network and more.
Thanks! I'll check it out.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most interesting stuff is generally: -Remotely mounting images (ISO/FS/IMG/etc) on the host for bare-metal installs or any other purpose -Hard power options for unresponsive servers or emergencies -Heavily integrated diagnostics (fan RPMs, thermals, RAID status, etc etc) with eg. snmp output
> -Remotely mounting images (ISO/FS/IMG/etc) on the host for bare-metal installs or any other purpose For what it's worth, that stuff has always been incredibly unreliable for me. Enough so that old school PXE booting was the only way to maintain a server pool, couldn't get them to consistently reimage through the proprietary stuff. The remote power control is very nice, and I didn't see anything on this page about t…
I use a RPi to control smart home components including wifi controlled smart plugs. You could use one as a hard power off, and WoL as a soft power on.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't you just connect a usb-hub?
I don't think there are usb-hubs that can work with the idea of one slave to multiple masters. Do you know of a USB hub that would work to connect one keyboard to multiple computers? That'd simply be against USB protocol. KVM switches are the devices that allow you to connect one slave to multiple masters by giving you a control of what master the slave should engage with at any one time.
Yeah, my bad, I thought of another usecase.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#278Interesting! I wonder if it'd be possible to skip the capture card and have the pi act as a USB graphics adaptor. Most firmware environments probably don't support them I guess.
I wager no firmwares support them at all. Those work only after whole system boots up and loads appropriate drivers.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#279Author here. Happy to answer any questions or take any feedback about this post.
I was wondering if you could try my usb-ip software for the hdmi dongle. https://www.virtualhere.com (ill give you a license key) i think this is quite useful for my customers and its something i was looking for. Can you pass the dongle directly through to your pc (no need for intermediate software) and see what the performance is like.
Thanks for reading!
I'm not sure that VirtualHere would work in this scenario because it looks like it requires code on the client computer. I'd like to encapsulate all the software on the Pi so that the client computer doesn't need anything more than a web browser. The other tricky issue is that uStreamer is optimizing the stream to drop frames from the dongle when it detects that the browser is falling behind, so we'd lose that functionality.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Modern IPMI is HTML5 based. Lightyears better than the old java/.net clients or this (awesome) hobby project.
Sure, the modern ones are better. But they are also very expensive, and usually only come with the higher end hardware too. If you are looking for a reasonably priced server today, you are likely to end up with the shitty Java-based KVM.
Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro all have firmware patches for their current line of servers that replace the java kvm with html5 versions. I assume most other manufacturers are following suit. It would be exceptionally rare to buy a brand new server today with a java based remote console.