Author here. Happy to answer any questions or take any feedback about this post.
Any thoughts on how this could work with VGA for example?
Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
81–90 of 284 posts
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#82This is a great writeup.
I wonder if this can be extended to connect multiple servers to a single Pi.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#83This is pretty cool (for managing servers cheaply), but I remain disappointed that remotely controlling computers over a network with low latency is still a difficult task. I've been trying to find a way to use a bunch of machines remotely over my LAN (for gaming / media playback on multiple devices), and have been somewhat disappointed at the quality / latency of the various options I've played around with. It's esp…
Steam link does it, and fast enough to play games with no noticeable latency. Not sure what the magic is, though.
I haven't tried Steam Link yet, but I might give it a shot. I was originally looking for purely remote desktop stuff for a combination of managing computers and gaming, so I was mostly testing stuff not specifically marketed to gamers. Ideally I'd also like something that does softwarehardware (at higher latency obviously), so I can stream older computers or game consoles to a variety of devices as well.
I did end up trying Parsec, since I saw some people recommending it, and that was terrible. Latency was fine (~10ms software software) and video quality was alright, but audio quality was terrible despite being set to the highest option - which is especially bad, because there's no option to send uncompressed audio, and whatever "optimization work" they were doing to reduce bandwidth made their entire product unusable, despite the fact that there's no need to try saving 1mbps over a wired LAN.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not going to find a decent one sub $500. Used devices can be had for less, but most of the older ones I've seen use terrible Java-based clients that are a major pain to get running on modern browsers. For multi-device KVMs you usually have to figure in the prices for the individual interface module dongles that plug into each computer, too. StarTech makes a USB-to-KVM that looked promising to me, but it's stil…
Thanks and that StarTech doesn't have HDMI. Maybe its cloud VMs that are removing the need for KVM over IP. I still want it.
I wouldn't say cloud VMs have removed the need, they've just made infra admins have to live without it. For the most part it's fine on well supported and tested OSes but before the container/kubernetes revolution I managed some personal VMs with esoteric distros in various clouds and so many things have to go right for that to work. A bad update or install of grub, initrd, dhclient, a handful of system services and maybe systemd, or sshd and the machine is effectively dead. You have to attach the disk to another machine to debug it.
A more extreme example was when I went down the rabbit hole of trying to set up remotely unlocked full disk encryption on a cloud, just to see what was possible. This was maybe 4-5 years ago. This involved a pre-boot environment that would run from memory only, packaged into an initramfs and used dropbear as an ssh server to accept a connection.
I really, really wish cloud VMs had virtual KVMs. It turns out, it's really easy to mess this up, and when you do recovery is Non Trivial.
The best I found was that Azure's cloud allows you to connect (read/write!) a virtual serial port via web interface so you can use the Linux serial console to recover. That was a game changer for playing with this. If dropbear failed to come up, I at least got a shell into the pre-boot environment.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#85This looks awesome. I was looking for a solution like this last year. I budgeted a few hundred bucks but couldn't find anything. Ideally would have a way to handle a few different boxes. I did see something called Intel AMT, part of Intel vPro. https://www.howtogeek.com/56538/how-to-remotely-control-your... Does anyone have experience with this? (I have AMD box so doesn't help me) - actually looks like AMD has simila…
vPro is error prone and may require multiple setup attempts. If you want to use it on anything but the same LAN there is a built-in VPN. If you can find anything about the AMD version I'd be interested, they don't seem to publish anything unless you are a partner.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did this for a while, the problem is that there's really no such thing as a high-quality USB switch. They are all garbage and mess with USB devices in some way (at least at the consumer level).
I have an old Belkin USB 2.0 switch from god-knows when that works beautifully. I use it to share a hub with a keyboard and mouse attached. I’ve given up trying to find a 4K60 x2 DisplayPort KVM that doesn’t suck.
I have this one[0] that works great.
Wendell at Level1Techs does good work and there's even newer ones that can do 8k30.
[0] https://store.level1techs.com/products/kvm-switch-dual-monit...
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#87This guy has apparently never heard of lynx browser. He wasted $40 and a lot of time because of that!
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cool project, but what about power management? What happens if the PC being controlled crashes and does not let you reboot it using keyboard shortcut? I'm might be damaged by testing and working with embedded development.
If you need access to the power and reset, you can replace the respective buttons with a cheap relay switch controlled by GPIO. If you know what you're doing you can also solder your own circuit using opto-isolators instead of relays, to reduce the power draw on the Pi.
This isn’t a bad choice:
https://wiki.52pi.com/index.php/DockerPi_4_Channel_Relay_SKU...
It’s $17 for four relays, expandable to 16. If you wire it “normal closed” then the relays will only draw power while it’s resetting the other machine.
However, the relays are only rated for 3 amps. (360W at 120V). Also, the board is labeled backwards so, the NO port is normal closed, and NC is normal open.
Has anyone found something that’s similarly plug and play with a higher amperage rating?
Edit: this would work as a switched AC outlet (to replace a four outlet PDU) or for hot wiring the power / reset buttons. You could do both buttons and the AC line and have a relay left over.
I’d feel funny running AC that close to the lower button wires though (if cross those wires, it will certainly let the magic smoke out of your motherboard).
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would a Pi Zero W work for this, or do you need a full-size Pi 4? I would think that with the HDMI dongle doing the hardware MJPEG encoding, a Pi Zero might suffice. It'd be really neat to A) bring the cost down another $30 and B) be able to package everything into a tiny 3D printed case.
Thanks for reading! > Would a Pi Zero W work for this, or do you need a full-size Pi 4? I tested Key Mime Pi (the keyboard-only version) on the Pi Zero W and it worked great. I haven't tested TinyPilot on the Pi Zero W, but I think it will work. The video encoding is happening in the HDMI dongle, so it doesn't hammer resources much. I don't have a USB to microUSB adaptor on hand, but I'll order one now and see if it…
You might also be able to use the "standard" radio kit metal boxes - tap some standoffs, carefully drill some holes for wires etc. Dunno which works out better for the world - ordering a pre-fab metal box that you have to do some work on (or perhaps use https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ to get a customised enclosure), or printing something from plastic. Might depend on production volume, metal used etc.
Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi
#90This is pretty cool (for managing servers cheaply), but I remain disappointed that remotely controlling computers over a network with low latency is still a difficult task. I've been trying to find a way to use a bunch of machines remotely over my LAN (for gaming / media playback on multiple devices), and have been somewhat disappointed at the quality / latency of the various options I've played around with. It's esp…
SPICE (virt-viewer) performs well enough for my every day web browsing with VMs. The performance is annoying but adequate over wifi/WAN.
I'm curious how well this works over a LAN - over a WAN, my expectations are way lower because of actual limitations from going over the internet, so I'm fine with some latency / quality loss.