Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#131

Post by oakwhiz » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #45

wojciii wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

Thanks for reading! > 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? Yeah, that's one of the limitations. TinyPilot can't control power for the target computer. I don't know of any way to manage power without connecting the Pi to the target machine's motherboard, but that increases complexity significantly. I'm usi…

Perhaps a fake USB device that issues power or sleep button requests could work. I had limited success with this on Linux using an HID keyboard emulator. However this won't work on a machine that's too far gone to respond to USB, and that's also an issue with the physical power button as well. Perhaps an AC latching relay would work to cut power.

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#132

Post by ryanar » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #115

derefr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the ideal here would be for there to be a Thunderbolt/USB4 display which has multiple Thunderbolt "source" ports, and also USB-C connectors for peripherals, where the display itself is acting as a USB controller available over Thunderbolt-PCIe, with the USB-C sockets attached to said USB controller. Change the input on the monitor, and the USB-controller PCIe card in the display would be hotplugged out of…

I've just given up on Bluetooth for rapid device switching. It's too time consuming to be figuring out which device your headphones are attached to & disconnecting/reconnecting to resolve, especially e.g. when someone calls you. Wires are very, very easy to read and debug. I have AirPods but will only pair them to my phone.

AirPods are the first blutooth type device that I switch all the time. If I am hooked up to my phone and connect on my Mac, instantly switches, if I am paired to my Mac and get a call on my phone and accept it, it opens a menu asking if I want to use airpods, tap that, instant audio / mic. The switching is so seamless and it makes the tech phenomenal for me.

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#133

Post by fuzzy2 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

Very nice. I’ve been looking into the same thing, with a different video grabbing method though: A HDMI-to-CSI bridge (Auvidea B101/B102). Hopefully, this could somehow work with a Raspberry Pi Zero W, which is very compact and also supports USB-OTG. Unlike the Raspberry Pi 4, a single USB port can easily power it.

Unfortunately, the much more powerful B102 bridge isn’t available. :(

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#134

Post by cmer » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #32

cmer wrote: post #10

This is a game-changer! Thanks for all your work on this. Do you have any plans to allow controlling more than 1 computer remotely? I'd love to implement this in my homelab.

> This is a game-changer! Thanks for all your work on this. Thanks for reading! > Do you have any plans to allow controlling more than 1 computer remotely? I'd love to implement this in my homelab. Right now, I can't think of a way to do this. The Pi only has one USB OTG port, so I don't know of a way to share that among multiple machines. A friend suggested an interesting solution of chaining TinyPilot together with…

That's a really great and simple idea, actually. I might give this a try.

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#135

Post by tmikaeld » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

Raspberry 3B is too slow for this?

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#136

Post by jwatzman » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

NietTim wrote: post #36

Great little project! I had no idea capture cards got that cheap

If you're looking to buy the card in the article, I just got one of these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000958505670.html which looks to be exactly the same card, and doesn't require scouring eBay. I haven't done much with it yet, but can confirm that it arrived to me in the UK with no issues, and seems to work from a quick test.

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#137

Post by rglover » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

This is great, Michael :) One question before I buy...

I'd like to use these to do development work like you suggested, too. Is the Hacker option the build with the best latency/least issues (set it and forget it)?

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#138

Post by fulafel » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

parliament32 wrote: post #121

fulafel wrote: post #98

A major con of the enterprisey ilom systems (such as the idrac) is their atrocious security track record. You are basically giving up your "the network is untrusted, I can survive its compromise" badge if you plug in one of those.

Well those ports should never face the internet anyway. Most servers will have a dedicated (physical) port you use for IPMI or whatever -- vlan that and only allow access from your VPN. If you're extra secure you can full on disable the switchport until you need it.

This fail-open "should" is bad besides for the obvious reasons, also because it'll be extra ops complexity compared to a secure kvm widget that you don't have to handle with kid gloves.

(And thirdly because of the sibling comment noted footgun.. or silent foot-boobytrap more properly)

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#139

Post by mtlynch » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

trm42 wrote: post #129

mtlynch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you happen to have any idea, whether older RPIs like 1 or 2 could work for this fast enough? Have some of those laying around.

The video capture part should work, but I don't believe they support USB OTG, so they wouldn't be able to impersonate the keyboard.

The official documentation[0] says all Pi devices have USB OTG, but I'm not sure if there's something else about the Pi 4 and Pi Zero W that allows USB gadget mode because I've never found anyone talking about using it before recent generations of Pi. This StackExchange answer says the A and the A+ had it, but that the 2 doesn't.[1]

[0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry... [1] https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/71613/how-to...

Re: Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi

#140

Post by jimatremoteit » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #53

simlevesque wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you remotely connect to something like this ? using something like ngrok ?

Yeah, I haven't looked into that much because everything is on my local network. ngrok looks like it would work. One of my users is looking into remote.it, which seems like a similar service.

I work for remote.it. If you or your users need any help setting up remote access to the TinyPilot let us know. This looks like a great application. We can make ssh/VNC/http on the Pi available remotely over internet as a free service no problem.