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I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#71

Post by rendaw »

I was looking into this and there were reports of e.g. connection delays making it impossible to access bios on a booting machine. This is a huge issue - rebooting and power management are big ip kvm use cases, and it isn't even touched on in the review.

I'm trying to make sense of this test. It seems like basically a listicle with "this is great" and a copy/paste of the datasheet specs. Most of the observations are things you'd spot instantly looking at it on amazon. The most critical comment is "it didn't work with ubuntu" (why, how, what went wrong). I was expecting a list of facets that were tested, with insight you can only get from having the hardware in front of you...

Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#74

Post by JSR_FDED »

I’m using GL.inet to support family on an old intel MacBook Air in Europe, from Asia. Best purchase ever. I set the quality to low so that the latency isn’t too bad. I basically want to be able to help them with reading email, using their bank’s website, and government services. I bought the MacBook Air as well (intel ones are dirt cheap), dedicated for this purpose - so the KVM and MBA are one fixed unit in a dedicated corner of a desk.

Only thing I wish I could find a remote solution for is scanning a QR code with their phone. Does anyone have any ideas for this?

Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#75

Post by geerlingguy »

rendaw wrote: post #71

I was looking into this and there were reports of e.g. connection delays making it impossible to access bios on a booting machine. This is a huge issue - rebooting and power management are big ip kvm use cases, and it isn't even touched on in the review. I'm trying to make sense of this test. It seems like basically a listicle with "this is great" and a copy/paste of the datasheet specs. Most of the observations are…

If you only have 1s to hit Del for BIOS it can be a problem, especially if you're powering the IP KVM off of the computer being controlled.

But otherwise, I've tested BIOS access on every one of these and it works on the PCs I've tested. Mounting ISO's can be tricky sometimes but mostly "just works" now.

Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#77

Post by mstaoru »

xnyan wrote: post #64
mstaoru wrote: post #58

Surprised nobody mentioned Intel vPro AMT so far. It is basically an always-on KVM that's part of CPU firmware, powered by an always-on 5V PSU rail. There is a scary amount of options, including unattended periodic (or alarm based) phone home, user acceptance or full user override, boot media spoofing, Serial over WiFi... All built-in into consumer(-ish) CPUs.

> All built-in into consumer(-ish) CPUs. Dude, I wish. I run a large homelab filled with consumer and small business grade intel hardware, and would love to have vpro on all my mid-high end consumer intel platforms. I have the experience and network environment to lock it all down securely, and it's very reliable high performance low level access from before boot. It's true that some number of relatively expensive co…

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Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#78

Post by solareon »

Kind of surprised that when these devices are brought up nobody ever mentions the gear from Raritan [1] and the like. It may not have the same feature set but in terms of rock solid reliability they’ll sit happily in a rack for years without issues.

[1] https://www.raritan.com/products/kvm-serial/kvm-over-ip-swit...

Re: I tested every IP KVM in my Homelab

#79

Post by kotaKat »

McGlockenshire wrote: post #59
mstaoru wrote: post #58

Surprised nobody mentioned Intel vPro AMT so far. It is basically an always-on KVM that's part of CPU firmware, powered by an always-on 5V PSU rail. There is a scary amount of options, including unattended periodic (or alarm based) phone home, user acceptance or full user override, boot media spoofing, Serial over WiFi... All built-in into consumer(-ish) CPUs.

I'm not surprised that nobody noticed it at all. That's because it's not a KVM that you can purchase and test, the subject to the article. Instead, you're just talking about IMPIjr. These specific features are not in consumer grade CPUs, but in CPUs marked for workstations. Ain't no consumer buying fuckin vPro machines. These are enterprise IT management features, not user features. They're also subject to frequent i…

> Ain't no consumer buying fuckin vPro machines.

Yeah, fine, but a lot of people have been snapping up the tiny/micro class PCs instead of overpriced Pis and a lot of them have vPro.

I shove https://github.com/Ylianst/MeshCommander into the AMT on any vPro boxes I manage so I can have an easy-to-use frontend right on the AMT.

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