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 similar https://developer.amd.com/tools-for-dmtf-dash/
>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 works.
>be able to package everything into a tiny 3D printed case.
Yeah, that would be neat! One of the biggest issues I have with TinyPilot's setup right now is that it looks kind of like a bunch of random hobbyist parts stuck together. A 3D printed case would be good and wouldn't have the heat issues that Pi 4 has.[0]
[0] https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/best-way-keep-your-co...
StarTech makes a USB-to-KVM that looked promising to me, but it's still >$400: https://www.startech.com/Server-Management/KVM-Switches/Port...
[0] https://github.com/Fmstrat/diy-ipmi#setting-up-the-hardware
[1] https://www.realvnc.com/en/products/viewerplus/ [2] https://blog.michael.kuron-germany.de/2011/10/using-intel-am...
//edit: link [2] added.
I got the idea from danman, but his setup is much cooler than mine:
https://blog.danman.eu/new-version-of-lenkeng-hdmi-over-ip-e...
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...
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).
--
But anyway, TinyPilot is super cool! I'd love to get it set up one day. And the "life story" as to how it came to be was really neat, and made me feel like I understood the whole solution. Great article!
One thing I've ran into was root not having a password since the cloud images are typically SSH key auth only. That was annoying when trying to fix something simple like iptables or entering maintenance mode for a disk check.
If all your host machines are Windows 8+, then Parsec is fantastic and has clients for every major OS other than iOS.
https://www.startech.com/Server-Management/KVM-Switches/2-po...
e.g. https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/M11SDV-4C... -- the line about AST2500 BMC graphics? That runs a VGA port.
A lot of these things seem to "help" by inserting their own USB host device that acts as a proxy for attached USB peripherals. This allows them to do (ostensibly) useful useful things such as intercepting keypresses and responding to them (e.g. by switching to another input).
Don't get one of those, get a physical switch that just connects the leads to the correct port when pressed. I got this USB 2.0 switch (all you need for input devices) for $12 [0]. I'm sure there are others available with more ports, but this is all I needed.
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...
I have a boatload of Intel vPro machines spread throughout multiple countries (or the basement) and connect to them both via internet (mutual TLS authentication) and VPN. Never had any reliability issues at provisioning or operating. I had an old AMT v2.1 machine that was a bit unreliable, needed to be manually powered on once in a while or the remote connection wouldn't work.
I wholeheartedly recommend Meshcommander [1] for this.
I just built a new homelab server and ended up buying a separate GPU again. My new mobo is the SuperMicro MBD-X10DAL[0], which has no onboard display.
[0] https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10DAL-i
>I still don't know what KVM stands for!
Oh, keyboard, video, mouse. The article does define it, but it's a little buried.
>From a quick skim of your site it looks like you've worked at large companies and now are doing some independent projects. Do you think you'll go back to working for a company (perhaps a smaller one?), or do you see yourself working independently for many years?
I'd love to continue working for myself forever. My ideal would be if I could find a business sustainable enough that I can hire 2-5 developers and other teammates to work with me. If I did have to go back to being an employee, I'd probably lean toward something smaller.
It's very much about your temperament, what type of work you enjoy, and how much you value flexibility and autonomy. A good way to test the waters is by building a side business and see if you enjoy it more than your job. You can also read/hear more about the lifestyle in places like Indie Hackers[0], Starter Story[1], and WIP[2].
But I agree with you that you pass up certain kinds of growth by working on your own. I'm happy that I had ~10 years of experience with big companies before doing my own thing. I learn a lot on my own, but I don't think I could have learned a lot of my software "craftsmanship" kind of skills (e.g., designing for maintainability, creating repeatable, well-documented processes) had I not worked for Google and Microsoft.
[2] https://wip.chat
I believe so, but with the caveat that I haven't tested it. Does Fire TV take USB keyboard input?
I have successfully captured video from a Roku Premiere[0], even though it's HDCP protected. The LKV373A couldn't capture anything out of it, but the $11 dongle did just fine. But that was just video capture. I didn't have a way of sending input to the Roku.
>Is there an upper limit on resolution and frame rate for the dongle?
Yes, the limit is 1280x720px @ 30FPS.
[0] https://twitter.com/tinypilotkvm/status/1277994838210875392
1) https://www.adder.com/en/kvm-solutions/adderlink-digital-ipe...
Honestly, the overhead from TinyPilot is so small that it's just a question of how powerful you want the device for other activities.
Here's a screenshot I took earlier today on a Pi 4 with 2 GB of RAM. TinyPilot is streaming video over WiFi, and top shows that it's only using ~4% of CPU and ~2% of RAM:
[1] https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/management-software/...
[2] don't even try to talk about PXE booting if you've never tried to get DHCP+BOOTP to work over a WAN
I don't think there's a way to get the Pi to capture video or impersonate keyboards for more than one computer at a time.
A neat idea a friend proposed to me was to buy a "dumb" KVM that supports switching through keyboard hotkeys and use that to scale it to multiple machines. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23928251
https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Wireless-Compu...
Or possibly just wiring up a transistor to the power button pin (not sure if it sources or sinks) between motherboard and the Pi, and just hold it high until it boots.
(Edit: No affiliation. Just happy to see something like this for hacking :) )
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.
https://trendowner.com/products/1000x-zoom-usb-microscope-ca...
I've used it with Windows 10, MacOS and an RPi, with no issues.
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 that. (Though now I'm just imagining the "useless PC" [1] that just tells a smart power plug to turn itself off.)
if you are kind enough to report back whether it works with the newest bios, that will be helpful to others
