The first public release of the project has taken place. — a set of software and instructions that allows you to turn a Raspberry Pi board into a fully functional IP-KVM switch. The board connects to the HDMI/VGA and USB ports of the server, enabling remote management, regardless of the operating system. You can power on, power off, or reboot the server, configure the BIOS, and even fully reinstall the OS from a bootable image: Pi-KVM can emulate a virtual CD-ROM and USB flash drive.
The number of necessary components, aside from the Raspberry Pi itself, is minimal, allowing you to assemble it in just half an hour, with a total cost around $100 even in the most expensive configuration (while many proprietary IP-KVMs with less functionality cost from $500 and up). The software installed on the board is based on Arch Linux ARM. Specific to Pi-KVM and the management daemon are written in Python and are provided under GPLv3 licensing.
Main Features:
- Access to the server via a web interface using a regular browser or VNC client (no Java applets or Flash plugins);
- Low video latency (around 100 milliseconds) and high FPS. To stream the screen content, it utilizes , written in C and using MJPG-HTTP;
- Full emulation of keyboard and mouse (including LEDs and scrolling with the wheel/touchpad);
- CD-ROM and Flash emulation (multiple images can be loaded and connected as needed);
- Server power management via ATX pins on the motherboard or through Wake-on-LAN;
- IPMI BMC support for integration into existing network infrastructure;
- Extensible authorization mechanisms: ranging from standard password authentication to the possibility of using a single authorization server and PAM;
- Wide hardware support: Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 4, or ZeroW; various video capture devices;
- Simple and user-friendly , allowing you to assemble and install the OS on the Raspberry Pi memory card with just a few commands.
A special expansion board for Raspberry Pi 4 is also being prepared for release, which implements all the described functions, plus many other capabilities (details on ). Pre-orders are expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2020. The price is anticipated to be around $100 or less. You can subscribe to news about the pre-order .
Source: opennet.ru
