The first public release of the project took place - a set of programs and instructions that allow you to turn the Raspberry Pi board into a fully functional IP-KVM switch. The board connects to the HDMI/VGA and USB port of the server to control it remotely, regardless of the operating system. You can turn on, turn off or reboot the server, configure the BIOS and even completely reinstall the OS from a downloaded image: Pi-KVM can emulate a virtual CD-ROM and a flash drive.
The number of parts needed, besides the Raspberry Pi itself, is minimal, which allows you to assemble it in just half an hour, and the total cost will be in the region of $100 even in the most expensive configuration (while many proprietary IP-KVMs with less functionality will cost $500 and more ). Board mounted based on Arch Linux ARM. Pi-KVM specific and control daemon written in Python and supplied under the GPLv3 license.
Key features:
- Access to the server through the web interface of a regular browser or VNC client (no Java applets or flash plugins);
- Low video latency (about 100 milliseconds) and high FPS. To broadcast screen content, use , written in C and using MJPG-HTTP;
- Full keyboard and mouse emulation (including LEDs and wheel/touchpad scrolling);
- Emulation of CD-ROM and Flash (multiple images can be loaded and connected as needed);
- Server power management using ATX pins on the motherboard or via Wake-on-LAN;
- Supported by IPMI BMC for integration into existing network infrastructure;
- Extensible authorization mechanisms: starting from the usual password and ending with the possibility of using a single authorization server and PAM;
- Broad hardware support: Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 4 or ZeroW; various video capture devices;
- Simple and friendly , which allows you to build and install the OS on a Raspberry Pi memory card with just a couple of commands.
A special expansion board for Raspberry Pi 4 is also being prepared for release, which implements all the described functions, plus many other features (details on ). Pre-orders are expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2020. The cost is expected to be around $100 or less. You can subscribe to the pre-order news .
Source: opennet.ru