These small little handy-dandy devices seem to get more and more popular. Anyone here chipped in for a JetKVM yet? Looks and sounds pretty solid. Are there a lot of you that have aquired a nanoKVM?

7 points
*

We really need to get past the 1080p barrier. AFAICS there is one economical KVM solution for that, and several costly enterprise kits. Surely the actual hardware cost/difference per-unit would be quite small now?

permalink
report
reply
15 points

Why? Even 1080p is more than what is usually needed for such a KVM solution. It is not like this is meant for doing remote work on a computer or anything like that.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Because sometimes I would rather things be slow than blurry, and my workstation monitor is >1080p.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

You aren’t supposed to do serious work over these things. They should be a last resort imo.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-3 points

OK, I’ve read the wiki entry but I still don’t understand what KVM is, or why it’s needed. The last time I visited a data center - every server rack came with a laptop-esque looking control unit. What problem does KVM comes to solve? What does this invention improve upon a traditional KVM?

permalink
report
reply
12 points

This is not the invention of an IP KVM, those are old. This product just offers the functionality of an IP KVM for very little money.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

It lets you remotely control a server as if you were sitting in front of a screen and keyboard directly attached to it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Afaik this is for servers without a built-in KVM like e.g. self built servers or repurposed workstations.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I Need a device like this that I can buy through an actual store, as I need to buy them for my office. Do you know any?

It does not even matter if it has ip connection, just usb is fine, but i need to be able to buy it from an “official” source.

permalink
report
reply
-10 points

How often are you people screwing things up so badly that your servers aren’t reachable over the network and require keyboard/monitor access? This is basically only ever once for me for the initial OS install, and even then that can be automated away if I had to do it more than once every couple years

permalink
report
reply
3 points

For that one time when systemd-logind crashed on every boot on an unmodified CentOS install because of an OOM.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

If you work in dev/test/qa labs, there are a million reasons you’d need access to the BMC/KVM. It would be foolish to attempt things like firmware updates or testing the install of an upcoming release without it. Most modern BMC solutions also have a central management application that allows you to push firmware updates to all your hosts at once. And if you need to change properties like UEFI trusted certs, change boot from San parameters on the hba, or boot in legacy mode, you generally need “physical” access, at least the first time.

A decent KVM on an oob network can also remove the need to add jumphosts as an entry point to private testbeds. My job would be 10x as difficult without them.

This sort of device doesn’t have that level of feature set, but even so, it could be very useful where I work, especially as it can power cycle systems or automate button presses with add-ons.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Power issues can cause problems that the hardware glitches into states it should not be. Changing something in the BIOS or updating it. Hardware defects. OS upgrade fails (Kernel bug causes the network driver to fail) Etc. Etc.

Those devices are not for the weekly “oh my setup failed” its for the once in 10 years “i am on vacation and the server is not reachable and for some reasons my system crashed and has not rebooted by its own”

And for below 100€ it’s a no-brainer.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

Don’t have to screw anything up. I have a machine that has a weird stability issue that I haven’t tracked down - it seems to take out the PCIe bus, so the errors don’t get logged to disk or network - without my KVM I’d have to leave a monitor connected just for this edge case and be home to check on it

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I backed so I’ll see what happens.

permalink
report
reply

Selfhosted

!selfhosted@lemmy.world

Create post

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it’s not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don’t duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

Community stats

  • 4.7K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.5K

    Posts

  • 75K

    Comments