Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “PiKVM! What is it?!”.
Foreign ER, that is pretty exciting, although, if you’re watching this video a few days later, you might already be too late. It’S the 95 000 Kickstarter. It’S already sailed past a half a million dollars and is like 681 thousand dollars at the time that I’m watching this and that’s for the pi KVM V4. This isn’t the first time that I’ve covered this, and this is actually a product that I’ve bought in the past, at least previous versions they’re doing another Kickstarter round. I’Ve got a proven track record for delivery, and this is a pretty solid setup, because this gives you remote control over the network.
Wait what about the level one tax, KVM, okay, KVM in different contexts, mean different things. The level one text KVM is a switch box. It has nothing to do with network connectivity or anything in fact, a lot of level. One text, customers can’t have anything. That’S Network connected to switch between their machines this instead, the pi KVM V4 is a Raspberry Pi compute module remote control system. So this is the pi kvmv 4 mini, and this is the pi KVM V4 plus, and what this is is this is Raspberry Pi in a box, but also has video capture and HDMI in specifically, but you can also use these modules. So the really cool thing about these is that it gives you Remote Management and remote control capabilities over a computer, even one that doesn’t have built-in management. So when we do a server video and we talk about the Remote Management modules, the ipu management, interface or ipmi, you can turn a computer a server on remotely because there’s a computer within a computer that controls the computer. So what these do is give you the computer within a computer, but it’s not within the computer. It’S a Raspberry Pi and you can use this module, which looks kind of like a network connection on this side.
But it’s not really use this module to connect to your front panel controls on a regular, desktop computer or server computer that doesn’t have Remote Management or whatever you want, and so the Raspberry Pi can physically push the power button. It can push the reset button. It can do whatever other management tasks you need, and this captures video from the HDMI input, so it sort of gives you a remote keyboard and mouse in order to be able to do stuff now, most people probably only need the V4 mini. It has an HDMI input USB on the go. You can do a system reset and then you’ve got control through your connection. Here you got a couple of dip switches for configuration.
You have to read all about this project. I don’t really have a lot of time with this project, considering the kickstarter ends in a couple of days – and I just got these yesterday – so I’ve only had a little bit of time to play with these gon na. You know your our your USB type-c connection. Here USB type-c for your power, your your micro, SD Port here get a little OLED screen.
They’Ll, give you a readout you’re going to have to read about the specs on the project for what you get. If you want to you know back this or whatever, and then you’ve got your ethernet interface here, but it can also do Wi-Fi this one can do wired, ethernet, Wi-Fi or even 5G, so you could have a cellular connection for Remote Management truly out of band Remote Management or remote connection or whatever you want to say this also has a different USB implementation, which is more suitable for interfacing to stuff. Like the level one text KVM, which is just a switch box, I’m switching between a Linux machine here and a Windows machine. You know just an A and A B and my little stack of machines here and you might think well the level on text KVM is DisplayPort. This is HDMI darn it it’s not going to work. Well.
I’Ve got some news for you. I’M connecting my club 3D DisplayPort, 2 HDMI adapter to the console Port of the level 1X KVM, and then I am connecting to the monitor and I’m going to change the input on the monitor boom. But you look at that. This monitor is working through HDMI. Now it doesn’t work like HDMI to DisplayPort conversion, especially folks rocking the G9 Neo. I’Ve got the Samsung G9. That monitor is a trash fire in terms of everything firmware related, but 1440 2560 by 1440, 60 hertz. You don’t expect freesync or g-sync to work DisplayPort to HDMI conversion, totally fine, even 4K, at 60 hertz is totally fine. Your mileage may vary. Club 3D has the best DisplayPort to HDMI conversions available out there, including USB powered ones which are great and DisplayPort.
Hdmi is not the same as HDMI to DisplayPort, but HDMI. This gives us part of the the problem solved, so the pi KVM plus also has two output HDMI connections as well as HDMI in so I’m going to connect out one to our monitor, going to add that to the stack of Madness, then I’ve got my little. My little thing here did, I say out one I meant out two and now my monitor out from the KVM switch box is connected to the HDMI input of our PI KVM. I can also connect a USB cable from the pi KVM to the KVM, the level one text, KVM switch box and be able to do craziness check this out all right.
This is our pocket AVM. All right you can see, we’ve got the Windows machine active and because I’ve got the on the go cable connected to the machine, we can run it’s fluid smooth, there’s. You know this. Software has a lot of Polish in it Mouse settings screenshot.
You can show the keyboard reset the hid controls you can do mjpg instead of web RTC, but look you’ve also got ATX controls. So when you connect your, you know, front panel connection that extra connection other than USB. You can physically click the power button short or long or physically click the reset button and control.
Whatever this thing is connected to it’s it’s power and, in our case, the off label uses. You can also combine this. The pi KTM level, one text, KVM again KVM – means different things in different contexts. These are two different kinds of kvms. Then we can send it a macro to change inputs. Look at that by doing that, we’ve switched to our other computer, the Manjaro. What Madness is this? So? Yes, you totally can use your Pi KVM remotely to control your physical KVM.
Now the level one text kvms are designed for high refresh blah blah blah. Actually an Enterprise KVM may actually be more appropriate. You know A10 has got some really super insanely fancy, kvms that’ll do like 10 or 20 inputs have no reason to think that this wouldn’t work with that, although sometimes those devices are a lot more picky about usb devices than the level one text KVM, and certainly The uh bit banged USB implementation that was in earlier versions of the pi KVM, did not work with any KVM, because it’s complicated, complicated reasons, but the add-on board. They made an add-on board for the pi KVM that fixed that issue, and the V4 plus seems to have inherited those Lessons Learned now currently for the software version. My versions are a little different because they sent these to me ahead of time. So I could take a look at them because I’ve been a long time supporter of the pi kvms, but it doesn’t do HDMI video out yet it can.
But it’s going to do it with software. So it’s not as good as like a hardware HDMI pass-through, but it will work. You can also do pass-through audio, which is sort of unique in that it can capture audio from the device and send it over the wire via the pi KVM. But that’s a DIY solution: it doesn’t do that out of the box with the software image currently as of the time that I’m filming this, but your mileage may vary so this has been a quick look. Super quick look at the pi KVM V4 plus. Let me know if you have any questions about it or you want to see it demoed in a certain scenario and remember if you’re going to use this, you would have to connect this to your front panel connections as well.
I didn’t see a really super easy way to connect multiple computers front panel interfaces to it. So if you wanted to do something like use a switch box to switch between multiple computers and provide remote access to multiple computers, with a single Pi, KVM you’re, going to lose out on the hardware reset and power functionality and all the machines except one. So when you, you know, when you hit that reset button from the web GUI, it’s only going to go out over the single rs-232 interface, but their philosophy, because it’s open and modular and everything else means that somebody else could build that if they’re a crazy person They’Re, probably hanging out on the level one forums which is where I’ll be I’m one of this level one. But a quick look at the pi, KVM, V4 plus and V4 mini check. Those out check out that Kickstarter.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, I’m signing out, you can find me in the level one forums, foreign .