So I sometimes need the ability to console into my servers to troubleshoot something or change BIOS settings etc, but always balk at having to haul a monitor and keyboard to get local access. When I worked in datacenters they had those mobile KVM carts you could wheel around to accomplish this, but I’m looking for something more portable.
Something else I was looking into was the PiKVM which I think would satisfy the need, but I’m curious if anyone here has experience with them (either DIY or the prebuilt units)? Also, I believe I would need to keep one of these in each of my server locations, of which there are two that are on different floors of the house.
Anyone have some advice, or some other solutions I haven’t thought of? Thanks in advance!
I DIY’d a PIKVM from an old Raspberry Pi 4 I had lying around for use in a homelab server. It’s been great, no complaints here, very handy if you need BIOS or direct console access from a phone or laptop. I especially like that you can hook up the PC power buttons to allow hard power cycling via the web interface. Though if you’re looking for something portable you’d probably skip that part.