An anonymous reader asks: "I've been looking for a cost effective (ie, cheap) way to remotely administer several servers running a variety of OS's, and would like to have a solution that would allow for monitoring of the bios on startup, etc (ie, not VNC). The most appealing solution is KVM over IP, which really just means a souped up KVM switch with something like VNC running on it, unfortunately all of the solutions I've been able to find are more expensive than I can justify spending. I've played around a bit with making my own Poor man's KVM over IP; I did this by purchasing a cheap (sub $50) VGA-to-NTSC convertor, then feeding it into a video card with NTSC input (the ATI All-In-Wonder Radion), and then by logging into a machine running Windows Terminal Services I'm able to watch the reboot process. Of course, this doesn't address the mouse/keyboard issue, and the quality isn't all that great. What I'm hoping is that someone else might have a suggestion on how to do this, preferably using Linux and the least hardware necessary. Does anyone have any suggestions or insights on ways to do this?" There are pre-existing solutions, but it seems they are all kind of pricey. Can any of you suggest cheap solutions (at or below $500USD) that could handle a farm of 5-10 machines?
"Here are the three approaches I found:
ViewProxy:
They make the most economical for administration of multiple machines (by one person). Their ProxyView device plugs into your KVM just like it was a monitor/mouse/keyboard, and then does all the packetizing magic. Price is about $6k from what I can tell.
eRIC:
These are the same guys who make the Rolf (Reboot on Lan), which is pretty cool. They make a card called Eric which replaces your normal video card with their card, which has a built in ethernet connection and allows remote control. The cheapest solution at about $700 but only would allow control of the machine it's installed in.
Avocent: I think the first to introduce the whole KVM over IP solution, they have KVM's with this sort of functionality integrated. Some of their products allow multiple users to multiple machine, which is a neat feature but not needed for my applications. Their units run from $4k on up."
Hardware solution with caveats for you (Score:2, Interesting)
bt878s with a gateway running ffserver (Score:2, Interesting)
That'll let you see the whole boot process including doing bios stuff.
Then run ffserver (ffmpeg, or maybe ffpegrec which is part of nvrec) on this gateway machine to encode and serve up divx5 video streams.
You can add security with freeswan and certificates if you like.
This can all be done using linux fairly easily. The major drawback would be the limit on PCI slots for capture cards. There are cheap Viewcast cards that have 3 inputs you can switch between so you could get at least 15 channels.(just not all at the same time)
You'd need a control channel aswell i guess.. maybe you could get a keyboard switch and write a little script to let you pipe your keyboard actions to whichever machine you want.
Not any time soon... (Score:3, Interesting)
You may want to consider an alternative approach (which is what I have been doing ever since the remote KVM sticker shock faded) which obviates the need for a remote KVM at all.
For example:
1. All systems boot from custom CD-R (good for security too) which then boots the remainder off a network drive or perhaps hdd.
2. Remote power cycling (cheap, $100 for 8 ports you can controll over IP) is used to power cycle one or more machines to force a reboot.
3. If you need to reimage the OS, simply replace the OS stored on the boot server, or have the CDROM boot image reimage remotely when given a specific trigger (this is the area wide open for all kinds of solutions. Luckily, all software based using linux and cheap CDR's, network filesytems, etc)
This still has a number of drawbacks. If the machine doesnt come back, there is no remote KVM access to tell you what the bios is complaigning about (bad disk?).
The bootup process is cumbersome. I.e. you need to always boot from CDR to be able to reimage a system later (dedicated hosting) and such.
Kaveman - ~$3500 (Score:1, Interesting)
Kaveman from Digital V6 [digitalv6.com]
They also have models with integrated KVM's for more, but I didn't inquire about the price of those, and they don't put prices on their web page.
They sell them here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Blackbox KVM Ethernet Extenders/Hubs (Score:1, Interesting)
Blackbox Ethernet KVM Equipment [blackbox.com]
Forgive the javascript errors, this was the only way to link to that exact page on the blackbox site.
Re:'Ask Slashdot' has taught me something. (Score:2, Interesting)
You could build special PCI cards that have all of these KMV connectors, and you can purchase as many cards as you need. Even use PCI riser cards to add more slots than the motherboard already has. Would be even nice if each card had the power to take the VGA video and convert to digital, and compress the image. Perhaps even make cards that can handle more than just one KMV input. Probably would have to make special 3-in-1 connector cables.
Would be a gawd awful rats nest behind that unit!!!!
Video compression should not be a MPEG format, since there's not much motion/animation going on with a desktop (unless you feel like playing quake 3), plus it would end up looking blurry with artifices >sp?. It would be nice if it were clear to read, at a normal frame rate so scrolling won't look screwy.
It's possible we could ignore analog VGA video, and use pure digital input from a DV-out used for a flat screen. Then just compress the data on the fly as it's pumped over IP. Doubt many servers have newer video cards with Digital output... Unless you used some old matrox cards that used some funky DB-15 port for some sort of digital output.
That's the only hurdle I can think of, the KMV connections into the box. Dealing with the VGA video would be another hurdle, but I don't think it would be that difficult to figure out. KB/Mouse input would be a no brainer.
Re:Serial Console (BIOS Redirection) (Score:2, Interesting)
All BIOSes has had that as long as I remember. (Which is more than 10 years.)
why not a specialized tcp/ip stack, vnc, and ethernet driver as well?
They are quite limited in the amount of code it has space for. Originally they could only keep at most 64KB. Today some are manufactured with more, but it can only be used during boot before loading the OS. When the OS gets loaded it switches to the small size, so all drivers must fit into 64KB to be available to the OS.
This is also not an area in which much development is going on. In the days of DOS, the drivers in the BIOS was actually being used all the way. But today every OS has its own drivers, the BIOS is only being used during boot. So as soon as the computer can boot and get the OS into memory, nobody really cares about the BIOS any more. The BIOS API used by DOS and loaders has changed very little in the last years. This API does not include networking, and it probably never will. It has been many years since a new device got available through this API, most changes are just to deal with development in already supported units. Today BIOSes does support harddisks larger than 504MB. The last new device that has been added support for in the BIOS is the ATAPI CDROM, but this is really only suitable for boot, and it actually didn't change the API, it merely emulates a floppy.
Wasn't there a project to put linux in the bios along with a primitive firewall?
Yes. [lanl.gov]
Rose Electronics remote KVM (Score:3, Interesting)
We're going to plug the Ultralink into our cascaded KVM tree and hope for the best. Initially looking at the unit, I have some gripes:
* No distributed authentication. It's gotta be local accounts. Can't hit my LDAP, NIS, NT Domain, or RADIUS servers.
* Client is a proprietary Win32 app. No JAVA, no browser. Cripes, not even ActiveX!
* Only one user at a time... including console. You have to log into the console to gain access (crappy for CEs out to fix a problem), and if the CE stays logged in, guess what? You can't access it remotely! We had to plug it into our intelligent PDU so we could remotely hard boot it if that happened.
* We have what must be version
Aside from these (minor) flaws, I think we'll be OK. Anything is better than booking a last-minute 606 mile flight to reboot a Windows box that shows 'It is now safe to power off your computer' because PCNowhere admin chose the wrong logoff choice. [don't laugh] (Although, there is Buckhead...)
Am I missing the point?? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've found that having the ability to remote power cycle (preferably through an interface -- but an ISP that can get someone to the box fast can do in a $ pinch) + some remote network admin tools (VNC, Terminal Services, Telnet/SSH, etc etc) goes a *long* way.
Yes, once in a while the box crashes *so* hard that Terminal services/VNC (assuming a Windows platform) becomes useless -- time for a reboot! The only way that you can really screw yoursel is if you mess with the network settings and configure yourself off the network.
Rather than spend $$$s for that possibility, why not just pick up the phone and call some hands-on support (or if it is your datacenter.. send in the geeks)...?? If you know you are going to be messing with "dangerous" settings, you should be prepared for these sorts of possibilities anyways..
Just my $.02...
'Real' vs /. (Score:2, Interesting)
The 'Real' way actually amounts to mundane unimaginative and stagnant. At worst it amounts to millions of servers on an IP near you being adminstrated by lazy incompetant boobs, who don't know any better than to call a 'Real' technician (read
BB -Guanno