Raspberry Pi based Pi-KVM goes to Kickstarter

A year after the first release, Raspberry Pi based Pi-KVM presented its own hardware on Kickstarter.

Pi-KVM is a software and instructions project that turns a Raspberry Pi into a fully functional IP-KVM. This device connects to the HDMI and USB ports of the server, and allows it to be controlled remotely over the network, 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 an image on emulated virtual media. All functionality (including video transmission) is available through a web interface that does not require any additional plugins and applets, and is implemented only using HTML5 tools.

The device presented on the kickstarter (Pi-KVM v3 HAT) is a small board for the Raspberry Pi, which contains everything that previously needed to be purchased separately and / or assembled independently, and also has a number of additional unique features. The Pi-KVM v3 HAT is an alternative for those who don’t want to mess with building themselves, but want a reliable production-grade device.

Among the declared opportunities:

HDMI video input (1080p 50Hz) with audio capture;
Integrated ATX controller for server power management;
USB breaker to emulate pull-and-paste action;
Serial CISCO console and USB-TTL, which can be used to administer the Pi-KVM or connect to a server;
Supercapacitor clock for accurate logging;
… and much more (see the Features section ).

Also, one cannot ignore the software , which has received a huge number of improvements over the past year. The most significant of them are:

New video transmission mode using WebRTC / H.264 , significantly reducing traffic consumption compared to the old MJPEG;
Experimental support for H.264 in VNC ( standard developed , approved by IANA, support is available in the TigerVNC test branch );
Own patches for the kernel, adding compatibility of USB-keyboard and mouse with Apple UEFI (now you can go to UEFI or Boot Manager and configure something there);
Support for a relative mouse and the ability to dynamically switch between it and absolute for systems that do not support the latter.
PS / 2 keyboard accessible via connected Arduino, as well as Bluetooth keyboard and mouse emulation .
The ability to control GPIO via the web interface (you can connect relays, servos for pressing physical buttons or read external signals).
Integration with KVM switches such as Ezcoo and Tesmart , which turn the Pi-KVM into a multi-port device.
Raspberry Pi temperature and voltage monitoring tools ;
Built-in IPMI and Wake-on-LAN clients that allow power management of connected servers directly from the web interface.
Server support for Redfish and IPMI ;
Possibility of configuring USB-Ethernet for communication with the server. The Pi-KVM will itself give it an address via DHCP and even allows you to make an uplink with routing via Raspberry.