It's 2004: What Are The Best Remote KVM Options?

Tocano33 writes "Saw a story regarding this quietly residing in the /. Story Retirement Home (tm), but it was from over 2 years ago and wanted to see if anyone had some new insight. We have about a dozen servers in our one rack - not a terribly large setup. However, our admins are not located in the server room and while we can use RDP/SSH/VNC/etc for everyday maintenance, we need to be able to perform offline work and may need to evaluate POST information on bootup, etc. So we're currently looking at KVM options - IP based specifically (ie Raritan Dominion) but we're wondering if there are cheaper options and wanted to know what slashdot readers would recommend."

Comments

Dell

[passthecrackpipe]

The Dell 2650 server is nice little middle-of-the-road server, that comes witha kick-ass out of band management card, that will allow you to do all kinds of fun stuff, even when the host is switched off - it has a great PERL interface, so you can script it as well - i know that you probably don't have dells, etc, but you may want to check out out of band management cards as well as KVM solutions. They really rock.

RealVNC hardware

[lullabud]

Since everybody is already familiar with VNC, why not stick with it when you move to hardware?

http://www.realvnc.com/products/KVM-via-IP/

Don't use PCs

[beegle]

This is a problem that has been solved by every hardware platform out there -except- the PC.

Buy decent hardware. Use a serial console (perhaps hooked up to something like a Cyclades box). Move on.

If you absolutely MUST use a PC, there are workarounds like watchdog cards or those dell boxes that basically have a second monitoring computer in them. Fundamentally, though, they are workarounds for an inadequate design.

(In fairness, the PC design's adequate for its intended use: desktops. Using a PC in the server room is a bit like trying to attach a giant U-Haul trailer to a family car: It doesn't work as well as a truck, but you can't blame the car for that.)

Re:Don't use PCs

[HawkingMattress]

it's not a pc issue, more a how many are you ready to cash for it one. Just buy a real server with redundant everything, tons of fans, integrated error reporting and a system which allows real remote administration (that is, even if the machine is off, or the network card is dead, or you want to access the bios, or you need to install an os but don't have the cd in the machine so you need to be able to use an image as a virtual drive)...
We had those things for something like $4000 from HP, probably other vendors have similar things, but the bottom line is: it's really worth the money. We thought we couldn't afford that, but it already payed for itself in a few months because we didn't have to do anything on the machine since they were set up, plus not having to drive 50km everytime we really need physical access...

Avocent

[kzanol]

For infrequent use you could consider what we're using: Standard (8-port) KVM Switch that can be controlled by Keyboard + one Avocent KVM IP Switch in front of that. Not too expensive and works reasonably well as long as you don't need to access more than one box at a time.

Re:Robots

[I_Love_Pocky!]

A naughty pair of robots who constantly flash each other.

American Megatrends MegaRAC G2/G3

[LiteForce]

I have an AMI MegaRAC G2 installed in one of my co-lo servers at The Planet (Dallas, TX).

It is a standard half-length PCI card that is a looks like a ATI Rage XL graphics card to the host operating system with a VGA connector on the back of the card in case you really need to hook a monitor up to it.

(you do need to be able to disable the onboard VGA on the server - if it has it)

The real magic is with the cards' mini USB connector - cable it up to any USB port on the server and the card will emulate a USB keyboard, USB mouse and a USB CD-ROM (great for operating system re-installs if you prefer Windows!).

On the internal side, the card has a feature connector that allows 'pass-thru' to the servers' reset and power jumper pins.

Because of the feature connector, the card can perform a proper hardware reset and power-cycle via 'pass-thru' to the server PWR_ON/RESET pins if the server manufacturer actually has bothered to put standard pins on their server board like most OEM motherboards have - the card can survive short power outages with the aid of its' dinky onboard battery that can last 30 minutes without power.

My only bugbear with the G2 is that it has a horrible tendency to fall over if it is 'unprotected' from the Internet - if you can protect it from unwanted traffic by ACLs on an upstream router, I can heartily recommend it.

The G3 is meant to have an onboard firewall but my e-mails to American Megatrends over the last few days have been rudely ignored.

Another thing...

The firmware for both cards is based on uClinux and various other GPL'd softwares... no mention of any source on American Megatrend's website although they do quote the GPL license on their download page.

So to sum up:

High-quality card.
Average firmware.
Manufacturer has piss-poor GPL attitude.
Manufacturer has tendency not to reply to e-mails.

I hope this information is helpful to at least some readers.

One word

[The Iconoclast]

IBM e-server bladecenter.

Ok, so that wasn't one word, but it should be, "OMFGIBMe-serverbladecenter!!!~1~." They are sweet seriously.