Does anyone know of a fairly cheap remote access card that will work for a white box system? I had my media server lock up while I was at work and would love the ability to reboot/access it remotely when it is locked up. I am basically looking for something like a Dell’s idrac.
“Cheap” is highly relative. But the pikvm exists. And I don’t know them off the top of my head but searching pikvm on YouTube should yield the videos about promising alternative devices fairly readily.
I did see the PiKVM card build but how would that work for power cycling the system? If the system was safe to power off because of a power outage would that be able to power it back on? I know with a DRAC that is an option.
They get directly wired in to the power pins to control power
Yeah, the RPI KVM appears to do what I am wanting. I will have to do some more research to see if I could use a RPI3 for this project since I have one sitting around after updating to the RPI4.
Before buying a remote access card, I’d check whether your motherboard and server platform support it and what features you actually need. If you mainly want remote power control, BIOS access, and troubleshooting when the OS is down, make sure the card provides proper out-of-band management. That can save a lot of hassle when running a headless server.