BliKVM PCIe puts a computer in your computer

I'm the founder of TinyPilot, a project that operates in the same space.

I haven't really been following BliKVM, but some alarm bells are going off as I follow the links here:

1. BliKVM advertises themselves as open hardware, but the hardware repo[0] contains no sources / schematics that would allow anyone to reproduce the hardware.

2. When I looked for the hardware sources, I realized that BliKVM is redistributing TinyPilot code in violation of TinyPilot's license. [1], [2] We're licensed under MIT, so BliKVM is allowed to redistribute and modify freely, but they have to preserve our license and copyright notice.

If BliKVM actually is open hardware, that would be wonderful, and I'd be interested in collaborating with them, but it doesn't seem like honest advertising at this point.

[0] https://github.com/ThomasVon2021/pikvm-board

[1] https://github.com/ThomasVon2021/pikvm-board/blob/master/src... vs. TinyPilot's code: https://github.com/tiny-pilot/tinypilot/blob/609b36faf2352cb...

[2] https://github.com/ThomasVon2021/blikvm/blob/master/package/... vs. TinyPilot's code: https://github.com/tiny-pilot/ansible-role-tinypilot/blob/ma...

This looks like a nice alternative to the proprietary ilo/drac especially for home or remote site use.

Is this running a bog standard Rasberry Pi OS and an open source firmware? Can the owner run a command to drop to a root shell, configure firewall rules, etc? Asking because Dell made it much harder to get a root shell on the dracs and the enterprise cards have hard coded creds this is not documented. Is the KVM interface using HTML5?

PCIe actually includes stand-by power, so this card using usb-c PD and PoE instead would suggest idle power consumption is significant.

> It uses about 2-3 Watts at idle, and 4-6 watts when you're remoted in controlling the screen.

I think ATX only requires around 5 W minimum for 5 Vsb so yeah…

It’s kinda hard to measure the power use of Ilom, something like an AST2500, for a number of reasons. They do get slightly warm, so the chip itself probably burns around 1 W. But system power use when on is of course also increased due to the various links (PCIe, NIC links etc.). Plus around .5-1 W for the always-on Ethernet link - EEE and a quiet management network would help here.

I really love PiKVM! I use it for my personal colo'd boxes and it's a real treat over normal remote management solutions.

That said I'm not sure what BliKVM really provides me beyond more limitations on where I can put it and one less PCIe slot available on the motherboard. I was expecting something more smart NIC like where the PCIe bus is actually used to communicate with the host too - or maybe the better description was wishing for :).

My "cheap trick" to do this with my own home server is to use a Raspberry Pi which stays always on and is wired into same LAN as my homelab server. Then, I have a small shell script that uses the etherwake Linux CLI tool to send a Wake-on-LAN magic packet to wake my server when it's sleeping. For full server reboots, I have the server on a remote-accessible power switch that can be cycled from the same Raspberry Pi. I network all the devices together using ZeroTier.

I have to admit, though, that the idea of the computer being inside the server box (similar to a Dell iDRAC in a colo environment) is appealing, and also opens up the opportunity for things like "direct KVM" keyboard/display access. That said, for my homelab use cases, the ability to reboot the server, suspend/unsuspend, and bastion SSH through the Raspberry Pi has been good enough.

I bought a Raritan KX IV-101 at the start of the pandemic, and it was single handedly the best home office purchase I've made. They're going for about $300 more than what I got it for, but it simply out-performs the PiKVM for an actual KVM replacement, where I'm able to use my personal desktop setup for working on my work PCs.

Being able to do 1920x1200 at 60fps is so much more fluid and useable. 24fps is distracting to me even for simple things like text editing.

I would love to see it have an option to expose the USB HID and HDMI over the pci link rather than having to loop cables between the card and the host.

I wonder how many fewer of these they would sell if the PCIe card edge were blank rather than covered in useless pins.

Is the "USB-PC" port to forward the server's serial console or doesn't it have a port for that? PiKVM seems to support IPMI SoL.

I was hoping it would be a full PC that went inside my PC. CPU,RAM,STORAGE,VIDEO and I would like it as an x64 variant. I am sure ARM would sell well. and mix and match. With a simple way to add even more PCs inside a PC.

For one thing, it would let you run "rack of PI" experiments in parallel computing. Make cross compiling easier, offload tasks,

It puts a computer in my computer? So I can compute while I compute?

In case you wanted your PC to draw 2W even when it's off. This card by itself would violate the energy star standards for small servers when off.

Why put a computer inside every server if you can have a computer control a whole rack of servers?

The KVM part is only useful when setting up the server. A solution that allows easy unplugging seems preferable.

unironically i've been thinking that something like this should have been done years before. i would have done it myself, but i don't have the skills.

the ideal would be to have two (three?) network ports however.

the idea would be to have one port to the wan, another to the network port of the host computer, and maybe a third one for the ilo/idrac/ipmi port.

it would be great in my opinion.