NanoKVM remote console

The office has a Sipeed NanoKVM: a small IP-KVM box that gives you a machine’s screen, keyboard, and mouse over the network, independent of the operating system. Use it for anything a normal SSH session can’t reach: BIOS setup, boot menus, OS installers, LUKS passphrase prompts, or a box that hangs during boot.

It is a single portable device, plugged into whichever machine currently needs out-of-band access (HDMI plus USB). It shows whatever it is physically connected to, so verify which machine you are looking at before typing, and check with the team before moving it to another box.

Using it

1. Open http://nanokvm.lan on the office network.
2. Log in as admin with the password from the Bitwarden item nanokvm 192.168.2.50.

You get the target’s live HDMI output, and your keyboard and mouse input goes to the target as a regular USB keyboard and mouse. This works from power-on, so you can enter the BIOS (mash Del or F2 during POST) or pick a boot device just as if you were sitting in front of the machine.

Handy features in the web UI:

• Paste: types a block of text as keystrokes on the target. More reliable than typing long strings key by key.
• Virtual media: presents an image stored on the device as a USB drive to the target, so you can boot an OS installer without a physical USB stick.

Gotchas

• The power and reset buttons in the web UI do nothing on our machines: the ATX leads are not wired. Reboot from the OS, or with Ctrl+Alt+Del via the KVM keyboard.
• Video capture tops out at 1080p. If the machine is on but the screen stays black, the target is probably outputting a higher resolution; set it to 1920x1080.

Operational and provisioning details (SSH access, scripted keystrokes, automated installs) live in the infra docs under source/devices/nanokvm.md.