I purchased a PiKVM kit in 2021, and got it operational at that time. I did not need to use it until recently, 2024-09. Basically a special 'hat' is mounted on a standard Raspberry Pi 4, the smallest memory unit type being sufficient (2 GB). The kit was complete with all the required parts, such as the hat, Raspberry PI, a case, small OLED display and various cables.

After about 3 years of being shelved the OS would not update. It was easier to simply re-image with the latest version of the software. I followed the Flashing PiKVM OS image instructions, using the Linux CLI image flash option.

The PiKVM builtin display shows the KVM IP address, but I just used Linux commands to find from my LAN, e.g. sudo nmap -sn 192.168.1.1/24. Once I go satisfactorily operation I followed the instructions to change the passwords on the PiKVM and placed the related information into my password manager.

My router computers built in BMC/IMPI had failed and was difficult to use, particularly any time it was reset. Hence I disabled the BMC VGA system and used the main CPU builtin GPU to the PiKVM with a USB C to USB A cable for the keyboard and mouse access. I used a jumper on the motherboard to disable the BMC VGA to ensure it would not interfere with operation. Basically I was no longer using the built in KVM.

I assigned the PiKVM a specific IP address in the LAN Kea DHCP server and a local name in the LAN Bind9 DNS server and then performed internal secure routing on the LAN using Traefik. The PiKVM software defaults to using a self signed certificate (Snake oil) for HTTPS. I wanted to use simple http behind a local router that would terminate the host https on a reverse proxy to a http. The instructions are to edit /etc/kvmd/override.yaml on the PiKVM adding the following:

nginx:
    https:
        enabled: false

This function as anticipated.

• PiKVM
  • PiKVM V3 HAT
  • Getting access to PiKVM
  • Flashing PiKVM OS image