[mythtv-users] Small backend server with IPMI (remote virtual console access)?

Jonathan Larson jtlarson at uw.edu
Thu Jul 18 22:03:34 UTC 2013



From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Tom Harris
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 9:21 AM
To: Discussion about MythTV
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Small backend server with IPMI (remote virtual console access)?


On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Kenni Lund <kenni at kelu.dk<mailto:kenni at kelu.dk>> wrote:
2013/7/17 Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com<mailto:raymond at wagnerrp.com>>:
> On 7/16/2013 4:23 PM, Tom Harris wrote:
>>
>> If I had virtual console access via IPMI (or iLO or similar), I could have
>> quickly remedied the issue
>
>
> Modern i5s and i7s, with a supporting chipset, have an integrated VNC-based
> IPKVM.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_vPro#VNC-based_KVM_remote_control
Exactly, I would recommend the Intel vPro solution as well. I've been
running my backend on a vPro-compatible system for a couple of years,
and even though I've only needed the functionality once (to see why
the system didn't boot after a reset), then it's still nice to have
the functionality. My setup consists of a Intel motherboard with a
vPro-compatible chipset and an Core i5 with integrated GPU. The
motherboard runs a few network services which are available to the
LAN. One of the services is a webserver which gives you a simple
website that allows you to power on, power off or (hard) reset the
system. Another service gives you the VNC-based KVM, which allows you
to get low-level KVM access and - if using a compatible client -
allows you to mount ISO files over the network and boot from them.
That's useful if you don't want to put an optical drive in your
server, as you're likely only going to use it to install the OS once
when setting up the server.

I've been looking into upgrading the system to a Haswell-based one, so
I can just as well share some of my findings:

Out of the new Intel 8 Series desktop chipsets for Haswell, only one
chipset supports vPro - and that's "Intel Q87":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#Original_Haswell_chipsets

Intel currently only has one desktop motherboard with Q87 chipset -
"Intel DQ87PQ" (the manual of the motherboard confirms that the
motherboard supports vPro, including AMT/KVM):
http://ark.intel.com/products/series/75550/Intel-Desktop-Boards-with-Intel-Q87-Chipset

In terms of CPU, any of the Haswell Core i5 or i7 models above 45xx
which are NOT "K" or "R" models will support vPro.
You can see a comparison table of the CPUs here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)#Desktop_processors

Even though I'm fairly sure that the above rules applies to all
current Haswell CPUs, please check vPro compatibility of the CPU at
http://ark.intel.com/ before buying.

Thanks for the replies.  vPro AMT looks like a good option.  One option that looks very good to me is the new Intel NUC i5 ( DC53427HYE ).  It's very small, but quite powerful, and states vPro support on the product info.   Intel uses "vPro" as a brand for a lot of features, including virtualization support, but as best I can tell from their marketing material it does include remote management (AMT).

A quick search didn't turn up any Atom based systems with AMT.  It would be nice to have even lower power options, as I really don't need the processing power of the i5.


I would recommend you look at this supermicro system if you want atom + IPMI (the supermicro version is very easy to use): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GKULFO

Jon


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