[clug] VNC into home server?

[Bob Edwards]

On 13/08/17 10:28, Paul Wayper via linux wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Usually when I'm travelling I find out that our home server - which runs
> MythTV and is therefore a vital part of our entertainment system :-) - has
> decided to reboot and hasn't come back up again.  When it's running I can ssh
> in to see what it might be doing, but when it's booted but CentOS is not fully
> loaded I can't do a thing.
>
> The solution to me is a small KVM device that allows a remote VNC connection,
> so I can make that available through my firewall.  Unfortunately, the ones
> I've found seem to be a bit expensive:
>
> http://www.adder.com/products/adderlink-ipeps - PS/2?  In this era?
>
> http://rose.com/prod/ultralink2.html
>
> This looks promising - an open board that runs off a Raspberry Pi:
>
> https://www.nexlab.net/product/rasky/
>
> But I can't see any way to buy it there.
>
> Anyone heard of anything else like this?
>
> Have fun,
>
> Paul
>

Hi Paul,

One solution is to introduce a small KVM.

Another is to treat your existing box as a kind of hypervisor to your
MythTV application.

Re-work the start-up so that you do reliably get an SSH daemon early
(ie. don't require CentOS to be "fully loaded" in order to SSH in).

You know the sorts of issues that you need to resolve when the box
doesn't start - I can only guess.

Some suggestions:
  - don't automatically mount RAID filesystems, or delay their mounting
    until the system is stable.
  - consider putting the "critical" (MythTV) function into a container,
    which can be started manually from the host.

Adding the KVM may introduce more problems than it solves...

cheers,

Bob Edwards.