USB KVM Experience?

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
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I’ve seen a few IP KVM reviews on Tom’s videos, curious if anyone in the community has used a USB KVM and their experiences, might be a good idea for a video?

Examples:
https://openterface.com/ - Looks appealing and open source, but not available till Jan.

https://www.cytrence.com/ - Immediately available, cheap, and looks like it would cover all the bases but no reviews or community information on this guy.

This form factor seems like it would be huge for mobile service techs working on headless systems where they already have a laptop in hand and just need to get into the bios or install an OS on equipment that doesn’t have ILO, iDRAC, etc. Preventing having to lug around a crash cart, monitor, keyboard or mouse, or buy a stupid expensive IP KVM then have to deal with connecting to the local network. Also seems like it would be good for setting up raspberry pi or other embedded computers on a work bench.

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I have not tested any but Jeff Geerling has

And so has Wendell

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Wanted to share this great analysis of the NanoKVM I just found online.
I’m not a security researcher but it seems this one should perhaps be approached with caution.
What does everyone else think?

NanoKVM: The S stands for Security

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Apalrd’s Adventures is a friend of mine and even though I did watch all of that video his research in the past has always been solid and points directly at my concerns I have with many of these projects.

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Bringing this back to life:

IMG_20250310_125545047_HDR
IMG_20250310_125545047_HDR1270×826 306 KB

IMG_20250310_125859403_HDR
IMG_20250310_125859403_HDR956×757 262 KB

SD card for scale. Bought it through Amazon and took a little over a month to arrive. I need to look into the security “issues” and make sure they are really issues, but it was $25 and worth a little time to see if it works.

Wiki here:

The software has apparently gotten more transparent which is why I decided to risk the money.

Tom, If you want to do a deeper dive, let me know. I have no immediate need for this device and could send it to you for a while if you had an interest in tearing into the software.

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Follow up (also on Serve the Home):

Well, mine boots. Waiting for some cables and a bigger SD card before trying it, a 16GB card seems to be too small when I try to copy a 2GB image into the folder that wasn’t present.

It does ask that you change the default password.

It does still have baked in DNS servers to 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, and 192.168.0.1.

For whatever reason, it is not finding the update web site so I may need to figure out how to update the application manually.

I also need to go back through and read how to change the baked in DNS, if it is going to be a DHCP device, then I want it to use the DNS provided from the DHCP lease.

No where does it list the MAC address of this device, I ended up pulling it out of my firewall logs. Now I can set an IP reservation for it.

There is no where in the web gui to set a manual IP address or any other networking parameters.

There is no way to upload a bootable image from the web gui, you can try SCP but it almost looks like an after thought. I may try this after I get a larger card.

The Lite version (the one I bought) is currently on Amazon for $35 (plus the cost of an SD card). The price on the bigger version that comes with an SD card is at the same price as a JetKVM, and I think the JET is probably a better choice for the same dollars.

I’ll have to see what I need to do to get this updated and working the way I want before I really condemn it. It might be nice, it might not, but it definitely is still a young product and needs to grow a little bit.

[edit] Most of the info I’m gathering is over here NanoKVM? | ServeTheHome Forums

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FYI, my Nano has failed. It no longer has video and there really isn’t a way to contact the manufacturer to see about an exchange. My recommendation is that you just buy something that works, which is pretty much a JetKVM at this point in time.