Headless Access
This article is a stub. You can help The Open Homelab project by expanding it. For information on external remote access see the Remote Access article.
Introduction
Use Cases
The use cases for headless access to your homelab include:
- A
- B
- C
- Servers are in a remote part of the house, e.g. Loft, Garage, Shed, etc
- Servers are actually in a colocation facility at a datacentre (yes it sounds expensive, but some people do actually do this!)
- You are a millionaire and have a whole DC full of your homelab kit! (Ok, maybe going a bit far now...)
Solutions
Some example solutions to provide remote access to your screen are as follows:
iLO
X
iDRAC
Y
KVM
If you start off with a small homelab with a handful of servers you may have the ability to connect them all up to a single management keyboard, mouse and screen.
KVM over IP / Remote KVM
When you want to take the KVM concept a step further it is actually possible to connect up to a KVM switch with remote IP connectivity, though they aren't cheap!
vPro
This is similar to IPMI, but for desktops. https://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander