Is there a software/hardware combination that will let you control a at the hardware level via USB?

Question

What I'm looking for is a device that does the following:

• One end has a male VGA and a USB cable. This end gets plugged into any pc or server device that has the correct outputs.
• The other end is just USB and gets plugged into a laptop cable.
• In between is a "something" that grabs the VGA output and can pass USB back to the target from software running on the laptop.

I envision something like a VNC client running on the laptop. The "something" in the middle would have a VNC server which handles the i/o and communicates with the laptop over the USB cable.

This would allow the laptop to function in a way similar to a data center crash cart, or a rack system KVM shelf and switch.

This would be used similar to the way an IPMI console is used, but for devices that either don't support IPMI, or where the IPMI configuration is not functioning. It would allow the user to see the output from the system at any point in the system's cycle, from power on through POST, through the full functioning OS.

Does such a thing exist? If not, does anyone have any thoughts for how to build such a beast?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is no such thing, also i dont think this can be built with current technology. To get VGA output you would need access to video card (onboard or PCI or whatever) and this doesn't interface with usb ports.

if there is a "external graphic cards" like those usb tv tuners this may be easy to build.you may be able to see pre boot video like bios. but still you can't control hardware as usb needs actual power (BMC needs only standby power)