Product Description

Rasky is a low cost open source (hardware and software) KVM over IP built on top of the well known RaspberryPI model 2B.

The primary goal of the project is to provide a low cost and completely open source alternative to commercially available  KVM over IP and other remote consoles like iDRAC, iLO and so on.

A side goal is also to produce Rasky with a complete FLOSS workflow, so, no proprietary software will be used in any development step, all has to be strictly open and free software.

The expansion board for Rpi will be engineered in a way that is suitable for DIY PCB makers, and a 3d printable model of the enclosure will be available too, with an explicit goal to make it feasible to build at home a complete KVM for under 150 euro or to buy one assembled device for less than 200 euro.

Features:

For the first release it will feature:

• VGA video capture
• USB keyboard and mouse emulation
• Web (ajax VNC) and VNC remote access over IP
• 2 programmable and remote controllable Relays to switch on/off the remote machine and to virtually “press” a button (reset?)
• 2 digital inputs to attach sensors
• Completely open source design for software, hardware and box will be released (early and often). License will be GPL or similar.
• Backup battery pack management to assure clean shutdown of the Raspberry PI in case of power loss

The project is in a very early stage and some features may change.

Some other features I’m considering, i don’t know yet if for the first or the second release, is the emulation of an USB remote storage/cd drive and to add a couple of analog inputs.

All those features are implemented without the needs to install anything on the remote controlled machine/OS, so, they can be used even at a BIOS or equivalent level to remote control any machine that have at least one USB port and a VGA or, using an adapter, DVI or HDMI video output. 

Block schematics

Rasky features 3 primary circuits, one for video capture, one for keyboard, mouse and eventually cdrom emulation, and one to control relays and digital inputs ( click on the image to enlarge )

Who i am and why I’m doing this

I’m Franco Lanza, also known as “nextime”, dad of two, married with a beautiful and patient woman, and i live in a little city near Milan, north Italy. I’m an “hacker minded” guy who loves building things, and in particular things that involve build electronic circuits and writing code.

I have more than 25 year experience in coding, building circuits, unix and linux systems and hacking in general, and i breathe open source and free software all day long. 

In many years i never found a completely open source KVM over IP, and the ones that i used are limited and expensive as well as closed black boxes, so, with this project i hope to give back to the community something i think will be useful for both professionals and amateurs,  and a funny project for myself to build as well.

The feedback i received when discussing this project with my colleagues and friends has convinced me to setup this crowd funding to make it real, and after some investigation and tests on the feasibility, here i am with this page. 

Rewards for contributors

You can give me a free contribution or select a reward. 

If you choose a reward, please take care that taxes and shipment expense where appliable are already included and you will not get charged for anything else except for eventual customs duty if appliable to your country .

I will ship to whole world.

I accept credit cards, bank transfer, paypal, bitcoin. Select your preferred currency using the dropdown menu on the right column

NOTE: the “KIT” rewards will have all the SMD components with more than 40 pins pre-soldered. If you want to solder them by your own, please specify it when you give your contribution. Thanks.

Risks and challenges

Any project has risks, and an early phase project like this one isn’t an exception. 

The first risk is that it’s a one man project, so, if anything bad had to happen to me, the project will stop. Anyway, considering the project is fully open sourced and i will release anything i do early and often, in any case anyone can takeover the project and continue it even without me, assuming he has the right skills.

Other risks are more technical,  in particular the video grabber part seems to be a thing many people have tried to build on with slow progressions or failing completely. This is the reason I’m investigating three different ways to build that part, by taking advantages of previously experiences done on similar or relative projects by other hackers, and revisiting them thanks to the features of latest hardware and technologies. What i have found after some months of preliminary studies about this project is that all parts are already available, and they just need someone that will take them and glue them to work  together. I’m the one that will do that.

All the components i will use are common parts with no supply issues, and they are cheap and reliable with strong distributors and producers, so, i can rule out supply problems. Though a low component count minimizes supply risk there is still a possibility that the quoted lead times for larger orders of our components could be exceeded or that we could be supplied with faulty  parts. If this proves to be the case we will secure returns or replacement parts, however this would incur a delay to our shipping date. It’s a remote possibility, but we have to point it out.

I run a small company with some experience of product fulfilment in the software industry so we think we have accounted for all eventualities when getting your rewards to you. In the happy event that Rasky proves to be hugely more popular than we expected though it will place a strain on our resources and it may take us longer than we anticipated to ship your rewards to you. In that event we will provide regular updates as to our shipping progress and we will work as hard as we can to ship your rewards as soon as possible.