Thursday March 10, 2005 at 10:26
Subject: Hardware Review: StarTech StarView SV1110IPEXT
Keywords:
Hardware Review
Posted by: Sean Reifschneider
Related entries:Setting up SSH public key authentication on the StarTech SV1110IPEXT by Sean Reifschneider, Thursday March 10, 2005 at 09:56
For the last several years I've been watching the state of
KVM-over-IP, particularly those based on VNC protocols. A couple of years
ago, you could get one, but it was over $3000. These days there are many
KVM-over-IP solutions available in the sub-$1000 range, and a few of them
even use VNC. After much research, I decided to get one of the
StarTech
StarView SV1110IPEXT units in to test out.
The StarView SV1110IPEXT (which I'll just call the StarView for the
remainder of the review) is actually one of the cheapest of the KVM-over-IP
solutions I saw, but it also seems to be one of the best for my needs. I
was extremely impressed with it, it met or exceeded my expectations in
nearly every way. Plus, it runs Linux, which is a definite benefit. How?
See the related article, linked above, for information on how I modified
the KVM so that it would allow SSH public key authentication for an example
of the benefits of using Linux.
The StarView is a 1-port KVM, meaning that it only has one port for
connecting to a computer to control. Almost all of the VNC KVMs are
single-port units, meant to be connected to a larger KVM for controlling
many computers. StarTech has some nice 1U 16-port KVMs, which you can
cascade up to 130-something ports, controlled by a single StarView. In
fact, the StarView has a "KVM" button which can be programmed to work with
a few different KVMs to bring up the on-screen menu of available machines to
control.
Another neat feature of the StarView is that it has a USB port on it.
You can either upload floppy images to the StarView, or you can point it at
an HTTP server with ISO images, and the StarView will emulate a USB CD-ROM
or floppy drive, allowing you to remotely install the OS or boot into
rescue mode, if your system supports it. Sadly, the test machine I was
using did not support booting from a USB device, so I was unable to test
this feature. I decided instead to set up PXE boot to allow me to remotely
install machines or boot into rescue mode.
The system also includes two Ethernet ports which can be set up as
separate interfaces, or bridged so that it can be placed inline with the
computer it controls, saving a switch port. That's a neat feature. It
also includes two power jacks so that you can run redundant power bricks.
It also supports different ways you can connect to the StarView as
well. You can either use VNC directly to connect, or you can tunnel it
over SSH connections. We prefer to tunnel over SSH for security reasons.
There's also a built-in iptables-based firewall which you can use to allow
or deny access to the KVM, and ports for the different services can be
re-assigned from their standard Well Known Service ports.
I've only found a couple of drawbacks. One is that there's no
supported way of using SSH public key authentication for access to the
system. I was able to hack it to get it to do it, but a supported way
would be really nice. My biggest gripe though is that it's got a button on
the main VNC interface which sends a Ctl-Alt-Del to the remote machine.
Probably handy if you use Windows machines where you have to type
Ctl-Alt-Del to login, but most Linux machines are by default set up to
reboot if you hit this sequence.
I've written to StarTech asking that they optionally either remove
that button from the main button bar, or ask for confirmation. Sure, you
can modify the configuration of the Linux systems to not honor Ctl-Alt-Del,
but it can be handy to have at times.
Over all, the StarView is a fantastic product which I'm very happy
with. It has constantly met or exceeded my expectations.
(Post Reply)
(Post Reply)
| Comment |
Michael Hale Subject: Mouse gets out of sync |
I recently purchased a SV1110IPEXT, but unfortunatley the local and remote mouse pointers keep getting out of sync. I am currently having an email conversation with a very courteous tech support rep, but 9 emails into it I still don't have a fix.
| Comment |
Author:
Sean Reifschneider Subject: Yeah, I've seen that too. |
I have seen something like that as well. It seems to be, in my case, be related to my running "unclutter", a program that clears the mouse pointer from the screen when it's idle for 5 seconds. I think this is what causes it, but I don't use graphics hardly ever. I use graphics only for clicking the "KVM" button. I've done a couple of graphics installs, but then I usually use keyboard navigation.
You're right though, this is a problem if you need graphics. Our box is over a year old now, and so it seems like a fairly long-term problem.
Sean
| Comment |
Mark Krenz Subject: Thanks you |
Thank you very much for this review. Now I'm sure I want to buy onee. Its great that it runs Linux and lets you control the OS inside of it. Kudos to StarTech for allowing that.
| Comment |
Cal Webster Subject: Review: StarView SV1110IPEXT |
Very informative review. I thought that StarTech would have solved the mouse pointer synchronization issues by now. After upgrading the the latest "firmware" the problem remains. I'm waiting for my second email from StarTech support after reporting the persistent pointer sync issue.
I thought it strange that the "most recent" firmware release is still over 1 year old.
Component Version / Release System firmware Wed Mar 7 14:40:13 EST 2007 CGI Component 07.10.3143245 Linux Kernel Linux version 2.4.20-pre7 #144 Mon Oct 24 16:07:46 EDT 2005 System FPGA 17 Model name SV1110IPEXT (startech.com) Software options 0000001f (ENT, SEC, MULTI, IPMI, MODEM)Has there been any progress on this pointer sync issue? How does anyone connecting to a windowing environment get around this?! Don't people ask for their money back? This is a real show stopper if one cannot use the mouse! Thanks for the great review. I'm interested to know if you've heard anything else on this, though, like under what conditions does this actually work?
| Comment |
Author:
Sean Reifschneider Subject: Not really an issue for me... |
The mouse pointer issue isn't really a big deal for me, because we rarely use the mouse with our Linux systems. We can do the installs in text mode, and when we can't the installers have extremely good keyboard acceleration so the installs can be done without a mouse.
We connect these only to servers, where we don't want a GUI, and our primary use is only when something is wrong, so it's very rare, and we probably want the text console anyway, not a GUI. So for this it's perfect.
You can try disabling the "pointer sync" or enabling it to see if that makes it better, but the problem as I understand it really has to do with how the PS2 standard for mice works, it's all relative rather than absolute, and with acceleration there's very little that you can do to make the mouse stay in sync with a VNC session.
Sean