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by arjie 20 days ago
Okay, there were two things that bothered me with these KVM switches: the power adapters are massive so there's too many cables, and the cables don't go always in the same side of the thing. Your post covers both and I'm thrilled. The final thing I recognize is a bit of a nice to have but the only thing that I want to rack that doesn't have a BMC is my Mac Mini which I've hesitated to put in the Sonnet RackMac and run because I don't know how to KVM power it on/off. My cabinet is an hour away from me and the Mac Mini runs the family AI agent so I need it to be available all the time. So far, it hasn't ever needed any attention (it comes back on after power outages at home) but I'd prefer to be able to turn it on/off remotely ideally.

Do you know which one of these works well with that?
2 comments
bobson381 20 days ago
Could you get a kvm connected to a networked PDU with per-outlet control? Then a power cycle on the plug for the mac would accomplish the same thing. Or just use the network port on the PDU directly w/o kvm.
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geerlingguy 20 days ago
The annoying thing with Macs is they don't have the ability to 'Power on after clean shutdown and power cycle'. They can power on after a power fail, but that's not the same thing.

I want to be able to have power toggle on my Mac remotely, but without soldering in a jumper on the power button, AFAIK there's no way to do it :(

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brewdad 20 days ago
They mentioned Gil’s Fingerbot. It’s literally a remote controlled “finger” that can be commanded to press your power button. Obviously, if your MacBook goes with you everyday rather than living on a rack, this isn’t a practical solution.
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geerlingguy 18 days ago
I just found out newer desktop Macs now have a setting as of 26.5 that allows power on after power restore even without an unsafe shutdown. I'll have to test this.
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yencabulator 18 days ago
Worst case scenario, physically press the button: https://www.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot
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bobson381 20 days ago
That is frustrating. Sounds like no way forward w/o basically forcing a crash via hard shutdown from a PDU.
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arjie 20 days ago
You're right. I just need to upgrade my PDU. But as you can imagine, I'm hesitating because I don't want to power down the rest of the hardware either.
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mwpmaybe 20 days ago
Add a PoE switch and PoE splitters for IP-KVMs that don't already have PoE-in?
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