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How to ratatouille a windows machine with hardware?

1 points by singlepaynews ↗ HN
I have a laptop that is connected to my modem via physical ethernet cable for reasons.

I’d like to remotely control this machine, but cannot install software on it to do so. I can however, plug in USB peripherals.

What I’d like to do is:

- purchase a usb webcam, keyboard, mouse, microphone, and hdmi display

- connect all of those to the windows laptop (Machine X) in my closet

- also connect all of those to machine Y

- Install software that remotes in to machine Y from machine Z, such that keyboard/mouse/webcam/monitor signals are repeated from X<->Z, via machine Y

Is machine Y simply a windows laptop with teamviewer?

I don’t want to control machine Y, I want to control machine X. Machine Y is a means of achieving that without installing software on Machine X.

How do I forward/repeat USB/HMDI signals from Z<->Y? I’m assuming this wheel has been invented before, but I’m not sure what it’s called

4 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 27.2 ms ] thread
compressedgas
So a external KVM OVER IP box which would allow you to remotely control the laptop without installing any software on it.
singlepaynews
That's what google is showing me as well, but reading into it there seems to be a community of sysadmins who are frustrated that remote workers are asking for webcam/voice support that KVM's generally don't have.

It seems like KVMs have historically targeted a market that wants to control many devices with keyboard/mouse/display only.

What I'm trying to do is control a single device with all that + webcam/microphone

[tinypilot doesn't support webcam/mic](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...)

[ratarian Dominion KX IV-101 doesn't support microphone](https://cdn.raritan.com/download/kxiv-101/v4.1.0/KX4-101-Use... 67, "Microphone playback is not supported."}

So far the best option I've been able to find is a hardware-only KVM (1)(2) or possibly (3)(4), and plan to route it through a UDM Pro for remote access (5)(6)

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/s8om9y/kvm_tha...

2: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B099KKKS9L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_...

3: https://www.avaccess.com/products/4kip100-kvm/?gad_source=1&...

4: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/kvm-over-ip.3817426/

5: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1bm40l3/accessing...

6: https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/udm-pro

I'm having trouble understanding how I would "Remote Desktop" into a KVM.

atmanactive
https://virtualhere.com
singlepaynews
I exchanged some emails with this person--they were very helpful; I've learned that the barrier to supporting my features is using h264 encoding/decoding at the client/KVM:

"" what technology are the headphones and mics of video game players using" - they use RTSP or H264 etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-Time_Streaming_Protocol), they can drop frames/compress frames etc whereas at the USB level this is not possible."

"it needs to be done in dedicated hardware because gigabits of data needs will flow through and need to be compressed in real time to H264

Hopefully in a few years cheap H264 4K encoders are available. The encoder i use for the HDMI signal has MJPEG only at 4k"