The hardware options

  • v2 DIY kit on a Pi 4 / Pi 5 — cheapest. Components: Raspberry Pi 4 (2 GB or 4 GB), HDMI-to-CSI capture board (e.g. Geekworm C779 / Auvidea B101), a USB-A-to-microHDMI splitter cable, microSD card, optional ATX power-control board. ~$80–120 total.
  • v4 Plus or v4 Mini commercial kits — pre-assembled, polished. PiKVM-V4 Plus has 1080p@60Hz HDMI, audio capture, ATX, USB-C target connection. ~$300.
  • JetKVM / NanoKVM / GLKVM — competitor products in the same category, similar PiKVM-compatible feature set, sometimes smaller form factor.

For a homelab, v2 DIY is the canonical pick: cheap, well-documented, the Pi can do other things (a backup target, a Pi-hole node) if needed.

Install PiKVM OS

Flash the PiKVM image (Arch Linux ARM with the PiKVM software stack) to a microSD card:

# Get the image from pikvm.org
xz -d pikvm-v3-hdmi-rpi4-latest.img.xz

# Flash with Raspberry Pi Imager or dd
sudo dd if=pikvm-v3-hdmi-rpi4-latest.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Insert into the Pi, connect:

  • HDMI capture board to the Pi's CSI port
  • The capture board's HDMI input to the target machine's HDMI output
  • USB-A from target to a USB-C "OTG" port on the Pi (this is how the Pi emulates a keyboard / mouse / mass-storage device)
  • Pi power (via the separate power port if available, not via the OTG USB-C which is being used as a USB device)
  • Ethernet for management

Power on; wait ~30s. PiKVM joins the LAN via DHCP; check your router for the new client.

First access

Browse to https://<pi-ip>. Self-signed cert; accept. Default credentials: admin / admin — change immediately:

# SSH into the Pi
ssh root@<pi-ip>     # password is "root" by default; change that too

# The PiKVM filesystem is read-only by default. Make it writable, change, then read-only again.
rw
passwd root
kvmd-htpasswd set admin
ro

The web UI

  • KVM — live video of the target, keyboard input, mouse input. Full-screen capable.
  • Mass Storage — upload an ISO; PiKVM presents it as a USB drive to the target. Boot to install Linux remotely. Sizes up to 32 GB depending on Pi storage.
  • ATX (if wired) — soft power, hard power, reset.
  • Wake-on-LAN — send WoL to the target's MAC; useful for boot-from-off.
  • Switch — if you wired multiple PiKVMs together via a PiKVM Switch, jump between targets.

Mount an ISO and install an OS

  1. Upload an ISO (Debian, Talos — see Talos tutorial, NixOS, Proxmox, FreeBSD).
  2. Mass Storage → select your ISO → "Connect to USB" → "Connect as CDROM."
  3. Power-cycle the target (ATX panel or pull power).
  4. The target boots from "USB-CDROM" — appears in its BIOS as a normal USB optical drive.
  5. Install proceeds as if you were sitting at the console; keyboard and mouse work over the PiKVM session.

This is the killer use case — no more "I need to walk to the rack to boot the installer."

Network / remote access

For LAN-only access, the default setup is fine; just bookmark the URL. For internet access (debugging a server in a colo, or accessing your homelab from the road), pick one:

  • Tailscale on the Pi (see that tutorial) — PiKVM joins your tailnet; you reach it from any Tailscale-connected device. The simplest path.
  • WireGuard tunnel (see that tutorial) — manual setup; same effect.
  • Cloudflared tunnel (see that tutorial) — expose via Cloudflare Access with auth in front. Useful for non-VPN-using users.

Whichever, never expose the PiKVM web UI to the public internet on a static IP without a strong auth layer in front. The web UI handles MFA, but the attack surface of "remote KVM to a server" should not be a regular login form on a public IP.

The PiKVM extras worth knowing

  • Macros — record a keyboard sequence (BIOS navigation, automated install responses), replay on demand. Useful for repeated BIOS tweaks across a fleet.
  • Snapshots — capture a still frame of the current video. Useful for documenting BIOS configurations.
  • RDP-over-WebRTC — PiKVM can render the session in a WebRTC stream for lower-latency remote viewing.
  • Wake / sleep button mapping — the ATX board can simulate the wake button if your motherboard supports it.

When PiKVM isn't the right tool

  • If your server has IPMI / iDRAC / iLO already, use that — integrated, never loses power, doesn't depend on a separate device.
  • For a remote desktop where you log in as a user (not BIOS-level), VNC / RDP / X2Go / NoMachine are simpler and faster.
  • For very-low-latency gaming streaming, use Moonlight / Sunshine; PiKVM's video is acceptable but not designed for sub-30-ms.

For headless servers, no-IPMI consumer hardware, or installing operating systems on machines that aren't anywhere near a monitor, PiKVM is the most cost-effective answer in 2026.