Getting vPro remote KVM working on Minisforum MS-01

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ViciousXUSMC

Active Member
Nov 27, 2016
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Tag just got my MS-01 this week to run as my new PFSense box, this was an important feature to me since my old firewall has iDRAC and I run everything headless.
 
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Tich77

New Member
Mar 28, 2024
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Gents - daft question I know, but.... what key press enters BIOS on bootup? Have tried the usual suspects Del, Ins, F2, F12, etc
I dont know if Ive pressed the right key too late, or am just pressing wrong keys.
Does not help that the splash screen is just "minisforum" with no indication and only lasts for a split second!
 

wadup

Member
Feb 13, 2024
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Gents - daft question I know, but.... what key press enters BIOS on bootup? Have tried the usual suspects Del, Ins, F2, F12, etc
I dont know if Ive pressed the right key too late, or am just pressing wrong keys.
Does not help that the splash screen is just "minisforum" with no indication and only lasts for a split second!
DEL
 

FingerBlaster

Member
Feb 27, 2019
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In the life of me i cannot use Remote Control with Mesh commander to install something.
I see the remote screen fine if i have booted. I do restart and mount an iso and then nada... no screen, meshcommander reconnects constantly so till it connects again the machine has allready boot to the normal boot system that i have allready.
Am i the only one with this? i mean what is the point of remote access if you cannot mount an iso and install something remote?
Mesh Commander works fine for me except i also find that networking mounting an iso through AMT is janky AF and doesn't work right half the time, or is painfully slow.
 

anewsome

Member
Mar 15, 2024
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Whoever said vPro is finicky couldn't be more right. I finally got both MeshCommander and ip:16993 access working on the MS-01. MeshCommander KVM also works, but what a pain it is to get it all working correctly. This is my first time working with vPro and I can say without reservation, I much prefer a dedicated IPMI. In the end, I did have to use a dedicated IP for vPro - shared wouldn't work in my setup. I also could not get it to work without a DNS entry, so now I have a DNS entry. Not exactly thrilled that my MS-01 cluster will now consume yet another 5 IP addresses, but I do like having an IP KVM, so I'll accept it.
 

BlueChris

Active Member
Jul 18, 2021
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Athens-Greece
Mesh Commander works fine for me except i also find that networking mounting an iso through AMT is janky AF and doesn't work right half the time, or is painfully slow.
The times that did work for you, do you remember what you did? i just mount the iso.. i say reboot to the machine and finito.... it popup up and let me connect again after much time where the iso is unmounted is its a no go for any remote installation.
 

randomparity

New Member
Apr 18, 2024
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So in the i226-LM port connected RJ-45 to USB serial port in this case? Is there anything additional need to enable TTY?
You need to enable a getty on the port (/dev/ttyS4). Assuming Debian 12 here (also applies to Proxmox 8 and I assume most other systemd based distros), use systemd:
Bash:
# systemctl enable serial-getty@ttyS4.service
# systemctl start  serial-getty@ttyS4.service
# systemctl status serial-getty@ttyS4.service
Disadvantage here is this only works after a successful boot. You can add the serial port to the Linux kernel command line in grub and have full access to the entire boot process. See this Ask Ubuntu/StackExchange article if you have the need.
 

Ru55

New Member
Oct 20, 2023
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Hi

All just thought I would share my findings on this in case it helps others.

I actually found the old version for Mesh Commander AMT firmware which i flashed to the AMT, now I can remote KVM from the device itself, without the need for a Mesh Commander server, which is perfect for my needs.

Its not on their website anymore but can be be found in web archive


The tool only connects to port 16992 so can only be used to flash from the local host (as SSL is enforced on remote connections)

I my case I run pve so I had to pass through the following devices to a windows guest in order to flash it:-

1713801710984.png
1713801763582.png

Once flashed with the Mesh Commander firmware the pcie devices can be removed from passthrough.

Here is the result from accessing https://vproip:16993

1713801922952.png
 
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Ru55

New Member
Oct 20, 2023
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Just a quick follow on, once the devices have been passed through I found that I needed to reboot the proxmox host to have them available again to it. I think this is because loads passthrough drivers for the devices and then doesn't reset the driver when removing from passthrough.

I am sure someone with more knowledge could explain it better!
 

hectortito

New Member
Apr 28, 2024
1
0
1
Hi , Thank you for your information.

For the connection problem it was resolved by setting an IPV4 address in the bios