Raritan Dominion KVMs

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skorpioskorpio

New Member
Oct 9, 2021
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Used Raritan Dominions have gotten cheap, or maybe they always were, I wasn't really looking, but seems like <$200 and often <$100 for multi-user KX2s. So are there any gotchas to these? I know you need the cat5-to-breakout dongles for these, but those seem to be gettable pretty cheap as well. Is there something less obvious I'm missing? I mean it's basically Java IPMI in a box right? Also are there any other multi-user KVM over IP devices (used/cheap) that are better for this sort of thing, and by this sort of thing I mean VGA/USB IP KVM, not even really all that concerned about remote media capabilities, although cut and paste would be good. I've used Raritans pretty often in the past, and they'd do what I expect from a use perspective, but I didn't deploy them so no idea how generic the deployment is. I also managed to snag a table from some ebay listing that gives the model numbers of the various dongles, and there seems to be quite a few choices there, so seems to make for easier bargain hunting.

I have Supermicro IPMI motherboards but, the remote console is meh at best, and I have other boxes that have VPro ME which is actually better but I've had a couple boards fail and well, VPro is a one time deal thing, and if you replace a board and the replacement either has had the password set to something unknown or someone at sometime disabled it, it's kinda gone for good, so just looking for something that can be universally used.
 

zunder1990

Active Member
Nov 15, 2012
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I have two of them and the big gotcha is they REQUIRE java to work. This why biz are selling them. The KX3 is html5 based but alot more expensive 2nd hand.
 

skorpioskorpio

New Member
Oct 9, 2021
8
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Well yea, Supermicro IPMI requires java too, as do an awful lot of the VM consoles, so I'm kinda OK with it being Java. It's mostly a BIOS/EFI/Boot access thing, or maybe a way around a stuck NIC. Anyway good to hear they're usable, I read somewhere that some of the other IP KVMs were bricks outside of their deployed environment. So, that would be, well, not very useful obviously. The KXs and KX2s are really cheap on ebay.

Oh also wanted to ask, are they loud? I only ever worked with them in data centers where everything is loud.
 

zunder1990

Active Member
Nov 15, 2012
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They live in my basement so I dont care about noise tat much, if I remember right noise level was on par with a dell 5525p switch.