* Tom Browder <
tom.browder@gmail.com> [25-01/23=Th 16:00 -0600]:
I want to keep my main server in the closet but have the
monitor, keyboard, and mouse (and speakers if possible)
accessed via another cat-5 outlet across the room.
Looking for the correct device is difficult for me
because of terminology. On my desk I need to connect:
+ one HDMI cable for my monitor
+ at least three USB devices (keyboard, mouse, thumb drive)
+ one external speaker (or headphone)
+ power
+ cat 5e I/O to the wall female socket
In the closet with my single server I need the same in order
to close the closet entrance with no connections interfering.
The max distance between the two Cat-5e outlets is no more than 25 ft.
Any recommendations?
The server will heat up the closet. In summer, the closet might
become hot enough to shut down the server, and even if it doesn't shut
it down, the heat will degrade the components faster. This will be
especially worrisome if the server has your main files on it.
Assuming you can solve that problem (either with a powered fan
ventilating the closet or by putting the server in an open room
but far out of your way), you might be best off considering a
mini-PC, quod Google, at your desk as a thin client for your
server. They're quite small & cheap, and you can buy them with
all the usual connectors including Ethernet. Then this has been
reduced to the standard problem of running a headless server, which
you do by first setting up your server at your desk using the KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) at your desk, then moving the server to where
it will live (needing only power & Ethernet connections), & connecting
to it via SSH from your mini-PC (which can fit under or on your desk).
If your server were traditionally what "server" means, all you'd need
over SSH would be to run a shell on it, which SSH does automatically.
However, it seems as if you want your server to really be your main
computer, in which case you'll need to be able to run graphical
applications on it. (I've heard Google is about to start requiring
Javascript for searches, which will make doing searches from the
consoles of traditional servers (something I've done often while
standing in server rooms at terminals that had no graphics) impossible,
since none of the text browsers (Lynx, w3m, or elinks) support
Javascript AFAIK.) For running graphical applications on your server
and displaying the graphics on the terminal connected to your mini-PC,
consider RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol); the protocol is proprietary,
but Linux has free clients as well as a free RDP server (xrdp).
Perhaps other posters could comment on any alternatives to RDP.
Googling "X-forwarding" finds what looks like reasonable how-tos.
I don't know how reliably (or whether) Wayland supports X-forwarding.
For the multiple USB devices, Google "USB hub". They're cheap
effective multiplexers for your USB connections. It's quite
possible an otherwise-optimal mini-PC will have too few USB
jacks; that's not a problem as long as you buy a USB hub.
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