Controlling several PCs from one location.

[Du1point8]

Im allowed to have my several PCs in the new property:

NAS
Workstation Z
Shuttle Dev box

However, they all need to be hidden, whilst they will be hidden and placed somewhere (not in a server closet at the moment) with connection to the home network, the home network is going to be located in a thin mounted wall cabinet in the hallway.

I would like to control them all via the study/guest room, this room with have a desk that has minimal hardware on it that can power 2 monitors and I can hook into any of the 3 PC/Workstations as if they were under the desk.

I can't take all the desk space, as OH will be using it for her hobbies so mine 'stuff' will have to be stored away when not in use (think drawer or so) and no... none of the 3 PCs can live there under the desk.

Can anyone think how to do the creation of the desk?

[randlemarcus]

Another PC, obviously

NUC device, stuck on the back of one of the monitors, or maybe a Raspberry Pi, if the budget won't stretch?

[Du1point8]

randlemarcus said:

Another PC, obviously

NUC device, stuck on the back of one of the monitors, or maybe a Raspberry Pi, if the budget won't stretch?

as in just remove desktop to them all?

2 are windows boxes and another windows running linux VMs

[juice]

Teamviewer

[dmsims]

juice said:

Teamviewer

Going to get expensive

5 years is £654

[Dromedary66]

tightVNC is a nice free alternative - cross platform.

For windows machines I would probably prefer RDP (might well need a Win10 pro license) as I find the display updates better than VNC

not suitable for gaming or anything with a particularly high screen refresh requirement

Edited by Dromedary66 on Sunday 8th March 10:36

[Du1point8]

Dromedary66 said:

tightVNC is a nice free alternative - cross platform.

For windows machines I would probably prefer RDP as I find the display updates better than VNC

not suitable for gaming or anything with a particularly high screen refresh requirement

None of which I have an issue with, one being a headless NAS, the others are dev boxes and not used for gaming.

[Mr Pointy]

If you want to extend video, keyboard, mouse, USB & audio onto the desk you'll proably need to look at a KVM switch. How big is your budget?

https://www.adder.com/en/kvm-solutions/what-kvm
https://www.lindy.co.uk/kvm-c6

[Du1point8]

Mr Pointy said:

If you want to extend video, keyboard, mouse, USB & audio onto the desk you'll proably need to look at a KVM switch. How big is your budget?

https://www.adder.com/en/kvm-solutions/what-kvm
https://www.lindy.co.uk/kvm-c6

Im home networking the whole property and rewiring it (3 bed, 1000 sqft apartment) I can soak up some costs within reason.

The 3 devices would be headless, but can I use them across 2 monitors using a NUC or KVM (educate me) at the moment Im open to ideas here...

The desktop will have cat cabling, the 3 devices will already be on the network cat cabled into it, so whichever is easiest and most elegant for the way I can hide it all and just have 2 monitors at a desk in the study that I can get online to whichever system Im using or I can plug my Surface Pro dock into.

[Du1point8]

Had a doh moment...

I could buy another docking station for my surface Pro and I wonder if that would cater for the need to control the devices from one location?

I didnt think about that as the docking station lives at work on my desk and is too heavy to ship back and forth from work everyday.

[maffski]

dmsims said:

juice said:

Teamviewer

Going to get expensive

5 years is £654

Free if it's for personal use

[eltawater]

I have:
3x 24" monitors
2x windows 10 pro PCs
1x ubuntu linux laptop

I RDP from the #1 controller windows pc to the other PC #2 which has no keyboard/mouse attached. The RDP session allows me to extend the desktop across all the monitors and I only have 1 keyboard / mouse on the desk. I also have the option of using Mouse Without Borders if I want to have Monitors directly connected to PC #2 although it does have a few odd quirks.

I use VNC to connect to the laptop from the #1 controller PC. The downside of this is that it is stuck somewhat at the max resolution of the laptop screen, I can workaround it with x0vncserver but I have a few desktop bugs to iron out.

If you can get a small ubuntu device running on a Pi or an HPP SFF running Windows like I have, there are RDP clients for linux which should do what you need.

Edited by eltawater on Sunday 8th March 16:11

[hoegaardenruls]

KVM over IP using something like this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TESmart-Ports-HDMI-KVM-Sw...