I’ve got a HP ProDesk G3 which I’m using as home server, I’ve installed Ubuntu on it. Earlier this week the services I host on it stopped (Immich & Frigate). I tried to SSH, but it just hung after asking for a password. I could ping it, but it was just unresponsive.
I had to force reboot it manually. This is fine, but I’m not always at home.
The chip has Intel vPro as far as I know, which could be an option, but I have no idea how this works. The documentation on the Intel site seems focused on enterprises. I tried to connect with RealVNC which does not work, so I think I’ve got to install/configure something on the server first.
I also asked Bing Chat but it came up with non existing packages & commands. Welcome your thoughts!
/edit: I just found this, which seems to be exactly what I need: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man7/amt-howto.7.html
On actual server motherboards (as opposed to repurposed home PC’s) there is sometimes a special KVM like interface (keyboard/video/mouse, not the VM hypervisor) so you can connect to it with VNC and have the equivalent of local access. This is called IDRAC on Dell servers and other vendors have something similar.
On a home PC, hmm, you might be able to set up some kind of remote power cycle and serial console connection, using a second computer (Raspberry Pi or the like). I’m unfamiliar with Intel AMT that you linked to, but it seems like another idea.
I do remember hearing of a DRAC-like board for PC’s but the name of it escapes me right now.
At the end of the day, if you want a long running server, you probably should host it in a data center, maybe with failover and other HA provisions. Home environments are a pain to set up for that. If your computer goes offline and you can’t reach it, how do you even know that your home isn’t having a power outage? Home ISP’s are flaky too, so maybe you want a backup route over mobile data, etc. Yes you can make workarounds for everything but it amounts to turning your home into a crappy low capacity data center.
PiKVM or a similar device could work for OP - is that what you are thinking of? I’ve used it and it works well.
I think a lot of people who self-host get caught up in the excitement of getting the services up and running and neglect disaster planning, prevention, and recovery (myself included). Either they put it off for later or don’t realize it could be a problem down the road until it happens. We always say not to self host anything you can’t live without, and most take that advice, others don’t. Not saying OP falls in either category, necessarily, just adding on to some of your points.
Self hosting really is the land of compromise where we all have to balance our requirements, budget, time and effort. Personally, I have a little disposable income that I spend on hardware to host non-critical services so I can learn and tinker. It could all go away and all I will have lost is the time and money I put into it, but I gained some knowledge and enjoyment. Needless to say, I don’t have much in the way of backups and monitoring.