A desktop app and command line for the management controllers in your servers. Remote consoles, virtual media, power, event log, sensors, serial console and SSH, all from one host list. The vendors' console protocols are spoken natively, in Rust: no Java applet, browser plugin or vendor web page in the way.
Rackiusipmitool installsWhat it does
Video, keyboard and mouse for every supported family. Paste as keystrokes, Ctrl+Alt+Del behind a confirmation, a stats bar with resolution, frame rate, bitrate and round trip, screenshots and pop-out windows. A console someone else holds is asked for, not seized.
Mount a local ISO, or an image at an HTTP(S) URL, as a USB CD on the server. Rackius always connects to the BMC and serves the image itself, so it works behind NAT and over one-way routes.
Through each family's own path, always behind a confirmation that names the machine.
Over Redfish where the BMC has it and IPMI where it does not. IPMI (RMCP+) is built in; no ipmitool needed.
The server's serial console through its BMC (IPMI Serial over LAN, always encrypted), and SSH to its operating system, with host-key pinning, find, logging to a file and paste preview.
Groups with their own credentials and routes, tags, CSV import, discovery, live status and power, and console previews taken from the BMC's own screenshot, so looking costs no console session.
Reach BMCs through a SOCKS5 proxy or an SSH jump host, chained if need be, per host or per group. A broken route is an error, never a silent fallback to a direct connection.
Rackius identifies a BMC's family, generation and brand with unauthenticated probes, and picks the right protocol by itself.
A look around
A console tab, with its toolbar and stats bar.
Screenshots are of the app on its built-in mock data; hosts and addresses are placeholders.
Supported BMCs
The family is the firmware and decides the protocol; the brand on the box only decides the name and logo in the list. AMI's firmware in particular is sold under many names.
| Family | Typical hardware | Console | Virtual media | Power & BMC reset | Serial (IPMI SOL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATEN | Supermicro X9, X10, X11, X12 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Session verifiedoutput and typing not yet |
| AMI MegaRAC GoAhead | Quanta and other AMI boards | Yes | Yes | Yes | Session verifiedoutput and typing not yet |
| AMI MegaRAC SP-X | ASRock Rack, Lenovo TSM, ASUS, and more | Yes | Yes | Yes | Session verifiedoutput and typing not yet |
| HP iLO 4 | ProLiant Gen8, Gen9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Session verifiedoutput and typing not yet |
| Dell iDRAC 9 | PowerEdge 14G and later | Yesneeds the eHTML5 console plug-in | Yes | Yes | Not verified |
| Dell iDRAC 8 | PowerEdge 13G | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not verified |
| Avocent MergePoint | Gigabyte, Dell PowerEdge C | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not verified |
"Verified" means checked against a real BMC of that family. The protocol notes say exactly what was checked, on what, and what was not. In particular:
mount-url (the BMC fetching an image from this machine) is implemented for iLO and iDRAC but was never exercised end to end. Use mount, the default.Command line
rackius with no arguments opens the app; everything else runs headless. A command that changes a BMC or takes one of its sessions holds that host while it runs, so the app and a script cannot trip over each other.
Routes are a SOCKS5 proxy or an SSH jump host, or a chain of them. A host takes the route of the nearest group that names one, unless it names its own. Jump-host keys are pinned on first use.
# consoles, power and media
$ rackius power on compute-01
$ rackius mount ubuntu-24.04.iso compute-01
$ rackius preview compute-01 shot.ppm
# IPMI, built in
$ rackius ipmi compute-01 sensors
$ rackius ipmi compute-01 sel
$ rackius ipmi compute-01 sol # ~. leaves
# the server's own SSH
$ rackius ssh compute-01 uptime
# routes, chained
$ rackius route add jump-a ssh ops@203.0.113.10 --agent
$ rackius route add lab-socks socks5 198.51.100.7:1080 --via jump-a
$ rackius route group "Site A" jump-a
$ rackius route test jump-a 192.0.2.13Install
Each release has one installer per platform, holding the app and the rackius command, plus the command on its own for scripting, and SHA256SUMS.
Ubuntu 22.04 or newer. apt pulls in WebKitGTK and the rest of what the app needs. The bare command needs only glibc 2.35 and OpenSSL 3.
sudo apt install ./rackius_2.0.0_amd64.debFor a bare binary, rackius install adds a launcher entry and icon.
macOS 11 or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel. Open the .dmg and drag Rackius to Applications. The builds are not notarised, so clear the quarantine flag first:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/rackius-*.dmgThe command line is /Applications/Rackius.app/Contents/MacOS/rackius.
Windows 10 or 11. SmartScreen will warn about an unsigned program: choose "More info", then "Run anyway". The installer adds the WebView2 runtime if it is missing. It does not edit PATH, so add its folder yourself for the command line.
All releases · SHA256SUMS · What's new · Build from source
Coming from bmc-kvm 1.x? Rackius is the same project under a new name. The Linux package and the Windows installer replace a bmc-kvm install; on macOS, delete bmc-kvm.app yourself. The first start copies your hosts, routes, settings and saved secrets from the old configuration directory, which is left in place.
Before you start
Every protocol here is reverse-engineered from the vendors' own clients, without their documentation or blessing. A mistake, or firmware that reacts badly to a client it did not expect, may crash a BMC, wedge it until it is reset, or even brick it. Use Rackius at your own risk, and try it on a machine you can afford to lose access to before one you cannot.
No guarantee of full capability with any IPMI or BMC. Support varies by vendor, firmware version and model, and a listed family may behave differently, or not work at all, on hardware or firmware that was not tested.
Saved passwords and route secrets are stored in plain text in the configuration directory (mode 0600). Treat it like an SSH key.