Headless bench-PC fleet: imaging and BIOS-as-code with PiKVM and Dell CCTK
TL;DR I keep four small-form-factor PCs on a bench for testing and repurposing — bought used, need fresh OS images, fresh BIOS settings, and no monitor or keyboard. A PiKVM V4 Plus with a multiport switch gives me eyes and hands on all four boxes over the network. Dell’s cctk command-line tool (Command | Configure) lets me bake BIOS settings — boot order, AHCI mode, Wake-on-LAN, power-on-after-failure — into scripted runs instead of clicking through F2 menus. No monitor, no keyboard, no physical access for weeks at a time. Everything repeatable, everything as code. ...