How to use VPro in HP Compaq Elite 8300

I recently picked up a pair of these HP Compaq Elite 8300 I5 boxes to play around with using proxmox as a replacement for my aging Q6600 DDR2 era system i use to host my VMs.
They’re currently working great and i’m happy with their performance. I did however notice that they have vPro, which looks to be an enterprise feature that had something that caught my eye, it can enable remote IP-KVM and remote start/shutdown features like ILO on a dell server.
The only issue i have is how to use it?
There’s only one NIC on the system (vs 2+ on servers) so i’d imagine there’s a custom mini processor that intercepts traffic to the ethernet port?
The PC manual had a section that didn’t specify Vpro directly, but it sounded the part
AMT Configuration Allows you to set:
● AMT (enable/disable). Allows you to enable or disable functions of the embedded
Management Engine (ME) such as Active Management Technology (AMT). If set to disable,
the Management Engine is set to a temporarily disabled state and will not provide functions
beyond necessary system configuration. Default is enabled.
● Unconfigure AMT/ME (enable/disable). Allows you to unconfigure any provisioned
management settings for AMT. The AMT settings are restored to factory defaults. This
feature should be used with caution as AMT will not be able to provide any set AMT
management functions once unconfigured. Default is disabled.
● Hide Unconfigure ME Confirmation Prompt (enable/disable). Allows you to set the system to
not display the confirmation to unconfigure ME

Can anyone point me in the right direction for how to configure these HP boxes so i can do VNC & startup/shutdown?

As far as I know, those are capabilities not features. There’s interfaces exposed that third party tools can connect to for managing the machine pre-boot.

The enterprise server ipmi is a separate computer living inside the server providing the management interface.

For anyone that’s looking for how to use vPro to enable a cheap IPMI-like KVM, i followed this guide. https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2020/01/13/configuring-intel-amt.aspx?m=1

it’s kind of neat on how it works, but after lots of reading, there’s several security holes, so make sure not to expose it outside your network

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Cool beans!

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03975296
Have you seen this whitepaper?

If the unit is vPRO/AMT enabled you should follow that one. As it is part of the CPU/Chipset no extra NIC is needed. :wink:

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