As I rely more on my home lab server, I’m starting to worry more about it getting stolen. If someone breaks into my home, I think the server will be a pretty attractive target.
Do y’all just stick it in a closet? That seems not great for cooling…
One of my neighbors recently got broken into.
3-2-1 every copy is encrypted, so taking the machine isn’t much of a concern and more of a inconvenience
A smallish (6U) rack mount that you can bolt into the wall. Even if they rip it down it’ll weigh a ton and have locked doors (with ventilation obvi).
Haven’t seen anyone say this so I will: if your home isn’t Fort Knox or a billionaire bunker, then presume it will be broken into. If they don’t steal your shit, they might just smash it for funsies. If you’re running home lab, you probably don’t have the money to turn your home into Fort Knox, but even if you did you’d probably be better off removing the need:
- back important data up to another site automatically: Friends house, family, cloud, etc. Preferably far away.
- encrypt everything that’s got private data on it, both onsite and remotely.
Then you don’t have to worry about theft or damage or fire. Congrats, you’re doing better than probably 50% of businesses-grade setups.
locked in my basement. if the guard cats don’t stop them, the 9mm will.
Call an ambulance, but not for me.
Encrypt your data period. A burglar isn’t going to worry about your home lab unless it’s oozing money from the look of it.
Your family and friends will be the ones to snoop your data. So know that and prepare accordingly.
A thief is going to steal car wheels, weapons, tools, electronics that seem resellable, gold and jewelry, things of immediate value to sell or trade for most likely drugs. Quick cash.
In my room.
Once that’s broken into: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Once that’s broken into: encryption and backups, purchase new hardware and rebuild. Downtime sucks though.
Well sure.
But I don’t need encryption at rest because nothings that confidential.
My off-site backup is encrypted on a hard drive at work.
My on-site is unencrypted. If the thief get’s joy from looking at family photos and pirated stuff (confused shrug)
Server equipment is not on any normal burglar’s list of items to nab. It’s such a low risk I think it’s completely not worth worrying about.
It’s incredibly unlikely they’ll know what they’re looking at in the first place, and won’t be assed to carry out heavy switches and PC gear “just in case” to look it up later. They want to get in, check rooms and closets, drawers, etc and GTFO before you come home or a neighbor notices. Computers aren’t as expensive as they used to be. Gaming laptops might look attractive, but other than that you’re fine.
They want jewelry, cash, guns, good tools, silver, modern game consoles, expensive bicycles, etc. These are all things that are easy to carry and pawn or sell well on the street. Nobody is selling switch gear at a pawn shop or to random people, so even if they know the value of what they’re looking at (extremely unlikely) they’ll leave it because it’s too hard to fence.
If you’re that worried about theft then set up good full disk encryption and have off-site backups of your data (should do that anyways) but you don’t need to worry about physical security at home, at least not specifically in regards to your home lab.
Businesses are at much higher risk for hardware theft, from employees or from others that are targeting the locations specifically because they DO understand the value and have a way to offload the gear, but those same people won’t be randomly breaking into people’s houses hoping they’ve got Cisco gear in a closet somewhere.
This is probably the best answer. I worked as a locksmith in a high value city (think started that ends with “A” and the city ends in “beach”)
You really have to think like a thief sometimes, and most times thieves don’t know shit about racks.
I build from ewaste and keep things deliciously trashy looking.
That nvme drive just hanging out next to the power cord is giving me a type of anxiety I never knew I had, thanks.
I say this with full sincerity as someone who worked security, this will absolutely get it ignored in the case of a break in.
Let me guess you don’t have cats
That M.2 is the first to break its neck
Security by trashcurity, brilliant!
Install a floppy drive. No one gonna steal a computer with one of those.
Considering I stole most my stuff from work it would be fair if someone else nicked my setup.
A confession in here is worth total forgiveness.
I’ll phone your boss and clear it for you…
(Most of mine then eventually ended up on ebay)
Mine is in the utility room, which is in the basement. There’s no way in or out of the basement except for the stairway from the living room on the main floor.
That room is where all of the CAT5 and coax cables are distributed to each room (demarcation point?), and also where the furnace and water heater live. It’s fairly well-ventilated, too, which is nice.
Take this with a grain of salt but long ago someone broke into my house and at the time I was futzing with something so had the skin off of my tower and they did not touch it. I think they figured it was broke. Knew a guy who made a server closet with bare boards on wood shelves.
Actually you got me thinkng about some of my pieces.
But overall i agree with most of the thread here. Properly rack it, and secure the rack. Then basic locking does the rest (secure a rack door with a lock).
Security cameras system help police catch theives.
Encryption on data you care about and off site back ups meqns rebuilding is just getting the hardware again.
For mini pcs and laptops they have those security cables to at least attach them to a heavier thing (desk, cabinet, etc). (this is the thing i hadn’t thought about).
Finding obsure places to hide my nodes is practical matter for me, because space is always a premium, so over sizing cooling solutions (liquid cooling to big radiators) and then finding wierd places to tuck them away (i mean why cant a computer rack be a night stand, the raspberry pi is clustered anyway why not stick in a lamp, the crawl space is actually always dry there and nice and cool to boot!, etc, etc). That probally adds some* factor to it.
The consumer stuff i have is a more likly target then the SOC or server stuff though. At least for me.
EASY does it: Experimental Autonomous Securitybot, Yellow.
May as well just rig the house to burst into flames
I bought my power supplies off temu. One way or another, someone is getting hurt.
That’s reserved for if they make it past the first three levels of security. EASY and pals are #2.
I don’t.
If you’re stupid enough to carry out my stuff, good luck getting anything for it.
My setup is a small-form-factor desktop, a NAS, and 2 other modest systems. Easy enough to carry away, but all worthless from a pawn standpoint, because it’s all old, as in long past support dates from the vendor.
I guess you’d need to understand what a burglar in your area steals, and what homes they target.
I doubt they steal systems.
