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.
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.
Install a floppy drive. No one gonna steal a computer with one of those.
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.
I build from ewaste and keep things deliciously trashy looking.
Security by trashcurity, brilliant!
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)
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.
I once put my homelab rack outside of my apartment, in the hall. Then used it to catch a bastard who kept stealing my bike light, and later tried to snatch the whole bike.
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.
Who’s gonna steal a loaded 90 disk enclosure xD
I got burglarized and they left a significant amount of cash in foreign currency that was sitting out in the open from a recent trip, because they had no idea what it was. Nobody is stealing rackmount equipment.
When was the last time you saw a headline: “Thieves steal home lab”?
How about “Thieves steal computers”?
I haven’t heard of that happening much outside of law enforcement raid.
Laptops, yeah. But stories of homes being broken into to steal servers?
Its big enough that they will have to break back in to move it with a friend. Its built shitty enough that it will fall apart if they lift it. Its next to an attractive and less effort to steal TV.
TVs and game consoles also have much better fence value.
No need to worry about thieves. They mostly don’t even steal laptops of TVs. It’s just not worth the work and the risk.
Yes need to worry about floods or your house burning down. That’s the real way to lose a home server.
Thankfully, I don’t think there’s ever been a flood where I live. House burning down is way more likely. But, break-ins do happen in my town. Actually, what prompted me to think about this was that my neighbor recently had their house broken into.
Just put a big sticker on it signifying it has a tracker inside.
Even if they would want to steal it, it might just make them doubt enough to leave it be.
Someone who’s in the business of stealing computers would just stick it in a faraday bag. I guess for an entire server you’d need a sizeable cage though.
I have 9 security cameras on my driveway, house, and office out building and own a 12 ga. I’ve got it covered.
