How to Physically LOCK Down your computer?

IntelOwnz

Gawd
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Oct 29, 2006
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I have a server that needs to be physically secured somehow, so if anyone ever robbed my house they would not be able to steal the server.

Any suggestions on hardware/methods?
 
if it's not a rackmount enclosure:
If you have access to the slab of the house you can drill holes for half inch or inch bolts and then drill the bottom of the case. Put like 2 inch washers and 2 two bolts through the case into the slab. Get bolts with some kind of strange head on there so the most common screw drivers wont be able to take the bolts out.

Then drill the sides of the case and put a nice hardended steel padlock through the chasis and the side panel so no one can get inside and steal the drives.


If it's rackmount:
you can secure the rack as above. Then instead of typical rack screws you can get torx or some other screw in the rack screw size...i forget what it is off hand....8/32 or 10/32 and then put a nut on the back side and maybe a cotter pin through the nut and screw.
Then again the pad lock through the chasis and top panel.

If the theif has enough time to get through these defenses your alarm system needs to be revamped.
 
There's a lot of ways to do that.. just depends on how much you want to spend... whats your budget?
 
I suggest getting a dog. Put his/her food bowl right by the server. Train said dog to guard the house.

This gets you a number of benefits, exercise, you have to take the dog for a walk, security, companionship, and someone to play Frisbee with. :D
 
downside is cleaning up dog poo all the time. hopefully he doesn't ever use the server as a chew toy, or worse.
 
I suggest getting a dog. Put his/her food bowl right by the server. Train said dog to guard the house.

This gets you a number of benefits, exercise, you have to take the dog for a walk, security, companionship, and someone to play Frisbee with. :D

Good idea, server guard dogs ftw :)
 
Keep in mind if you're gonna do this you have to do it all the way and not just half-ass it. An unsecured server isn't nearly as tempting as one that someone tried to secure and didn't do a great job. If a thief can undo your protection or smash the case and rip out the harddrive in under 10 minutes you didn't do a good enough job and made your server a target.
 
I prefer sea bass with friggin' lasers... :)

Then you have to worry about them splashing water on the server! :D

But seriously, don't forget to lock the front of the case, especially if you have removable trays! Put the keys somewhere else, locked away. Physical security of the room of the server - put it in a non ground floor room, preferably with no window. Put a key card/non biometric door lock on the door - watch MythBusters as to why I said "non-biometric" (photocopy of a fingerprint fooled it).

You could also make a band out of 3/8" steel to go around the front to the back of the server, with a hinge and padlock point, to secure the side panels. All depends on how nuts you want to go with security!

But yeah - Seabass with friggin' lasers, FTW!
 
I suggest getting a dog. Put his/her food bowl right by the server. Train said dog to guard the house.

This gets you a number of benefits, exercise, you have to take the dog for a walk, security, companionship, and someone to play Frisbee with. :D

But now your servers are not secure when you go walk the dog.

You'll need TWO guard dogs, and walk them on opposite schedules. Even better is if they are a boy and a girl and they have puppies, any thief will instantly be hypnotized by cute rot puppies, all while the mean daddy dog rips his throat out and feeds it to said pups.
 
I suggest getting a dog. Put his/her food bowl right by the server. Train said dog to guard the house.

This gets you a number of benefits, exercise, you have to take the dog for a walk, security, companionship, and someone to play Frisbee with. :D

You didn't watch mythbusters? They proved guard dogs could be foiled :)

It depends on what exactly you are locking it down from. What its purpose is, etc. If it is for a smaller company, and you just don't want someone moving the darn thing around, just screwing it down would work (if it is on a wooden shelf or something).
 
If the information is that important, I would recommend colocating the server.

What if the house burns?
 
Leave running. Put it in a metal box obolted to the floor. Electrify box with extra PSU. DC current FTW!
 
If the information is that important, I would recommend colocating the server.

What if the house burns?

Yea best option.

I guess if you really wanted to secure it have it in a locked room with it's own alarm and a metal door. Have the server then in a locked rack bolted to the floor.
 
Ok guys, stop dreamin here...

First off, it is in a walk-in closet on the 2nd floor, this is a townhouse so I cannot install any sort of bio-metric locks to the door, I cannot drill through the wall...I am really out of ideas on how to protect this thing.

I need to protect it in case someone ever broke in and tried to steal it. Granted they would probably take my 4 other gaming pc's and leave, you never know. I cannot trust that no one will steal it, it holds important customer information that is backed up to dvd weekly, but what if they stole those also?
I'm thinking about maybe just getting a Fireproof Safe and locking the dvd's in the safe. Although since I cannot bolt it to the floor, I may have to try and get one heavy enough that no one with be able to lift it. I dunno what to do???

edit: colocation is too expensive. has to be another solution?
 
Without drilling into the floor or wall studs your not going to really be able to secure it. I guess if you really wanted too you could get a big ass case and weight it down somehow but you really are not doing anything safe.
 
Without drilling into the floor or wall studs your not going to really be able to secure it. I guess if you really wanted too you could get a big ass case and weight it down somehow but you really are not doing anything safe.

I understand this...but right now I don't have much of a choice

I think what I may do is this:
Setup a server at a different location, and have the two servers sync every night or twice a day or something, that way if one was stolen the other would still hold all the info.

These would be in totally different parts of town, not nextdoor which I know some people will think ;)
 
Just hide it really well, and connect to it via wireless.
 
You could get a safe for the DVDs and then encrypt the hard drives... no many thieves knew how to decrypt data ;)
 
You could get a safe for the DVDs and then encrypt the hard drives... no many thieves knew how to decrypt data ;)

Safe does no good if it is not bolted down. They will just take the entire thing and break into it later.
 
Good point. Well in that case store the DVDs in a remote location and encrypt the hard drives of the server.
 
You can get past a guard dog, but nobody !@#$'s with a lion.

Unless they have a car >.>

Back on topic. I think your best line of defense will be to keep them out of the house. I think anyone that knows what they are after would go for the hacking approach.
 
Ok guys, stop dreamin here...

First off, it is in a walk-in closet on the 2nd floor, this is a townhouse so I cannot install any sort of bio-metric locks to the door, I cannot drill through the wall...I am really out of ideas on how to protect this thing.

I need to protect it in case someone ever broke in and tried to steal it. Granted they would probably take my 4 other gaming pc's and leave, you never know. I cannot trust that no one will steal it, it holds important customer information that is backed up to dvd weekly, but what if they stole those also?
I'm thinking about maybe just getting a Fireproof Safe and locking the dvd's in the safe. Although since I cannot bolt it to the floor, I may have to try and get one heavy enough that no one with be able to lift it. I dunno what to do???

edit: colocation is too expensive. has to be another solution?


For DVDs: nice to see your doing back ups
Two options come to mind:
1. Take them to Bank and stuff them into a security deposit box (most banks have these for a few dollars a month and since it sounds important it's probably worth it).
2. Take to parents house, girlfreinds, etc... bolt a vault to floor, stuff full with DvDs.
(tell them the internets told you to bolt a safe to their living room floor, they'll be cool with it)

For server:

a You can get cases that lock. (search the internets)
b encrypt space on hard drives that have critical data (Geli for FreeBSD, TrueCypt for Win32 and/or Linux)

Get a chain and attach to server some how. Attach other end of chain to something heavy (for example, a bunch of 45 pound weights that are used for weight lifting) and then attach the other part to something big and awkward (so that it's harder to move or get though the door frame/window).

for example, wield two big pipes together (each pipe being 10 feet long) in a big X. Then chain server to that. They will have to cut chain if they want to remove the server from the room (that in combination to it being hundreds of pounds - should stop most petty thieves).
 
You guys have to remember that the only thing I am worried about is LOSING the data. I don't care if anyone else gets it, just as so long as I still have a current copy somewhere. I think off-site DVD storage is a good idea to start, and then maybe offsite-server backup would be the next step.

Thanks for all the crazy ideas like lions, dogs, cars, poles, weights, etc. ;);)

edit: Forgot to mention that I don't care if anyone steals the server hardware, insurance would probably end up giving me more then what it's worth to buy a new one. I just cannot lose the data. Does anyone know a good place online to backup data to? I have to backup about 3Gb weekly but I only need about one weeks of backup at a time.
 
Make it a rack mount server and put other stuff in the rack. a small rack like a 20u. you can get them for 100 dollars at american musical or any music supply company.

My apartment was broken into last year and my one roomate had her laptop stolen, IPOD, digital camera. My video camera was taken along with my pda. (side note: Everything that was stolen was silver colored). Anyway, my server was at the end of the hall out in the open in a rack along with my old laptop on a rackmount shelf. They didnt' even touch it.

I feel fairly confident that no one will bother with it if it's in a rack.... especially a heavy one. Mine must have weighed close to 75 pounds with the backup ups in it.

So that's another way to look at it.
 
For remote backups I use a company called GNAX.

They own their own datacenter and such.
 
If the data base is only 3GB how about getting a big flash drive and just hang it around you neck?
 
Just get a few 4GB flash drives and hide them throughout the house or even somewhere else.

Even with a large safe, if it isn't bolted down, two or three guys may be able to pick it up. That happens occasionally on It Takes a Thief.
 
Just get a few 4GB flash drives and hide them throughout the house or even somewhere else.

Even with a large safe, if it isn't bolted down, two or three guys may be able to pick it up. That happens occasionally on It Takes a Thief.


Cut a hole in a book (plenty of guides for that on the internet). Fake electrical outlets.

Flash drives are so small, the possibilities are endless. Alot easier than trying to hide an external hard drive or something.
 
You could get a safe for the DVDs and then encrypt the hard drives... no many thieves knew how to decrypt data ;)

If they came looking specifically for that data, I'll bet cracking it wide open wouldn't be an issue given some time. As for the safe, people steal ATM machines all the time with a pickup and a winch, I doubt the OP could afford to cold bolt and concrete mount the thing in his house/apt so...

Safety deposit box for the DVDs if necessary. An extreme and time-consuming option, but there it is.

As for securing the server, I'd probably find a wall someplace in the house where I could literally carve out a section and place it, totally out of view, and put some piece of furniture in front of it or a painting, etc. Hidden panels ftw!!!
 
If they came looking specifically for that data, I'll bet cracking it wide open wouldn't be an issue given some time. As for the safe, people steal ATM machines all the time with a pickup and a winch, I doubt the OP could afford to cold bolt and concrete mount the thing in his house/apt so...

Safety deposit box for the DVDs if necessary. An extreme and time-consuming option, but there it is.

As for securing the server, I'd probably find a wall someplace in the house where I could literally carve out a section and place it, totally out of view, and put some piece of furniture in front of it or a painting, etc. Hidden panels ftw!!!



Ok ok guys, taking it way too far.

Already said I cannot cut, drill, hide, stash anything into the walls or floor! The management does usual checks to verify everything is working and clean, they would notice a huge metal rack bolted to a stud where the drywall should be!!

I am just going to use off-site server storage through carbonite and probably one other vendor as suggested above. I do not care if someone steals the server, as long as I can recover the data I'm fine.



THREAD CLOSED. Until further notice.

Thanks guys!!
Shawn
 
Already said I cannot cut, drill, hide, stash anything into the walls or floor! The management does usual checks to verify everything is working and clean, they would notice a huge metal rack bolted to a stud where the drywall should be!!
Some of the things suggested here (hiding flash drives) don't require any modification of the apartment or whatever you live in, yet you shot down all the ideas for it.

I do not care if someone steals the server, as long as I can recover the data I'm fine.
So if you don't care if someone steals the server- why the title "How to physically lock down..."????
If all you care about is data- again... I go back to what has already been suggested to you- flash drives. They are cheap, small, easy to use.

THREAD CLOSED. Until further notice.
Yea, you can't really close threads though ;)
 
What if the place burns to the ground? flash drives are useless.

People have already suggested firesafes but they are not safe for media or flash drives so no go.

I was going to find a way to secure the server, but obviously with my limitations that is not feasible. I am just going to back up everything to remote servers and everything is good. problem solved, and cheaply.
 
The dog thing totally works.

I lived in a apartment complex that had a break in problem. In fact the apartments on both sides of me got broken into. The only difference between my apartment and the ones that got broken into was I have a dog. A very loud dog that only barks when someone knocks or messes with my door or is by my windows.

With a dog you also won't have to worry about the management. If they need to enter my apartment, I have to be there because else my dog will attack them. They don't even bother to stop by anymore. Did I mention that my dog is only a 18lb dachshund? Even a little dog is more than enough to do the job. :cool:
 
Wearing a Flash drive 24/7 isn't that big a deal as it would be just like a pendent. Water proof ones aren't that big anyway.

It isn't really that strange to have something on you 24/7. My watch is water proof and since its battery change 3 years ago I have yet to take it off my wrist.
 
.........it holds important customer information that is backed up to dvd weekly,
I don't care if anyone else gets it, just as so long as I still have a current copy somewhere.

Wow, remind me not do to buisness with you?

If you have customer information and you dont care if they steal it ? sure your clients would love to hear that....

or is it not really any info, like names and address ?
 
Wow, remind me not do to buisness with you?

If you have customer information and you dont care if they steal it ? sure your clients would love to hear that....

or is it not really any info, like names and address ?

At 3GB it's probably more than phone numbers and addresses. But even if that's all it is he's still legally obligated to inform them if it gets stolen or lost.
 
Just one other thought here. Your standard breaking-and-entering thief who is after electronics is going to take the shiny pretty ones. If you want to get into the psych level of things, just get an old P.O.S. server case, smear some coffee and random other shit on it, make it look like a shitkicked old junker. Nobody is going to try to steal that.

Other than that, if you're only worried about retaining a copy of your data, get a NAS hard drive and toss it somewhere random and out of the way (somewhere nobody looks). Auto Backup to that. With that and the DVD backups, you should be golden.
 
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