School IT was throwing out these servers so I got to keep them!
Posted by realhugo@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 66 comments
My school's IT department was throwing these HPE DL360 Gen9s away, so I got to keep them! I've been assigned the lead of the new student server room that we are starting, currently we host stuff like projects on digital ocean, but soon we can move them here! Still waiting for switches and a new power distribution unit to arrive, along with some new drives, but it's a good start! I installed them all by my self, I know I probably should have waited for a second person, but I was excited (Image: https://ibb.co/JVRfS26) We are planning on running proxmox and clustering them. I spent today mounting them and getting iLo to work
roiki11@reddit
I like how some just throw stuff out and let people take them.
We throw everything to the shredder with tons of paperwork.
Threw a million worth of dell servers last year. Wanted to take the ram and drives so bad.
DoctorOctagonapus@reddit
I can understand shredding the drives but why the RAM as well?
gandraw@reddit
Our security consultant made us shred the thin clients because checklists.
opotamus_zero@reddit
It's great when they shred the RAM but the leased copier with a hard drive in it with images of potentially every document that has been copied or printed gets swapped out by the leasing company without anyone noticing.
RektTom@reddit
Hard drives in copier are rarely used. Those stores email for scan to email or “user box” where people send their document to print later. Any jobs that are sent from a pc to the copier aren’t saved any where.
itskdog@reddit
Riso MFDs can do secure print release without PaperCut, by storing the job on the HDD first.
RektTom@reddit
Yeah that’s what I meant by “user box”. The user create a password and use release the job on the copier later
Flaky-Gear-1370@reddit
Depends on config - my Toshibas can be set to keep copies
Lord_Saren@reddit
Depends on the place. Used to work in a Casino with the Gaming/Lottery commission folks. When their copier was replaced They had to pay $200 bucks to keep the old 40GB IDE HDD from it.
stephendt@reddit
Security consultant is a dumbass
lenswipe@reddit
because capitalism. where no scarcity exists, some must be created because we can't have people accidentally benefiting from anything
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
Capitalism has nothing to do with it.. it is 100% about Data Residuals, Chain of Custody, and Labor Costs. Paying an IT tech $40 an hour to spend hours wiping and verifying hardware just doesn't scale. In the end, it’s about security and people who think like you are the reason I am gainfully employed.
lenswipe@reddit
capitalism has everything to do with it.
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
Stick to your Dockerfiles and leave security to the ones who actually know what they are doing. You have proven by your complete lack of tact that you are not equipped for the technical conversation that is going on. have the day you deserve.
lenswipe@reddit
you sound insufferable
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
I sound correct..
lenswipe@reddit
No you sound like that insufferable prick that likes to run their mouth in meetings about things they don't understand.
Next time I suggest keeping your trap firmly closed while the grown-ups are talking.
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
Bro, you are a software dev talking to an infrastructure engineer in a system admin subreddit about a security issue. While you may be a very good software dev... devs are not known for being security conscious. You are trying to bring an ideological point into a technical conversation.... so, your docker awaits you..
gakule@reddit
I'm going to be honest, basing your opinion of him off an overly broad and egregious generalization about the job stated in his flair is... Kinda reinforcing his points a bit.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but levying attacks off of lazy assumptions towards an individual's capabilities does not present a compelling argument and undermines your position.
lenswipe@reddit
In other words you know nothing about me and are basing this entire interaction on vibes
Nope.
Apparently a pretty shitty one who deals in vibes rather than facts. If this is how you behave at work, it's no wonder so many companies keep having security breaches and production incidents
I've actually switched jobs since I joined this sub and just not really bothered to update my flair. The work I do now is now infra than software dev(despite being hired as an SWE - which is a shame because I actually enjoy dev work more).
what would you know about cloud insfa lol. go plug in some network cables and reboot some things....afer all - that's what you do, right? 🤣😂
lenswipe@reddit
In other words you know nothing about me and are basing this entire interaction on vibes
Nope.
Apparently a pretty shitty one who deals in vibes rather than facts. If this is how you behave at work, it's no wonder so many companies keep having security breaches and production incidents
I've actually switched jobs since I joined this sub and just not really bothered to update my flair. The work I do now is now infra than software dev(despite being hired as an SWE - which is a shame because I actually enjoy dev work more).
tf would you know about docker lol. go plug in some network cables. 🤣😂
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
Basic security principles 101... it baffles me that anyone higher than a level 1 help desk worker would think it is appropriate to not destroy the hardware that housed your company’s data. Do you want a breach? Capitalism... you sound like a walking security hazard. If someone hired you for infrastructure, you need to give them their money back, as you have robbed them badly.
lenswipe@reddit
i see... which part of the motherboard is sensitive security data stored on?
you sound like a walking idiot
lenswipe@reddit
you sound upset. go play with some spreadsheets and leave infra to people who know what they're doing.
next time keep your trap firmly closed.
opotamus_zero@reddit
Capitalism has everything to do with it.
You're saying the labor to take sand, fossil fuel and metal and turn it into a stick of RAM, hard drive or an SSD can scale, but the labor to wipe it can't?
If the companies that make this stuff were charged the total environmental cost of its disposal, I guarantee you they'd scale that process overnight.
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
If frogs had wings, they would not bump their ass when they hopped. The company that manufactured the hardware has already sold it to Company A, who is now responsible for its disposal; the manufacturer no longer has any involvement with the product, as they no longer own it. Hence, the chain of custody. You can cling to your ideological BS all you want, but those of us responsible for securing company data have to live in reality. Destroying the equipment is the only 100% foolproof way to ensure that data is irrevocable.
EvenGodsForget@reddit
Can you explain more about what you think of as being capitalism vs being business processes that operate independently from capitalism?
Mrhiddenlotus@reddit
No its not. This is caveman brain.
opotamus_zero@reddit
It's not illogical BS. You claimed that capitalism has nothing to do with it. That's the thing I am refuting. The whole damn thing is capitalism from start to finish. Your own proof is economic ffs
but somehow its not capitalism
but somehow its not capitalism
When a company has made that decision that they need to shred a hard disk to be sure nothing can ever be recovered from it, they pay for that service. The company they pay spends a small amount on labor and energy shredding the hard disk and providing the required verification. The difference is profit. So they spend the minimum and put it in a shredder.
Next the shredded hard disk sits in a pile until such time as they can sell the pile of shredded hard disk to extract one or more of its constituents. That might be because of market prices of precious metals exceeding what a business thinks it will cost to extract, or government subsidy to extract some small amount of rare earths from it. It's often the case that it gets shipped to the global south where an extraction process might be cheaper, either because labor is cheaper or adverse outputs of the process won't be accounted for. They minimise the cost again.
You're arguing that if the economics were changes, a company that has fabricated the device can't improve on this process? Like Seagate or whoever who can almost fully automate and scale the construction of a hard disk can't also automate taking the cover off, removing the platters and board and shredding or melting down just those, provide a guarantee that they've done so, then re-plattering and selling it again, when they made the whole damn hard disk in the first place?
come on.
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
That is complete and utter bullshit. Security, security, security... but there is no talking to someone who cannot see the forest for the trees. You have been led to the water, but drinking it is on you. You should really refund your pay.
opotamus_zero@reddit
I've honestly never seen someone try to argue that the tech supply chain has nothing to do with capitalism before. So thank you.
Off to do something constructive like refill the soda bottle, polish those big red shoes and put some gas in the tiny car I guess.
Ok-Hunt3000@reddit
Because some research academics developed a novel RAM recovery technique that can pull malware and porn from the deepest recesses of your memory. Sounds bad but really you just ruminate on stuxnet and ideepthroat.com, it’s pretty chill
nleksan@reddit
Even I am too afraid to investigate the deepest recesses of my memory
roiki11@reddit
It's just a requirement to shred everything. And technically taking the ram is still stealing. And would break a whole bunch of laws and confidentiality agreements and such.
Zugas@reddit
Yeah we sell everything for scrap too. I managed to buy a few tiny’s. But still sucks to throw away stuff for pennies
dinominant@reddit
If I'm forced to shred working equipment then they are forced to send me the resulting shreds. I don't care what paperwork or photos they have.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
The drives had to be shredded, so I'm waiting for new ones to arrive, but I get the servers, and hopefully some of the old Cisco switches
SebastianFerrone@reddit
If they maybe throw out some old VoIP phones ask for one. If not you can get them AS cheap 5-10$ And you can also get some Cisco access points really cheap like 2700er series and if your lucky you can get 2 or 3 2700er and find one 2800 the x8xx ones are special the are the normal AP and also have the WLAN controller in it. Butiyou can also run vwlc as an vm with proxmox
Curious201@reddit
nice save, especially since school IT throwaways can turn into a decent little lab very quickly. if you have enough ram and a few disks, i would probably use one box for a boring hypervisor setup and one for storage/testing, then document the whole thing like it is still a production system. even old servers are great for learning the parts people skip in normal desktop tinkering: firmware updates, raid/hba behavior, ilo/idrac, backups, vlan separation, monitoring, and what happens when a disk or psu actually fails. i would just be careful with power draw and noise, because “free server” stops feeling free if it is sitting in a house pulling space-heater watts all month.
Princess_Fluffypants@reddit
This is exactly how I got started in my career.
You’re doing it right, man.
Secure_Cyber@reddit
Nice! Did they pull the drives out or include them after wiping? In some of my past roles, there were strict rules about shredding drives or DoD 7-pass wipe before going to recycling.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately the drives had to be shredded, so I'm waiting for new ones to arrive at the moment
Secure_Cyber@reddit
That makes sense. Once you get your new drives, should be awesome. One thing to keep in mind: when I bought a decommissioned server several years back, I realized that electricity consumption could bring up my bill each month. Not sure how it is where you are, but something to keep in mind.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
It does use a lot of electricity, 137 watts turned off, which is £1 a day if I didnt use it and just left it turned off 24/7. Luckily I have been given a room at school to run it in, so school will be paying for all electricity
haamfish@reddit
Throw away??? We still have ‘new’ g9’s going into production 😂😂
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Yeah really hit the jackpot with these, these were used to host Firefly (learning management system) but now they are moving everything to the cloud, so they gave them to me!
Dizzybro@reddit
I'm still running these in production...enjoy but probably loud and high energy costs
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Yeah they are really loud, but I have been given a separate room for this so not really a problem. It does use 137 watts when turned off, which at current energy prices is like £1 a day if they are kept turned off 24/7, but i'm not paying for energy, school is
gsk060@reddit
Congrats! Crack on and keep us updated along the way. Come back for any hints or tips if you need them.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Thanks! The IT director said that they are throwing out a bunch of Cisco switches too, so hopefully i can get one of those, Do you know how i could distribute resources between students? I use proxmox at home but i dont really know how i would go about provisioning accounts and settings limits on each user
wireditfellow@reddit
Yes, grab the switches
blbd@reddit
Time to learn about the classics like quota management and usage reporting. 😉
meanttobee3381@reddit
Proxmox + LDAP and create a VM with directory services. Google can help... :)
Samhigher92@reddit
What does distributing resources to students mean? You want to allow the to provision VMs off your cluster? Or do you intend to give them a desktop or similar to play with?
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Preferably I would be able to give each user x amount of storage, y gb ram, and z cpu cores, and let them make vms up to those limits, and then also create proxmox accounts based on Microsoft groups.
redittr@reddit
Whatever you do, and however you do it, I would tell everyone and remind them regularly that there is no backups happening on the system.
And while you could start doing backups if you like, dont tell them that(in case the backup doesnt work).
You dont want to be responsible for someone losing a whole bunch of important data because they treat this thing like a free cloud service.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Oh yeah I nearly forgot about that, don’t want to be responsible for data loss, sure raid is good and all, but still don’t want that responsibility
Ok-Hunt3000@reddit
Set up VLANs on the switch ports, I’m okd head and haven’t messed with proxmox in a while but have a vague memory of being able to set VM nic as VLAN aware. It should land on your VLAN of choice. You want a VLAN for each dorm? Would give you control but may be untenable on one switch. If you got a few, set one up as the core switch and feed VLAN trunks off to the downlinked switches, then carve out access from them for dorms or whatever you want.
gsk060@reddit
No idea mate, proxmox and all that is way outside my expertise these days. Really great to see your enthusiasm for it and it’s got real potential to help you when you’re older- especially working with other people. Head over to r/homelab for proxmox stuff and r/networking for the Cisco stuff. 👍
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Thanks, i can always ask IT if i have problems, i know they also use proxmox to run school infrastructure (Firefly, Network Drives, MIS (3sys and PASS), and apparently some filtering stuff is virtualised too)
Good_Ingenuity_5804@reddit
Totally cool and honestly I am jealous. But seriously why is IT the only department that must hunt for literal trashed equipment to build infrastructure for the benefit of the organization. Yes I know a school or a non profit has limited funds, but trust me, finance or HR does not recycle any systems they used for additional responsibilities for no extra pay.. Well my answer, those focus who do this😇 are true nerds inside
slparker09@reddit
I routinely sign off on equipment no longer in service to be removed from inventory. I've given students servers, SANs/NAS', Aruba switches, etc.
If the students work for my department during summer maintenance I'll let them pick through the recycle pile and we'll spend some time discussing and teaching them what they can do with it.
I know one kid was learning docker and containers on one of our old Dell servers.
We wipe the drives, let the BoE know we're deprecated it, and then they can have it. No sense in just sending it to a recycler if it is still working.
AfterEagle@reddit
Proxmox is lit!
SebastianFerrone@reddit
Dort forget to update BIOS and if they have an onboard raid controller its Firmware. HP had some series with cheap flash Chips so the Logs from the raid controller could kill that Chip.
realhugo@reddit (OP)
Thanks, I'll make sure to do that when i get back on monday. I'm pretty sure nothing has been updated since 2015, and the only thing i've updated is iLo
Outside-After@reddit
Have fun a few of those before both physical and VMWare hosts. A good grounding i think. If you can nab an old HPE NAS too, plus the necessary network kit for setting up some vlans, so much the better for setting up a quasi corporate on-premises job.