Sysadmin Mega Thread

yeah I just saw it after I posted…

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We might be testing these out on some types of systems, though no care for FIPS. In this day and age fips 140-2 is ancient (2016), there’s 140-3 but I’ve not looked at that to see if it’s actually a decent standard to implement. While I like many government standards :heart: NIST, there not always with implementing or better than other options out there that aren’t included in the standard.

I wouldn’t get the fips keys if I could do it over.

Never forget:

Always have a backup!

Cotton

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always have a backup … on a second drive!

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Then back that up on a remote drive, far away.

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Building a rack tonight.


Tada

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At what point is it advisable to introduce a ground to a rack (other than what’s provided by just plugging everything in)? And how is that accomplished in a typical rented office space?

Grounding bar that is grounded to the electrical ground (usually run back to the circuit braker) IF they gear has a 2nd ground point you will see it

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So from each piece of gear run to a copper bar then from that bar run to the circuit breaker

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or

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Honestly if your gear has it might as well (not super expensive) IT would depend on how well the outlet they are connected to is grounded (dedicated circuit from circuit breaker or just random chain of crap etc would make me want to or not want to do it.

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That rack doesn’t have a copper rod but it does have 2 places to screw in a ground wire to the base (with included wires).

The pdu and ups have grounds as well. Do these provide access to the existing ground in the power cable or are they for an auxiliary ground?

I am very much not an electrician…

In this case, the client could barely put up 4 walls with a dedicated A/C vent so any additional electric was completely out of the question. The plugs in the room are simply what was there when they moved in.

I believe its more of an auxiliary ground. I am not sure if its really required but all Gov shit I have ever worked on has had the 2nd ground done as well. I wouldn’t worry to much about it with you having everything going through an ups. IF they get some money down the road / someone with more knowledge on this says if its really needed then maybe do it then.

The grounding bar is usually an addon on to the rack that you mount in like a 1u slot in the back, it just make grounding everything easier as you only need to ground that bar to the building ground instead of one for each piece of gear.

Seems like the issue is liability if someone gets shocked if the gear shorts to the rack.

decent quick read

" I think you are fine installing the ground yourself, as long as you truly understand what a valid (according to code) ground consists of. There are grounds and then there are grounds.

Attaching to the nearest metal pipe is not a good ground.

Using 14 gauge wire to attach is not a good ground.

Clamping it to painted metal is not a good ground.

A ground must consist of 6 or maybe 8 gauge wire, running no more than 20 or 30 feet, to a 6’ long ground rod driven all the way into dirt. You may need to go through concrete to get to the dirt.

If a server room is too high up, you must tie into the nearest building electrical ground (not neutral) which should be available near the service panel.
"
Would check your code just to be safe on what it requires

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Yeah, 9th floor.

Definitely further than that from the fuse box, assuming that’s what they mean by service panel?

I wasn’t able to find anything specific, but who knows what exact terminology they might be using for “server rack”… In any case, I work on many racks in the city and I’ve never seen one that was grounded beyond what’s provided by the outlet. I think only one of them has a dedicated circuit… the difference is that I didn’t install any of those, just inherited them.

If I hired an electrician and told him to get me a ground to the server closet, what’s the result? Physically, what new thing am I getting in the room?

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That would be easiest just ask him to ground the rack he should know what’s required for code in your area.

Just a rack mount grounding bar, and connecters, some green grounding wire

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Kind of annoying. I have some admin stuff whitelisted through my firewall. After migrating DNS to cloudflare, I have to add their IPs to the whitelist or I get a 522 error…

This was even after I switched the records to “DNS-only” and turned off their SSL thing.

I’m here on and off, but currently quite busy with projects at work.
So I’m spending less time on the forum. :slight_smile:

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how much was that bad boy

Bare rack was $300. With everything it was a little over $1k.

I thought it would be fun to try and game over wireguard once they have a stable release out.

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