1256
Peak security
(lemmy.world)
^This^ ^is^ ^a^ ^joke,^ ^I^ ^didn't^ ^really^ ^lock^ ^myself^ ^out^
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Physical, on premises servers are still a thing.
Yes, I also used to run an "on premise" server - in my kitchen, not 500km away. I sometimes might need to admin it remotely, but never critical setup work.
And the meme makes it sound like they have to drive there specifically to fix it, like nobody is actually living nearby.
I mean it's a pretty realistic scenario. I happened to be the unlikely remote hands for the company I work for just a few weeks ago.
Company: an industrial cleaning company with about 1500 AD users and about 8000 employees, historically had 2 corporate offices, currently has three as it's transitioning one corporate office across the country
Server and mistake in question: old admin who's no longer with the company setup the ESXI 6.0 cluster in the server room at the office without documenting the root password to access it. This cluster happens to host the companies critical services including AD so being unable to access the host has been blocking the office migration. Old admin had also not fixed the ESXI backups which have been broken for over 3 years so no backups to restore from. Also the out of band access to the servers was never correctly setup
I happening to be close to this office and having IT experience was poked to go in and with physical access to modify the shadow file and set the root password to be blank. Had I not been available they would have had to fly someone in from the office 2000 miles away or hire a very expensive local contractor to come in after hours to do the same thing
Well, I have my server running in my parents basement, because they have fiber, and I don't.
It's not quite a 500km drive, but still a long enough distance for this scenario to be a major inconvenience.
But since I have wireguard running on their router though this specific scenario is not something that could happen to me
Wireguard is a VPN protocol, so you are able to tunnel into their router to…do what exactly?
It let's me remote into their LAN, thus bypassing the firewall
Please forgive the ignorance here. What are you trying to do? I thought you were trying to reboot an offline server. I’m probably just confused!
Well, the original post (as in the image) is about locking yourself out of a remote server by changing a firewall rule, thus needing to drive to the server to access it locally.
By using wireguard to tunnel into the router, you can remotely enter the LAN, thus bypassing the firewall, as if you were accessing the server locally.
Ohhhhh gotcha! Thanks for explaining. I think I just invented the offline part in my head lol
They should have a remote console like Dell RAC or HP iLO
Could be they were configuring the actual network firewall and got a couple of rules out of order so they blocked all of their out of band access
I hate it when my boss says that. Or he will call it "D-RAC". Annoys the hell out of me.
It's iDRAC.
Yes, there are components that are called RAC, but the Dell out of band management system is called iDRAC.
... but that's not as dumb as when he calls the SuperMicro system "iLO". That's IPMI. We don't even own any HPE. I've no idea why he's stuck on iLO.
I'd say that RAC is the overarching term for different Dell Solutions, see Dell Remote Access Configuration Guide
And it's just shorter and easier to say
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Perhaps his first encounter with remote management was with iLO and he just thinks that this is how it's called. It's "integrated Lights Out", and "Lights-Out Management" as well as "Remote Access Controller" both are generic terms (and I suspect that this is why Dell adds an “iD” in front of its product names).
But we are way to close to the “GNU/Linux Copypasta” than I would like.
Mmm. Ya ya. No argument. But its iDRAC. I've had to sit through enough propaganda. I'm pretty sure about this.