Recommendation for air gapped Ubuntu box

Hi everyone,
I am looking for recommendations for an air gapped machine. I don’t currently own any suitable machines to use for this.

What’s the best hardware to get for the price to do all the functions a node air gapped machine needs to do?
I want to buy a brand new machine that’s never touched the internet and can be purchased without Bluetooth, WiFi, etc OR modular enough to rip those components out very easily.

Just grab a small form desktop. I picked mine up for $50. Formatted and installed ubuntu. Did it all offline. I have also taped up the network port so there is less chance of me accidently plugging it in. The cold machine doesn’t need much computer power.

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Get hold of any pc. Install cardano-cli, either build or download executable. It is fine to do it online - there are no sensitive files at that point.
Before generating addresses and keys disconnect from the internet and never connect to it again.

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Good point, it can be all online until you need to start generating keys.

I follow a bunch of cyber security experts who all advise to use a machine that has never touched the internet. Admittedly they are by nature and profession, overly cautious.

I figure I can buy a used PC and wipe it, load Ubuntu, and rip out the WiFi and Bluetooth chips.

Where would I get a cheap pc like that?

ebay, facebook, anywhere really. There should be plenty of SFF floating around as ex office PCs.

Hi!

What about a raspberry CM3+ with board?

Why not download the free version of VMware, create a small VM on your Windows computer, but don’t give it any network connectivity? It’ll be saved into a single large file for the VHD you can then backup. But you don’t really NEED a bare metal computer.

I’ve been told that if a hacker owns the host computer then he owns the VM.