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.
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.
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.