I’m new to the selfhosted/homelab space and eyeing a used Dell Optiplex Micro system to experiment with. The unit has an i5-8500T and appears to support Intel vPro/AMT for remote management and KVM. This is interesting to me as I may not want to have a monitor and peripherals permanently connected. After substantial searching, most of the documentation and discussions on this topic are aimed at people with a deeper background. I believe I can figure out how to set it up, but I couldn’t find straightforward answers to these security questions:

-I only want to use this for KVM while at my home. It seems like a security risk if this functionality works over the internet rather than just LAN. Is this actually the case, and if so, can it be set to LAN-only?

-Since the machine had a prior owner, is it advisable to reset the BIOS or somehow clear out potential vPro settings from the previous user?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

  • ThorrJo@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    I would never open those types of services to the Internet. Wrap it in a VPN first yeah?

    I have this exact model machine as a web app server running Proxmox btw. Works great. I did need to get a genuine power supply for it as it refused to run above 800MHz with a generic!

    • Astronomik@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Glad to hear it’s working for your use case! I’ve seen lots of positive feedback about these Optiplex Micro’s.