I recently purchased a Dell T-330 server that I had intended to install OpenBSD on and use as a serious web server. My goal was to have more control than would be (naturally) given with, say an AWS VM. And by control, I mean what is *not* running on the box - security-wise.
Apparently, Dell ships these with an abundance of "security features" already on the box. And not a lot of obvious opt-outs. And a proclivity not not understand that "no means no" in regard to turning off these features. One of which used 60% of (one of 8) processors, all the time. Constantly running one of my processors at 60% - as long as it was powered up. I understand that there are times when good security requires such measures. I do. And if I trusted Dell with 100% of my security needs, I'd be ok if it phoned home a lot, or repeatedly powered up my external HD after a total power down, etc. But I am under-educated and over-paranoid, and so I'm hoping that the people on this list can offer some suggestions of machines that they use as internet servers. I'm looking for *more* power and *less* stuff running in the background when booting from a newly-installed OS (like obsd). I can and will go with a 10-yr-old desktop model, if that's what it takes to achieve "radio silence" when I'm not running anything. Can you tell me what you like to use? Thank you in advance. -Jim Huddle
