2.5 Admins 2.5 Admins 271: Dead Internet
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Oct 30, 2025 Discover the risks of exposing your Baseboard Management Controller to the internet and how it can lead to persistent malware. Learn about the astonishing effects of a zip bomb and how ZFS managed a massive file without crashing. The discussion delves into the alarming prevalence of bot-driven internet traffic and its impact on social media engagement. Plus, get expert advice on building a home server cluster, highlighting the benefits of using x86 hardware over Raspberry Pi for superior reliability.
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Keep BMCs Off Shared Networks
- Do not expose Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) to networks that untrusted people can reach.
- Set the BMC to a dedicated interface or localhost and never leave it on your LAN or the Internet.
ZFS Can Mask Zip Bomb Storage Use
- ZFS metadata and compression can make a decompression zip bomb appear to write petabytes while consuming little physical space.
- ZFS marks all-zero records as holes and avoids allocating actual storage, preventing some—but not all—impacts.
Scan And Limit User Uploads
- Validate and scan any user-uploaded archives before extracting or processing them.
- Implement zip-bomb detection and resource limits to avoid CPU, memory, and backup exhaustion.
