Colo Hardware Donation Checklist [FreeBSD WIKI]

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====== Colo Hardware Donation Checklist ======

Before hardware can be donated to one of our co-location facilities the following questions and issues should be addressed.  In general, accepting machines that are no more than 2 years out of date means that many of these issues are already addressed.

  * We can only accept rackmount machines.

  * Rails and rail type (Snap or Screw).  Rails should always be included in a machine donation either via the donor or by purchasing matching rails.

  * Processors.  At this point we can usually get decent processing power for donation.  I believe we should try to accept machines that are no more than 2 years out of date.

  * Memory.  Again, memory is now cheap, let's make sure we get a reasonable amount.  No less than 4G.  (For package building machines, we are going to want to upgrade to either 8G or 16G.)

  * Power Supplies.  Depending on their intended use donated machines should be dual power supply.

  * Management.  All donated systems to remote colos MUST have some form of Integrated Lights Out or IPMI.  IPMI is the preferred setup.

  * Disks. SAS or SATA, but it's time to stop accepting SCSI as that's dying out.  In disks, bigger is usually better.  (However, for package building machines, 80G is sufficient.)

  * Serial Ports.  Nice if we can get them but they're fast disappearing from machines.  If a system has Serial over LAN that's a decent replacement.

  * Network requirements: how many ports, and on what VLANs? If a complex configuration, what topology is required and are we equipped to handle it?

  * Netboot requirements: what MAC address, and it must be preconfigured for PXE before being shipped.

  * Power requirements - how many ports, and likely average/peak use so that it can be placed on power controllers usefully.

  * Shipping requirements: all machines should be individually wrapped with bubble-wrap (especially around rack-mount ears) and the remaining space in the shipping box filled up with some kind of material (newspaper, peanuts, etc.) so that the boxes will not get smushed.