I am looking for some recommendations on how to secure the data of my physical servers (against physical theft), that I am about to set up. I am new to selfhosting but have a few years of experience running Linux on a desktop.
My usecase is a simple debian(?) server at home with Paperless ngx and Tailscale for when I am away from home.
The question is how to encrypt the data while still being able to keep the server updated.
Coming from Desktop my first thought was to simply enable FDE on install. But that would mean supplying the password everytime the server needs to reboot for an update. Could someone provide some insights on how often updates to debian require a reboot?
My second thought was to use an encrypted data partition. That way the server could reboot and I could use wireguard to ssh in and open the partition even when I am away from home for a longer time.
I am open to other ideas!
Somethign I haven’t seen mentioned yet is clevis and tang, basically if you have more than one server then they can unlock each other and if they’re spatially separated then it is very unlikely they get stolen at the same time.
Though you have to make sure it stops working when a server get stolen, using a mesh VPN works just as well after the server is stolen so either use public IPS and a VPN or use a hidden raspberry pi that is unlikely to be stolen or make the other server stop tang after the first one is stolen.