What Electronic Door Lock Would You Buy?

zentigger asks: "I work for an ISP that supports internet in several dozen remote areas. Our POPs are typically fairly small shed-like structures, with a couple racks of equipment. For the most part, we can manage this stuff in-band, but frequently we need to have a local agent physically access the equipment for some minor maintenance work or adjustments. As time goes on, the shuffle of keys is becoming farcical and expensive. What we need is an electronic lock of some sort that can be reprogrammed remotely (preferably from a remote console via serial or directly via ethernet) that will stand up to extreme weather. Google certainly turns up lots of glossy brochures — although I don't see how they can -all- be 'The heaviest duty lock you can buy!' Does anyone have good experiences with any particular products or perhaps other means of dealing with the key shuffle?"

Don't give out keys at all.

[jhfry]

Your an ISP... you have bandwidth and old servers... simply get an electronic latch, a webcam, and patch it through to your security officers.

With some easy code, you could remotely unlock the buildings for workers on an as needed basis. Plus it provides video surveillance, and a method to document who accesses the facilities and when.

Keys would still be in the hands of a few techs for situations when the network is down.

Re:How to do the keypad

[jimmyswimmy]

I used to use a system much like you describe. I used to work at a major international airport, which secured some private areas from the public with a cipher lock. It had rocker buttons, five of them, at the bottom of a metal "butter tub". You could stick your hand in there and look inside and see the labels on the buttons, but once you'd seen it once, you didn't need to look again. The rocker buttons were centered and if you press one way it might be a '1' and the other way was a '6', I think.

A more interesting system was on the front door to my office - a 9-digit keypad where the numbers were lit up in a dot-matrix format. You could only read the numbers standing in front of it, and they would change each time you walked up to it. It was very cool, but they stopped using it in favor of ethernet-programmable fingerprint readers.

There are a lot of options. The tougher part is weatherproofing any of these solutions. The more fancy electronics you have, the more important keeping water out becomes. Good luck!

Re:Remote controlled lock?

[sumdumass]

You need to think like in a house/door lock instead of a padlock. And then think of a security system too. I have a garage door opener that you input your code to open and the alarm stores who accessed what when for 30 days. But I can set up a code for a repair man or someone who I know will be coming over while I'm away and then delete/disable the code after they are gone. and my security system can be controlled by Ethernet or the phone from any remote location. (even viewing the cameras.)

The Door in the kitchen coming from the garage is controlled by a set of really strong magnets and and hooked through the security system too. Once it is locked, you need about as much force necessary to kick a regularly locked door in to open it. But if the security code gave you access to the house, when you opened the garage door, it would unlock the kitchen-garage door too. Or you could open it separately with the same code on the keypad to the door.

This is the type of lock/access he is looking for. One that can check the codes and have the codes changed from remote locations to allow someone to enter and then deny access as soon as they complete thier jobs.

Re:Remote controlled lock?

[Door-opening Fascist]

We have an RFID-based card access system where I work. The local stations keep a log of all cards allowed on a particular door in the last six months, so it'll open the door for those cards even if the network is out.

Avoid Chubb

[humberthumbert]

Whatever you do, avoid Chubb like the plague.

The "brains" of the system run on useless software that will not work without a hardware dongle. Check before you buy, I'm sure there are plenty of vendors who pull the same shit out there

Also, are you SURE that a keypress box (lockable box with hooks for hanging keys) won't do? When I was in the military, that's what we did. Never had a problem as:

a) We exchanged keys for identification (no ID, no key!)

b) If you lose the key or run away, we have your id, and we will hunt you down.

With a well-kept logbook, you cannot go wrong. Not to mention, no dicking about auditing whose keycard has access to which area when. If the key is missing from the keypress box, someone is using it. If it's missing after the official visitor hours, you have a problem. Scales pretty well up to a few hundred keys.

Of course, make sure you buy decent locks. Also, someone could always try to forge the keys. But that's what armed escorts are for.