My Home Network Lab

Note: This is a live document that serves as network documentation for my home network/lab that I usually update when changes are made.

I've found that getting hands on experience and applying things I've learned from my network technologies program and my certifications journey helps my understanding with networking concepts (and it's fun). My setup continually evolves depending on how busy I am, so I decided to make this page a living document of my network.

My lab in its current configuration consists of two parts: One set of equipment for personal use that I utilize daily and experiment with networking, operating systems, virtualization, containers, and servers. The other is specifically for learning Cisco IOS to prepare for the CCNA exam. In my office I'm using a PacStar 441 router and 442 switch running IOS for a separate network that connects to my regular network, and it's what my main machine is connected to. I've found that using live equipment that's being used is essential for learning. The rest of the Cisco equipment is only powered if I'm experimenting with something beyond a single router and switch.

Contents

• Hardware
• Networking
• Server Services
• Network Diagram
• Cisco Lab
• Notes

Hardware

• Palo Alto Networks ION 2000 running pfSense
• Linksys WRT3200ACM wireless router running OpenWRT in bridge mode
• NetGear GS108 Unmanaged PoE Switch
• ThinkCentre M920Q tiny desktop
• Dell Optiplex 7060 micro desktop
• Dell Optiplex 3020 micro desktop
• Raspberry Pi 5
• Cenmate Dual-bay DAS with 2x 14TB HDDs, configured as a RAID1 array
• Toshiba 4TB Canvio external HDD
• DeskPi RackMate T1 8U
• DeskPi Rackmate 12 Port Patch Panel
• PacStar 451

That's basically it. There's also my 2022 Thinkpad X1 Yoga (Hostname: saturn) and my wife's 2018 Thinkpad X1 Carbon (Hostname: venus).

Networking

I picked up a Palo Alto Networks ION 2000 off of eBay. It's running pfSense and has a 6Gb ports, a quad-core Intel Atom CPU, and 4GB of RAM. I'm using it as a firewall, but also all the routing on my network. Eventually I intend to configure a VPN for remote access.

Before the pfSense box, I had been using the Linksys wireless router running OpenWRT for a few years, but it's now just a WAP in bridge mode.

I initially bought the NetGear GS108 Gigabit switch because it was advertised as a "managed smart switch", and I wanted something to tinker with. I quickly found out that there's nothing "smart" or "managed" about it. However, it does have PoE so that's nice.

Servers and Services

At one point I had consolidated all physical servers into virtualized servers within Proxmox, but I gradually reverted back to bare metal after experiencing instability. I've also been playing around with VMware ESXi and plan to set up a couple VMs directly on my Fedora server (jupiter) in the near future.

• Hostname: Jupiter (ThinkCentre M920Q)
  Specs: i7-8700T @ 2.4GHz, 24GB RAM
  Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD, dual-bay DAS (2x 14TB HDDs configured in RAID1)
  OS: Fedora 42
  IP: 192.168.1.10
  Notes: Primary server.
  Services:
  
  • Pihole - a network-level advertisment and Internet tracker blocker that functions as a DNS sinkhole, blocking advertisements from making their way to hosts. It essentially provides false information in response to DNS queries, preventing connections to unwanted domains.
  • Samba/SMB - access files from the dual-bay DAS locally.
  • Jellyfin server - a media server service with a lovely GUI.
  • Cloudflare tunnel - configured to share a couple of services outside of my home network.
  • Syncthing - a peer-to-peer file synchronization application that syncs files across multiple devices. I sync a few directors across my laptop, phone, and server to sync to the DAS.
  • Portainer (docker) - a graphical front-end for Docker.
  • Audiobookshelf (docker) - audiobook management.
  • Immich (docker) - a pretty way to manage photos.
  • Wallabag (docker) - a read it later app.
  • Nextcloud (docker) - not really used, primarily for testing.
  
  
• Hostname: Mercury (Raspberry Pi 5)
  Specs: Arm Cortex A76 @ 2.4GHz, 8GB RAM
  Storage: 256GB NVMe (w/ NVMe base), 4TB external HDD
  OS: AlmaLinux 9.5
  IP: 192.168.1.20
  Services:
  
  • rtorrent - ran with gnu screen
  • mullvad-cli - preffered VPN service running
  • Syncthing to sync folders
  
  
• Hostname: Neptune (Optiplex 7030)
  Specs: i7-8700T, 16GB RAM
  OS: VMware vSphere
  IP: 192.168.1.30
  Notes: Currently experimenting with virtualization (previously was using Proxmox).
  
  
• Hostname: Mars (Optiplex 3020M)
  Specs: i5-8590T, 12GB RAM
  Storage: 256GB SSD
  OS: Fedora 42
  IP: 10.0.1.2
  Notes: Currently used in CCNA homelab as a host.
  

Network Diagram

I made this with draw.io.

Cisco Home Lab

My Cisco home lab setup consists of a PacStar router and switch, a few Catalyst switches, and a couple Cisco routers. I managed to get a couple of these from an instructor, and bought the rest off of eBay. I don't have the Cisco branded equipment powered on all the time, nor currently have them connected to my home network (they're also loud and a bit dated).

• PacStar 441 Router
• PacStar 442 Switch
• Cisco Catalyst 2950 (WS-C2950-24) Switch w/ 24-ports
• Cisco Catalyst 2950 (WS-C2950T-24) Switch w/ 24-ports + 2 Gigabit ports
• Cisco Catalyst 2960 () Switch w/ 48 ports + 2 Gigabit ports
• Cisco Router 2911 w/ 3 Gigabit interfaces
• Cisco Router 2801 w/ 3 Fast Ethernet interfaces

Notes

My next big change is setting up some VMs on the Fedora Server and removing the VMware server for the time being.

Further reading.