My home lab came about from asking the question “how am I supposed to get an IT job that requires experience, without experience?” On top of new responsibilities at my current role, my home lab is a great place to practice, learn, try new things, and fail, all without worry about taking down production.
I figure my hardware is a good place to start. I’ll make a list of all the hardware and what I am doing with it or what I plan to do with it. This list is probably going to grow overtime but I’m going to stick with what I have for right now.
| Device | Use |
|---|---|
| Protectli Vault FW4B | Router and Firewall running PFSense |
| TP-Link TL-SL2428P 24 Port Switch | Main Switch configured with 3 VLANs and PoE |
| TP-Link EAP650 Wireless Access Point | Access Point with an SSID for our main network and a second one for IoT Smart Devices |
| HP Prodesk 600 G2 Mini Tower PC | Purchased refurbished from Amazon - Running Windows with Hyper-V for VM management - running a VM with a docker container for Homebridge, a service to link non-Apple Homekit devices to Homekit |
| Dell Inspiron 3847 | My parent’s old desktop PC - Installed Proxmox VE OS to manage virtual machines and LXC containers - Will serve as my lab’s main server for now |
| Cisco Catalyst 2950 48 Port Switch | Currently not in use on my home lab but it is configured similarly to the 24 Port TP Link switch above (with 3 VLANs) |