Homelab Setup

I recently came across some additional hardware and decided it would be beneficial to use this hardware as a homelab.

As I undergo my studies for my CCNA, I have installed a Cisco Router, Switch, and access point in my home to practice my network configuration at home. My biggest challenge was running category6 wire from my basement to my attic, then back into my office.

With the help of an additional Ubiquiti access point, the network was flushed out and ready for the next step, setting up my home server.

I purchased a refurbished Dell PowerEdge R730XD Server with 24 Cores, 128GB of RAM, and five 1TB SAS. I was able to get the large piece of equipment into my rack and boot up ProxMox fairly quickly. I utilized ChatGPT with the given specs to come up with a good build for a cybersecurity homelab and it come up with the following:

1. pfSense or OPNsense (Firewall)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 2 cores

   Reason: Firewalls benefit from multiple cores but do not typically need high core counts.

2. OpenVPN or WireGuard (VPN)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 1-2 cores

   Reason: VPN services benefit from multiple cores for handling encryption but do not need many cores.

3. ELK Stack (ElasticSearch, Logstash, Kibana)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 4-8 cores

   Reason: The ELK stack is resource-intensive and benefits from multiple cores.

4. Splunk

   Configuration: 1 socket, 4-8 cores

   Reason: Similar to ELK, Splunk benefits from multiple cores for data processing.

5. Snort/Suricata (IDS/IPS)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 2 cores

   Reason: IDS/IPS systems benefit from multiple cores for packet processing.

6. OSSEC (Host-based IDS)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 2-4 cores

   Reason: Host-based IDS systems benefit from multiple cores for monitoring and analysis.

7. OpenVAS

   Configuration: 1 socket, 4 cores

   Reason: Vulnerability scanning is resource-intensive and benefits from multiple cores.

8. Nessus

   Configuration: 1 socket, 2-4 cores

   Reason: Similar to OpenVAS, it benefits from multiple cores.

9. Kali Linux (Penetration Testing)

   Configuration: 1 socket, 4-8 cores

   Reason: Kali Linux can be resource-intensive depending on the tools used.

10. Windows Server (Active Directory)

    Configuration: 1 socket, 4-8 cores

    Reason: Active Directory services benefit from multiple cores for handling requests.

11. OWASP Juice Shop and DVWA (Web Application Security)

    Configuration: 1 socket, 2-4 cores

    Reason: Web applications do not typically need many cores but benefit from multiple cores for responsiveness.

12. Cuckoo Sandbox (Malware Analysis)

    Configuration: 1 socket, 4-8 cores

    Reason: Malware analysis can be resource-intensive.

13. CTFd/RootTheBox (CTF Platforms)

    Configuration: 1 socket, 2-4 cores

    Reason: CTF platforms benefit from multiple cores but are not extremely resource-intensive.

14. Nagios or Zabbix (Network Monitoring)

    Configuration: 1 socket, 2-4 cores

    Reason: Network monitoring tools benefit from multiple cores for handling monitoring tasks.

15. Docker (Containerization)

    Configuration: 1 socket, varies based on containers

    Reason: Allocate cores based on the number and type of containers running.

The setup process was straight forward after setting up one VM with the initial Ubuntu setup, I was able to take a snapshot and use that baseline for most of the other virtual machines.