Out of control home labs

alias454

I couldn't sleep and was thinking about some things I need to do for my home lab. It dawned on me, I have a part time job sitting in my basement.
Does anyone else have a todo/want list longer than they have time to complete it all? How do you prioritize what builds you work on?
I'm not asking for advice, just throwing out a topic not related to resumes, WGU, or getting a CCNA

Anyway, these are the things I have cooking
OSSEC/SAGAN
SNORT
ESXi
Logging
Puppet
PXE Provisioning
AD/LDAP integration for Linux logins using AD
and of course my Cisco Lab

Other services I maintain on my network are DNS, DHCP, NTP AD, and a SubVersion repository.
I think I need a different hobby.

Regards,

gorebrush

Yeah my list is big too - but I'm very happy about that because it's all learning.

I really want to add some NUC's or something to increase compute and RAM power and I'm busy fiddling with a Mikrotik and ASA for security stuffs.

I want my own domain again so I'll need to start working on that

digitheads

You're not the only one - I run three servers in my house 1 - PDC, 2 - BDC & Comm Manager, 3 - SQL, adding #4 - Ubuntu running asterisk. and on top of that I am assembling a CISCO home lab, 3 Cisco 3548 switches, and 3 Cisco 2811 Routers....its not just a hobby, its what I do.....

BlackBeret

Esxi - pfSense, Security Onion with OSSEC, Snort, Bro, Sguil, Elsa, etc., Ubuntu Server that's slowly being configured to do everything, Windows Server 2012 for fun, and about 12 other OS installations.


*adds git repository to the list.

kohr-ah

NUC i5 Esxi 5.5 box:
BIND
Guacamole
Minecraft
Plex
GNS3 dedicated vm
Tor box
2 junos olive routers
7 gigs left to spend in ram

Hardware
Meraki 8 port switch with a meraki AP
Cisco C2960 8 port switch
Fortigate 90D firewall
Synology DS214se 3TB RAID1 NAS

And because my kiddo and the Mrs use the plex server I have to do change control at home :P
(OK girls the server will be down at 9pm for 30 minutes)

alias454

I could use a hardware upgrade on my ESXi Server. More RAM would be good. I wanna take it up to 64GB's. I forgot to mention a couple of laptops with Kali Linux and Nessus on them. I also forgot the Linux HA cluster that was built for part of another build.

The list goes on and on with ideas to play around with. I do it for learning too but for me this is as much a hobby as it is anything else. I am pretty sure if I won a million dollars tomorrow, the first thing I would do is upgrade my lab stuff, not buy a new car. Maybe this is more of an addiction than a hobby. Anyone know of a support group? TechExams can't be it since that would be like having an AA meeting in a bar.

Regards,

tpatt100

I have some stuff in the basement but I really need to hire somebody to run ethernet from my basement to the second floor rooms in my house.

gespenstern

I don't do sh!t and it's a pain for me to vacuum my pc once a year or configure a new linux xbmc TV box for kids.

I guess i'm just too old.

joelsfood

I just have a single small esxi host and then vmware workstation on my desktop. With virtualization plus consulting (I have all kinds of hardwware at my various clients that I can learn on as I admin/configure them), I don't need a lot of physical hardware. But VMs abound

UCSPE
F5 LTM
vMX
vSRX
Nexus 1000V
ASA 1000V
CSR1000V
Data ONTAP Emulator
VNX Emulator
NSX Manager
VCSA

Probably a few more I'm forgetting. Plus the various Windows/Linux VMs I'll throw out quickly to test something

Deathmage

gespenstern wrote: »

I don't do sh!t and it's a pain for me to vacuum my pc once a year or configure a new linux xbmc TV box for kids.

I guess i'm just too old.

you older than 30? - I look in the mirror today and found a gray hair and was like yup its official now, I'm old!

gespenstern

Deathmage wrote: »

you older than 30?

I'm whopping 39. Dinosaur from IT perspective. I remember 2400 bps US Robotics Courier modems, punchcards and everybody working on IBM mainframes with two-color (green and no color) CRT displays and playing text-based games, lol

xenodamus

My to-do list grows every time something new emerges on the VDI scene...

I recently took a role as a Sales Engineer and have to keep a working lab at home and on my laptop for every major flavor of VDI - XenDesktop, View, RDS, vWorkspace and all the ancillary pieces that go along with them.

My customers drive my priorities for the most part. I have to be ready to cook up any combination of broker/client on the fly to troubleshoot their issues. Keeps life interesting, for sure!

alias454

Hmm... I have had gray hair since I was in my early 20's. I'm 38 so I can remember the bad old days and hearing stories about the badder old days I am not nostalgic for that old crap either. I wonder if these up and comer young whipper snappers will tell everyone how "back in my day" We had to use DVD's to install Windows" and the grand kids will be like "what's Windows" lol. Oh the irony.

cowill

I'm simply replying to subscribe to this thread cause I can relate....I know some of yall got some solutions LOL