Category Archives: Home Lab

home lab – firewall installing pfSesne

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There are lots of good howtos out there to get the system installed. I followed this one, since it was for the same hardware: Build an awesome APU based pfSense Router.

Issues were with the installer software. It took a few tries to figure out I needed to run it as admin, mostly because the screens are all in German (I think). I tried other software (the one I use for the Raspberry Pi stuff) didn’t work.

Booted off the console, used the installer (after I got the right image, can’t use the iso image), and installed it. Next up, getting it on a network to use the Web interface to configure the box. Or use SSH. Maybe just plug in the laptop and see what happens. That’s half the fun anyway, or so I think.

Home Lab – Firewall PC Engine APU1D4 DYI Build

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Got the first firewall for the lab. It is a PC Engine APU1D4 D.Y.I Kit from Netgate. This hardware has been going out of stock constantly. I got the 30 gig flash drive from Amazon, for less. I should have taken pictures as I was building it, but was just excited to be building it.

The good:

  • easy open packaging
  • other than the heat spreader it went together really quickly
  • Online documentation available

The bad:

  • No Instructions in the box
  • The heat spreaders didn’t like to stay on the chips
  • the heat sink move pulling the spreader off with it while putting the bottom on. Didn’t cause problems, but had to stop and reline up the head spreader to the chips (stuck to heat sink).

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Home Lab – Phase 1 – More annoyances

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I got a free LCD tv recently, 32 inches. I was hoping to use it as the monitor for the VMWare box for a bit. Until I could save the money to replace it with something nicer / actual monitors (dual display ports).

Problem is, ESXi is designed to be a type 1 hypervisor. I never knew that’s what bare-metal systems were called. I’ve worked with Citrix Xen in the past. It was nice, but I hated to do the work over the network.

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vmware problem trying to share bridged interface

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I’ve spent the last 2 days trying to get Vmware Player on a Windows 7 host, to provide internet to any of the guests  using bridged mode.  I have 2 firewalls installed. Windows firewall, and Avast’s Firewall (part of the Internet Security Suite). I had both installed previously before I rebuilt my laptop in September, and didn’t have a problem or had to do anything.

If I turned off one of the firewalls it worked fine, for bridged interfaces. But with both on, it didn’t work. Even though there are rules in place for avast to allow vmware.

After digging I finally found a thread dealing with the same issue on VirtualBox. The fix is to turn on Internet Connection Sharing in Avast. This doesn’t turn it on for Windows but just Avast from what I can tell.

Home Lab – Phase 1, start with what I can.

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As I said in the last post, I’m going to have to piece the lab together slowly. However that doesn’t mean I can’t do other things with the lab until then. The current plan for later phases is PFSense on the micorserver, Security Onion on a Microserver, the network switch, and a new network drop.

However, I have old PC hardware laying around and vmware player on my current laptop. I should be able to build and play with a couple of things.

  • VM for PFSense
  • Physical for Security Onion

Currently the old PC has Untangle on it. It  worked well. It was set up for a RuCTFe CTF a few years ago. It was fast and easy to set up. This time I want something a little different. First though, I need to reconnect the old drives and backup all the data off those. I also want to swap out the mother board with a newer one I got. I think the newer one handles 64-bit. It has multiple network cards.

Once it’s rebuilt, I’ll attach it to my existing network connection to monitor what is coming through that gateway. I’ll write those up in stages as I do them. Should be 3 posts.

Designing a new home lab

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I used to have a home lab of 3 cisco routers, and 3 cisco switches. That was for my CCNA training. Problem was, they were so old, they were not worth it. The lab also had 2 Intel 32-bit PC towers and a Sun Ultra 10. The Sun box was to get the Sun certification, but never got around to it. That isn’t to say that the lab wasn’t used. Just not used for the reasons I originally bought the components for.

Now, since I graduated and I have money to spend on building a new lab, I’m looking at getting something new set up. After watching Johnny X(m4s) and Eve Adams recorded talk from Derbycon. I decided on the following design.

Lab Design v1

So this will be on a separate internet connection from my home network. That means getting a second line to the house, but it doesn’t have to be the fastest line in the world.

The hope is to have the PFSense box, the Security Onion Box, and the Vmware ESXi box all running on Micorservers. The price for the Lenovo ones are decent.

I want a Cisco 3560g switch for Gig out all the ports, plus the layer 2 / 3 routing. Again the price isn’t too bad, about the same as the Microsevers. Lastly if I decide to go for the CCNA again, it should be useful.

The wireless access point was chosen from the Offensive Security WiFu class hardware list. I could use my old Linksys WRT54GL with dd-rwt on it. But it cant’ do N. Granted it looks like the Off-Sec recommended ones are only half N.

Lastly, it would be nice to have a peg board with all my Raspberry Pi devices attached to it. Requires being easy to remove them, but not a big issue. This would give me a place to have them while working and store them when not in use. If I can get POE on the 3560g, that means I can get a POE splitter and adapter for each Raspberry Pi, and don’t have to worry about power there either.

The laptop would be as needed device. I could use my current one or buy one to dedicate to the lab. Mainly it’s there for user interface purposes than anything else.

The only downside, even though I’m not paying for college classes out of pocket any more, is that it will take a while to build this lab. I’m going to have to piece it together a little at a time.