Does anyone have Homelab/Custom LAN network?

[Preciouslitlboy]

Hi all does anyone have a homelab with a server rack? or a custom network? with managed switches/Firewalls DNS servers/Mail servers?

I have the following devices/hosts/equipment in my network:

4 Cisco 2950 switches (pretty old but it does the job)

2x intel nucs one Running a custom DNS server which block malicious websites + advertisements,

and the other running a PBX phone system and a gateway system (this are both virtual machines)

(will have an edge router/UTM/IDS/IPS in the future)

and also had a Plex server but i will rebuild this

old game machine specs:

CPU: AMD FX 8350
GPU Nvidia GTX 760
RAM: 16 GB DDR3 RAM
Storage 120gb ssd + 2 x 6 TB in RAID 1

Machine for virtual machines:

HP Z820 Workstation

CPU 2 x XEON E-5 2660 v2 10 cores and 20 threads (total 20 cores and 40 Threads)
Also this machine has 6 Monitors attached to it

Consoles:

1 PS4
1 Xbox one

Printers:

Epson WF 2540

 

[mickdl]

Hmm... and what is it good for? I mean - the monitor wall looks like build for a small NOC but for home use... To be honest at the beginning of the PC area I waste also a lot of money but now I'm at a stage where I also think the smallest food-print is the best one. If you need horsepower check Azure Amazon & co. If you need something to train Cisco - there are nice simulations available - you just need the FW images... If you like gaming... well it's maybe not the right HW... I know it's nice to play around with this stuff and I remember my hard was bleeding when we kicked out our own HS21 Blade Centers because our MM decide it's cheaper to move our VM including Op's to a 3rd party data center.

But hey - that's the way it is. So I thought over and have moved my own toys also into the cloud. The only physical things that left over is my Mac two big screens and some stuff for making music

 

[Preciouslitlboy]

i have my own business so its handy to have all this i also use VPS servers and the cloud alot

 

[Preciouslitlboy]

Azure cloud is nice

 

[Preciouslitlboy]

and btw it is a noc... lol I use systems to monitor my internet traffic and shows all the incoming and outgoing connections on a world map on one of the monitors

 

[mickdl]

yeah that fun . And for your idea with an IDS/IPS I think this could be fun also - it's nice for hacking and trying exploits... Only the things that you can hack are the things that you really own...

 

[Preciouslitlboy]

thats one of my plans aswell make exploits and do ethical hacking

 

[Preciouslitlboy]

but exploits are hard to make you really need to know what you are doing... and lots of trial and error

 

[mickdl]

yep... that cost much time and a lot reverse engineering... I think I'm still at the beginning and it's just some kind of a hobby for me but it's something where you learn a lot about system design and the good news is that the systems become more and more generic and the developers become more and more lazy ...