HOME LAB SETUP
In this page I will explain how I setup my own home lab in detail. The process will be broken down in stages and explained via the use of images, diagrams and supporting text. I will split this into 4 different points in which I talk about each step.
Tools used: Oracle VirtualBox as a Hypervisor, pfSense, Windows 11, Windows Server
1. Installing VirtualBox
As my hypervisor I have used Oracle's VirtualBox, which is a Type2 Hypervisor. This means that the OS is hosted inside my pre-existing OS. It is also fairly user friendly, making it ideal for personal testing. Before running any VM I had to first check if my virtualization was enabled. This can be done in Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DELETE) checking the CPU under the Performance tab. If virtualization is not enabled then a restart will be necessary to enter the BIOS setup and enable it.
2. Installing pfSense
pfSense is an open source firewall and router by Netgate. It based on the FreeBSD OS and the CE (Community Edition) is available for free. I first came across pfSebse during my CompTIA (Network+) study labs.
For my home lab I will use it to isolate my home network from the virtual AD network. It will also help me to simulate a DMZ for an enterprise environment.
pfSense can be downloaded from: https://www.pfsense.org/download/ . The downloaded file appears with a .gz , meaning that it is a zip file. For the purpose of unpacking you can use 7Zip , WinRar, WinZip etc. You can then extract the contents of the zip and create a folder with the same name as the file. After doing so we can see a single .Iso file is located within the folder.
The next step is to open VirtualBox and select ''New'' button in the top left corner or (CTRL+N) and open our .iso file. It will then give me a series of menus with which i can configure my VM. It will first ask for the name of the virtual machine, which for this purpose I went with something easy ''Lab_pfSense''.
The following step is to set up your resources for the VM. In my case I have limited resources available (32GB RAM +8 cores). I will assign 4GB or RAM to pfSense and 2 Processor cores for the installation. This is something that can be changed after the installation is complete, should you wish to increase or decrease the resources.
In the image above we can also see a ''Boot Device Order (BIOS only) menu. Here in my case I will select - Hard Disk and Optical (for the installation). The optical is our (.iso) file that we use for the installation of pfSense, Windows, Linux etc. Once the installation has finished and our system is ready to go, we can deselect the Optical drive from the boot order. Not doing so will cause a loop, every time you start up the system it will automatically go into the setup mode. Leaving only Hard Disk checked will cause the system to boot as intended.
Apart from the RAM your VM/System also requires some dedicated storage to be assigned to it. That size can vary depending or your resources or needs. In my case my machine only has 1TB of storage, I assigned only 20GB in this case. Under the Hard Disk File Type and Format we can see that there is an option: Pre-allocate Full Size. Enabling this would immediately reserve the 20GB of space from the host system storage regardless of how much space do the VM's files take.
The final phase of my setup is the Network where i set up my LAN adapters. VirtualBox gives you four adapter tabs: Adapter 1/2/3/4. Before we can adjust any setting the adapter needs to be enabled. In my case I will use two adapters