Re: Suggested lab materials/systems/setup?

[Mike Sweeney <mikesweeney () packetattack com>]

VMware is king in my lab. I use a P4 3Ghz with 2 gig of RAM and it  
just works well. The newest 5.0 workstation is very stable. I used  
version 4.x in my book and I had SuSE, Redhat, Fedora C1 and C2,  
Slackware and FreeBSD all running on VMware, sometimes multiple  
images running concurrently.  On the Windows side, I have an image of  
Windows 2003 running the Cisco 3.x Secure Server for RADIUS/TACACS+  
work.

I also recycled an old Cisco 4230 IDS unit into a test box. It's a  
dual P3 500 and works pretty well aside from it weighs a ton to move  
around being a 4U rack mount box.

For firewalls, I have different IP table scripts to load, a PIX501  
and a m0n0wall router on a WISP card(kicks ass). I have two access  
points, Cisco 340 and a hacked Linksys. Various switches and hubs  
laying around.

Workstations are a few different intel laptops, my compaq 700M is a  
fav even though it's only a PIII/800 but it has swappable drives. I  
have several drives preloaded with different OSs. in a lab, that is  
very handy and it's handy onsite. I just recently picked up a iMacG5  
which I love and I've been using for my daily stuff. Pretty front end  
and BSD based backend.. you gotta love it.

Imaging server?  no way dude ;)  A firewire/USB2 external drive with  
Acronis TrueImage works fine and is ALOT cheaper :) I use it on both  
Wintel and the Linux boxen. I have not tried it on the Mac but then  
Carbon Copy Cloner works fine for Tiger when run from a command line.

I should mention that a switch that supports real VLANs is very handy  
to mock up a network of different subnets etc. I say real VLANs only  
because some switches claim they do VLANs but cheeseout on the   
details. A brand "D" switch does vlans but you can not mirror the  
VLAN, only a port in the VLAN which kind of sucks at times. Maybe the  
newer ones are better but I just bought a used Cisco 2900 series and  
called it done.

Mike Sweeney
____________________________________

mikesweeney () packetattack com
www.packetattack.com
Home of "Network Security using Linux"

Office 714.637.4235



On Jul 10, 2005, at 3:42 PM, Erin Carroll wrote:

> All,
>
> I'm in the process of setting up a pen-test lab environment of several
> servers running various OS flavors (both Windows & BSD/*nix) along  
> with a
> netscreen-10 firewall and cisco 3825 to use as the lab router. What  
> do other
> list members use for their lab environments and what suggestions/ 
> issues have
> you encountered? I'm just using equipment I have laying around but  
> would be
> interested in hearing about other lab setups to get some ideas (or  
> excuses
> to go shopping) on what else I can utilize for pen-testing practice.
>
> I'm definitely going to set up an imaging server (jumpstart &  
> Altiris) to
> make changing things around less painful but I've also considered  
> Vmware on
> the hosts. Basically I'm curious as to what you all use to practice
> pen-testing to keep the skills sharp when not "on the job".
>
> Thanks!
> --
> Erin Carroll
> "Do Not Taunt Happy-Fun Ball"