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if you're into Tech like I am or
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computers or networking and you want to
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take your skills to the next level well
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you've probably heard about something
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called home labbing whether you're
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sharpening your networking skills or you
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want to learn more about virtualization
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or perhaps setting up your own personal
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cloud in your house well home labbing is
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the magic that makes that happen
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nerd but how do you get start without
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feeling that very overwhelming pressure
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of what you need to get or what you need
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to do or what you need to learn well
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stick around because today I'll walk you
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through everything you need to know to
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Kickstart your home
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[Music]
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lab so what exactly is a home lab simply
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put it's your own personal Tech
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playground a place where you can
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experiment with things like software
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networks servers without the fear of
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breaking anything important whether
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you're a seasoned IT professional a
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developer or just a hobbyist like me the
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Home lab environment is the perfect
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place for Hands-On experimentation and
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learning now the good news is is it
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doesn't need to be that expensive you
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can just start with a bunch of virtual
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machines you can begin with putting them
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on a your own desktop or perhaps you
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have an old laptop laying around virtual
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machines will allow you to install
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multiple operating systems on the same
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computer laptop or even server it's
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perfect for experimenting with Linux
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Windows server or networking tools like
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pfSense some popular virtualization
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platforms include virtual box now this
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is pretty easy to set up especially if
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you're on Windows and it's super good
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for beginners now if you want to step it
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up you could look at something like vmw
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that's more geared towards Enterprise
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and can be a bit more difficult and a
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steep learning curve to be able to use
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that and finally my favorite is actually
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installing prox MOX on bare metal
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meaning that I'm not virtualizing it I'm
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putting it on a machine that typically I
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built if you are going to put it on what
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we call hard metal or a dedicated box
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you want to make sure with any of these
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virtualized platforms you have a good
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CPU with a lot of cores and a lot of
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threads as well as a lot of memory
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that's because we're chopping it up and
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we're going to dedicate CPUs or threads
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and or memory to each one of those
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instances or os's so in that regard if
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you're looking to build one or buy one
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then you may want to consider just
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looking up the processor making sure
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that it has as many cores and as many
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threads as well as enough memory to do
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what you want in the virtualization
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World along with that well you're going
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to want to learn
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Linux I cannot install
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Photoshop like I need just use no
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I'm not going to use also like half
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my Steam games don't work it is
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one of the most important skills that
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you will learn in home labbing it's also
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the modern backbone of most
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infrastructure and a majority of your
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home lab projects you will work on or
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will involve in some way Linux whether
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you're deploying servers managing
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networks or working with Docker
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containers knowing Linux is absolutely
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crucial if you are new to Linux I
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recommend starting with a beginner
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friendly distribution like in boom2 or
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deian play around with the terminal
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practice basic commands like installing
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software managing users and setting up
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file permissions trust me mastering the
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terminal will be a game changer for your
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home lab experience once you're
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comfortable with Linux it's time to dive
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into Docker now Docker is a centralized
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ation tool that basically allows you to
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containerize and package and run
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applications in an isolated environments
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called containers think of it as like a
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lightweight virtualization but faster
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and more efficient for software servers
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and applications one of the best tools
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for managing Docker containers visually
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well that's painer painer gives you a
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really easy to use graphical user
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interface where you can deploy manage
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and and monitor your containers without
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the need of you know remembering all
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these silly little command line
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arguments here's a quick peek at my
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workflow when I get a new machine in the
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door I decide what OS I'm going to put
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on it based on what I want to do with
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that machine then after that I quickly
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install Docker after Docker I'll
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definitely put on painer so I can manage
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and even install my containers after I
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have painer installed well then the fun
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starts and I can start picking out what
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application S I want to put on that
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server painer is pretty powerful it also
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supports things like Docker swarms and
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kubernetes so it's excellent for scaling
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as you become more advanced with Docker
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and portainer you'll be able to build
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complex application environments quickly
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allowing you to test and experiment with
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a wide range of services all from your
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home I prevent cross- sight scripting I
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monitor for DDOS attacks emergency
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database rollbacks and faulty
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transaction handlings the internet heard
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of it transfers half a petabyte of data
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every minute do you have any idea how
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that happens all right so now you're
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comfortable with virtual machines and
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you're looking to expand so you might
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want to start investing in some Hardware
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so what are some of the basic networking
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components that you're going to need
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well first of all you're going to need a
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router now that can just be a router
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that you were given by your ISP or you
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got off Amazon or Best Buy or it could
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be something more professional like
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those those models from Ambi quity now
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you can also choose to build your own
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router like I did with a small little
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n100 nuck boox and then put pfSense on
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it now switches are something you're
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probably going to need as well now an
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unmanaged switch is okay but if you're
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serious about networking you're going to
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want to look at manage switches so that
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way you can learn a little bit more
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about vlans and some other Advanced
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topics that we'll cover much further
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down in this series now in terms of a
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firewall I like pfSense there's also
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open sense uh both are pretty good in
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opsource firewalls that work great in
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home lab environments and of course if
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you don't have enough physical space or
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you don't want to invest a whole lot in
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this just to dip your toes into home
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labbing well of course you can always
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look at some Cloud providers places like
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AWS Azure or Google Cloud they often
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offer free tiers where you can certainly
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deploy virtual machines learn about
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remotely connecting to them and even
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deploy some services on them with cloud
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based Labs you can test Enterprise level
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Solutions without any upfront Hardware
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cost it's especially great for learning
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about cloud computing devops or
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developing containers with tools like
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kubernetes the next few things are super
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crucial as well and the first is
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documentation trust me on this
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documentation is everything in home
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labbing when you're experimenting with
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new systems things will break and you
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want to track down and look back at your
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notes to see if you can figure it out
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it's also helpful if things fail and you
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have to redeploy one of the other things
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is well we all walk away or get busy and
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when we come back to it it's nice to
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have that knowledge base to refer to now
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you can use things like notion obsidian
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even a simple Google doc to log your
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progress and write down any notes that
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you may have along the way and the last
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thing that you really need is to be a
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student of the game once you have got
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your home lab up and running trust me
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when I tell you the learning never stops
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there's great communities out there on
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Reddit one of which is called home lab
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you can also check out a host of
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YouTubers and you can even consider
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taking some classes in things like basic
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networking on services like udimi or
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corsera this will just help deepen your
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knowledge and there you have it a quick
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start guide to planning your home lab
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now remember this can get confusing this
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can get frustrating but it's all about
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the journey and it will pay off if you
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stick with it start small do a bunch of
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experiments and build up as you go no
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need to dump a bunch of money in right
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now we talked about using cloud services
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we talked about even using a Raspberry
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Pi so the main thing is is don't take it
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too seriously but make sure you're
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planning you're documenting and you're
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having fun now if you are setting up a
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home lab please let me know in the in
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the comments that you are or if you
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already have one let me know and of
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course if you have any problems or
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issues go ahead and put put a comment
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down below and I'll do my best to answer
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each and every one and if you like this
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type of thing we're doing a whole series
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on home labbing we will get more
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technical more involved we will build
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out a little tiny small n100 Nas boox
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I'll show you how to put things like Nas
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software on there we'll do proxmox we
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will build our own router with pfSense
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we've got a lot to get to but I want to
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do this in logical order and I do want
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to stress how important this part is
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just make sure you're planning make sure
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you're thinking about the future so that
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you can have a few years with your
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equipment and not just waste money on
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the next episode we will go into a bit
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more about the applications I use and
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then we'll build a machine and we'll
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kind of go from Zero to Hero along the
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way you chose the way of the hero and
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they found you amusing for a while
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eventually they will hate you so if that
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interests you do me a favor please like
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this video consider subscribing so
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you're notified of my next release and
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as always I appreciate it I'm Hill
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Phantom and I'll see you next time
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[Music]
