Homelab Networking

A homelab is the safest place there is to break routing on purpose and learn how to put it back. Nobody's waiting on you, there's no change window, and if you completely wreck it, you just start over. Building something and breaking it yourself teaches you things that reading never quite does.

Why bother?

• Practice for real: configure switches, routers, firewalls, and virtual networks with your own hands.
• Try new things: IPv6, BGP, VXLAN, whatever you've been curious about.
• Study for certs: CCNA, CCNP, JNCIA, and so on go a lot better with a lab.
• Test before production: try out a change somewhere it can't hurt anyone first.
• Build stuff you'll use: a VPN back home, a media server, home automation.

What you need (less than you think)

A homelab can be one old laptop or a full rack in the basement. The usual pieces:

• Network gear:
  • A router/firewall. A consumer router works, but something you can really configure is better.
  • A managed switch, so you can do VLANs.
  • An access point if you want to mess with Wi-Fi.
• Something to run VMs: a mini PC, an old desktop, or a used server running Proxmox, ESXi, or even VirtualBox.
• Storage: a NAS or a DIY storage box for files and backups.
• Cables: more patch cables than you think you'll need. And some way to label them.

Honestly, for pure networking practice, you can go a long way with just virtual routers. A single machine running Proxmox with a few VyOS VMs can simulate a pretty serious network.

A simple starting layout

Internet
   │
Router/Firewall (pfSense, OPNsense, VyOS)
   │
Managed Switch ─ Access Point (Wi-Fi)
   │
Servers (Proxmox, NAS, etc.)

That's enough to practice VLANs, firewall rules, traffic shaping, and inter-VLAN routing, which is a lot of what you'd do in a real office network.

Hardware ideas

It depends on what you want to learn and what you want to spend. Some starting points:

• Routers:
  • pfSense, OPNsense, or VyOS on a low-power fanless box (Protectli and similar).
  • Used Cisco ISR routers, if you specifically want IOS practice. They're cheap used.
  • Ubiquiti gear if you like a GUI.
• Switches:
  • Used Cisco Catalyst switches for real IOS experience. Expect fan noise.
  • Cheap "smart" managed switches from TP-Link, Netgear, and others for basic VLAN work.
  • Ubiquiti UniFi switches.
• Servers:
  • Mini PCs are hard to beat now: quiet, low power, and plenty fast for a bunch of VMs.
  • Used enterprise servers give you lots of cores and RAM for cheap. Just know what you're signing up for with power, noise, and heat. Really old generations especially aren't the bargain they look like once you see the power bill.

Projects worth doing

• VLANs: split the network up: trusted devices, IoT, guests, lab.
• A real firewall: run pfSense or OPNsense as your main router and write your own rules.
• BGP: set up a few virtual routers and peer them with each other. Break it. Fix it.
• IPv6: turn it on properly, and maybe even try going IPv6-first.
• A VPN: WireGuard back into your lab from anywhere.
• Monitoring: graph your own network with LibreNMS, Zabbix, or ntopng. It's surprisingly addictive.
• A GRE tunnel to a cheap VPS, and route a public IP back home.

Tools

• Packet capture: Wireshark and tcpdump. Use them early and often.
• Emulation: GNS3, EVE-NG, Containerlab, Cisco Packet Tracer.
• Automation: Ansible and Netmiko. A lab is the perfect place to learn these.
• Monitoring: Zabbix, LibreNMS, PRTG, or Nagios.

The not-so-fun parts

• Power: enterprise gear eats electricity. Mini PCs and Raspberry Pis are your friends if that matters.
• Heat: servers make a lot of it. I wrote a whole page on dealing with homelab heat.
• Noise: a rack server in a quiet house is loud. Think about where it's going before you buy.
• Cost: buy used, and lean on open-source software.
• Space: a small wall-mount rack or a shelf works fine. You don't need a 42U rack.

Once you've outgrown the basics

• Add redundancy: two routers with VRRP, or two switches with LACP.
• Build a little data center: spine-leaf with VXLAN/EVPN on virtual switches.
• Set up central logging (Graylog, ELK, or Loki).
• Connect the lab to a cloud provider with a VPN and route between them.

Good places to learn

• pfSense Documentation
• GNS3
• Networking Forum
• r/homelab — for inspiration and also for seeing how far people take this.

Start small, break things on purpose, and write down what you learn. That last part is basically how this site got started.

Last Modified: October 12, 2026, 11:46 am