Home Lab

Lab Network Diagram

The network topology was extremely pragmatic.  I wanted to have a setup I could move if I needed to.

You see, I live in Arizona.  Having it in my office in the summer, well, it's already hot here, why add to my discomfort.

So, I've purchased a small wire cart, put the computers and network on it.  Added an old KVM switch I had laying about, as well as a usable but extremely old Dell monitor, mouse and keyboard.  Wired it up to an old wireless game repeater I had from back in my Xbox days and...

Equipment Deployment

Completely mobile except for power.  I could add a UPS, maybe one day.

Left to right,

Lab 3, running my current Arista Spine and Leaf simulator, on VirtualBox on Ubuntu 14.04.

Lab 2, running OpenStack on Ubuntu 14.04.

Labcore, box I got from a friend upgrading, running Ubuntu 14.04 for anything else I may need to do in the rack.

Network switch, 8 x 1Gbps NetGear SOHO, router, Buffalo SOHO running DDWRT.

Lab 3 and 2 specs are buried somewhere in my blog if you're interested.

Anyway, can't wait for summer.

If you're interested in sharing your home lab picts, tweet 'em to me @abusedbits #homelab

What's it running on?

I've a request to share the platform this is all running on.

Here's the itemized list:

As you can tell from the graphic, this is Lab02.  Lab01 is my OpenStack rig identified in the earlier part of the blog.

Before anyone says anything, yeah, the PS is overkill and the motherboard is...interesting, but I've got multiple plans for the box itself.  This is just one use case.  :-)

If you plan on building a unit to do the same, consider the PSU, the CPU, the water cooler and the memory for cost reductions...  You could probably come in under $800 if you really squeezed it.

I can't recommend the SSD enough though.  Fast...