Part Two: Building Your Home Lab

 

Last week we talked about why you might want to own a home lab, if you're keen on the technical side of cyber security. The first impediment to building a home lab can be the cost of equipment, so let’s break through that barrier. Even an older laptop, say from the last 7 to 10 years, can often be more than capable for starting out. If you only have one laptop and it’s your “daily driver,” you won’t want to turn it into Dr Frankenstein’s monster. A better plan is to install a type 2 (host-based) hypervisor such as VirtualBox, and then create your world of fantasy inside it.

A type 2 hypervisor is simply an application you install on your existing operating system, such as Linux, macOS, or Windows. Within it, you can create entire systems. For example, you can install and use a Linux operating system even though your laptop runs Windows. This is an excellent way to learn a new OS.

Each of these new systems is called a “virtual machine.” Under the hood, a VM is really just a file (albeit a fairly large one). The hypervisor competes with other applications you’re running, like your web browser for Googling instructions on how to do all this, so a VM won’t seem quite as fast as if the OS were installed directly on the hardware (often called “bare metal”). But the advantage of a hypervisor is flexibility: you can create and destroy VMs quickly, because they’re just files!

The first limitation people hit when using their daily laptop for home labs is storage space. Those VM files can add up fast, so you may need to limit yourself to just a few at a time. Another common issue is resource allocation. If you give one VM too much memory, disk, or CPU, you may not have enough grunt left for your other VMs or even for your own applications like the browser. Finding the right balance is part trial and error, part simple arithmetic.

There are plenty of guides online - just follow the bouncing ball. One common catch with older laptops is that virtualization may not be enabled in the BIOS/UEFI. Look for settings called Intel VT-x or AMD-V; enabling those is usually a must.

You could also host your lab in the cloud. Most providers offer a free tier, though usually with usage caps or time limits. This can be a valuable option: you’ll get hands-on experience with the same environments used in industry, where cloud skills are practically mandatory. Just keep an eye on usage so you don’t accidentally run into charges.

If you’re lucky enough to have a second laptop or desktop you don’t rely on daily, you can wipe it clean and install a bare-metal hypervisor such as Proxmox Virtual Environment. This is far more efficient than a type 2 hypervisor because it runs directly on the hardware without another OS in between.

As an aside: with Microsoft enforcing upgrades to Windows 11, many perfectly good laptops are being discarded due to strict hardware requirements like TPM 2.0. If you can rescue one of those machines from e-waste, it could make an excellent lab box.

One thing to remember is power consumption. If you leave your lab device running 24/7, as many people do, the energy cost can add up. Older desktops and servers can be especially power-hungry. A cheap energy meter can help you measure the actual running cost, which may even make cloud hosting more cost effective.

For personal use, both Proxmox VE and VirtualBox are free, with strong community support. A quick search of any error message usually brings up solutions.

This brings me to an important point: many software companies provide free community editions of their products for personal use. Some even allow commercial use without charge, relying instead on paid support subscriptions. It’s a clever business model: by running their tools at home, you become familiar with them, and may later recommend or purchase the enterprise version for work. More companies should consider this approach!

Now that you’ve built the capacity for a home lab, what are you actually going to do with it? This cup of coffee has come to a delicious end, so let’s pause here and pick it up again over another cup. 😁