Building A Kick-A$$ Learning/Testing Box
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Friday, March 15, 2013 10:40 PM
I am in the early stages of building a kick-ass PC around an i7 3770K. I am planing on using VMware Workstation.
The purpose of this box will be to learn various OS's and administering them. Another purpose will be to practice up on my Ethical Hacking skills. (I do have the CEH cert).
I am slightly unsure of my host OS. I will have an assortment of VM's including Windows 2008 Server R2, Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, and possibly a few other Linux flavors, as well as a database or two. I will have a couple of websites (one Apache and one IIS).
I am wondering if the Windows 2008 Server R2 should actually be the Host rather than a VM or does it matter as far as the Win2K8 R2 functionality goes?
I am considering Windows 7 Pro as the host also.
Thanks for your responses.
Ray
All Replies
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Saturday, March 16, 2013 3:44 AM
I have my home lab built on Windows Server 2012. That is my host operating system. I run Hyper-V on it and then run a myriad of VMs underneath it (typically about 10 to 15 VMs always running with several others that I bring up and down as needed). It works quite well and I don't have to worry about a license for VMware Workstation. I've found Hyper-V to be better performing than VMware Workstation as well.
Brian
- Marked As Answer by Cheers ZHANGMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, March 26, 2013 2:59 AM
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Saturday, March 16, 2013 8:22 AMModerator
While I agree with Brian's suggestion, there's no thumb rule or best practice to setup a home lab.
You might consider following options as well
- Windows 7 + Oracle VM Virtualbox
- Hyper-V on Windows 8
- Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2
Following might help as well
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/olivnie/archive/2013/01/18/hyper-v-on-client-windows-8-pro.aspx
http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/5-excellent-uses-of-windows-8-hyper-v-208436
http://www.petri.co.il/installing-hyper-v-on-windows-server-2008-r2.htm
http://blogs.technet.com/b/hollis/archive/2012/05/02/windows-server-2008-r2-sp1-hyper-v-best-practices-and-tuning.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/hh846766.aspx
Regards, Santosh
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- Marked As Answer by Cheers ZHANGMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, March 26, 2013 3:00 AM
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Saturday, March 16, 2013 9:24 PM I've got a 3770K cpu with 16GB of ram. No video card needed as i'm not gaming on this and the 3770k has a CPU/GPU built in which is perfect up to 3 monitors. With all that being said, my lab is on Windows 8 running VMware and Hyper-v at the same time for my VM's. Your mileage may vary but it works for me.
Be kind and Mark as Answer if I helped.
- Marked As Answer by Cheers ZHANGMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, March 26, 2013 3:00 AM
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