Software

After setting up the hardware and the layout of the lab, it's time to start filling it up with software, giving the lab some functionality. A few areas which you might want inside the lab are:

• Virtualizing software
• Network Devices
• Operating Systems
• Daemons/Services

Network Devices

You may not have access to physical hardware, however, you can virtualize certain aspects of them.


A good example of a virtual router, is 'GNS3'.
This solution creates a complete virtual network, allowing you to create network topologies and configure the router (supporting: Cisco's IOS & Juniper's JunOS), firewalls (currently supports ASA & PIX) and hosts.


A good solution regarding a firewall, is 'pfSense )'.
pfSense includes most all the features in expensive commercial firewalls, and more in many cases.
Another good solution for a firewall, is 'Endian Firewall Community (EFW)'.
It has a wide range of supported features such as 'packet inspection', 'proxies with antivirus support', 'virus & spam-filtering', 'content filtering' and 'VPN support'.