Comments on: How to Build Your Cisco Router Lab http://www.routerfreak.com/how-to-build-your-cisco-ccnp-lab/ Tools, Tips and Reviews for Network Engineers Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:57:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Joe http://www.routerfreak.com/how-to-build-your-cisco-ccnp-lab/comment-page-1/#comment-2700 Joe Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:17:20 +0000 http://www.routerfreak.com/?p=532#comment-2700 Hi Vishal, I'm glad you liked the article! The main thing you want to consider when giving your friends access to your home lab is overall security to your network. Opening up parts of your network to the public internet means you need a way to lock down and police this access. The best way to do this would be with a firewall. A small <a href="http://www.routerfreak.com/cisco-asa-5505-security-appliance-50-for-vpn-networks/" rel="nofollow">Cisco 5505</a> you could be perfect for this but it may not be within your budget. You can create dmz segment where the lab would be located. This will allow you to protect your home network but still allow access from the public internet only to the dmz. Then open access only to one or two source ip addresses (your friends) while continuing to keep your network secure. A great cost effective alternative to buying a Cisco firewall is to use an old server and install something like Smoothwall - http://www.smoothwall.org/ Smoothwall is open source firewall software that does an amazing job and is very easy to configure. I hope this helps. Good luck Hi Vishal,
I’m glad you liked the article!
The main thing you want to consider when giving your friends access to your home lab is overall security to your network. Opening up parts of your network to the public internet means you need a way to lock down and police this access. The best way to do this would be with a firewall. A small Cisco 5505 you could be perfect for this but it may not be within your budget.

You can create dmz segment where the lab would be located. This will allow you to protect your home network but still allow access from the public internet only to the dmz. Then open access only to one or two source ip addresses (your friends) while continuing to keep your network secure.

A great cost effective alternative to buying a Cisco firewall is to use an old server and install something like Smoothwall – http://www.smoothwall.org/

Smoothwall is open source firewall software that does an amazing job and is very easy to configure.

I hope this helps. Good luck

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