Lab Equipment

Official CCIE Security Lab Equipment and Software v5.0
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-30658

First off, you need a US keyboard with the “small” Enter key

Logitech K120 (costs 10-20 USD)

I have bought and build my own Home Lab to almost match the official requirements from Cisco.

To my luck, most of the devices needed are virtual and can be hosted on VMware ESXi.

As of now I do not have the following physical equipment: Catalyst C3850, ASA5512-X, WLC2504 and IP Phone 7965

I do have a Cisco Switch C3560CG (I recommend a C3560CX for more feature support) and a Cisco IP Phone 7975.

Say hello to my small form factor, low-noise and low-power (40-60Watt) “Wonder BoX”

What’s on the inside:

• Board: SuperMicro X10SRM-F
• CPU: 10 Core/20 Threads 2.2GHz Intel XEON E5-2630V4 L3 25MB
• Cooler: Noctua NH-U12DX i4
• RAM: 128GB ECC Kingston ValueRAM
• Storage: 32GB SanDisk Ultra Fit V2 (ESXi 6.5 Host)
• Storage: 1TB NVMe Samsung 960 EVO (ESXi Guests)
• Case: Silverstone SST-SG10B Sugo
• PSU: Corsair RM550x 550 Watt
• WiFi NIC: TP-Link 150Mbps Wireless N Nano USB

“Wonder BoX” currently runs 26 Virtual Guests (the entire equipment list except; APIC-EM, CUCM and Firepower Private Cloud) and draws 88GB of Memory and 3GHz of CPU (when it boots it draws 20-21GHz of CPU)

To give you an understanding of what’s running in the VMware ESXi environment.

The topology is not set in stone and is “first draft”, just to have things installed and running.

Some of the equipment can run without licenses (limited bandwidth throughput) others require either full, demo or evaluation licenses.

Nice to know

• Cisco Access Control Server (ACS) only support crazy old browsers: Mozilla Firefox version 44 works like a charm
• GNS3 VLAN Trunk to “real world” physical switch
  • Port configuration on physical switch connected to VMware ESXi

    interface GigabitEthernet0/10
     description VMware vmnic3
     switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
     switchport mode trunk
     switchport nonegotiate
     no cdp enable
     spanning-tree bpdufilter enable
    end

  • In VMware ESXi you need to separate the VLANs into “Port Groups”
    and attach each VLAN as i Network adapter on the GNS3 VM
  • SSH/Console to the GNS3 VM and confirm the adapters show up on the host
    If for some reason they do not show up, you can manually initiate the interfaces (remember VM ESXi counts 1-2-3 and GNS3 counts 0-1-2)

     sudo ifconfig eth4 up
     sudo ifconfig eth5 up

  • Now add “Clouds” in GNS3 and connect them to Cisco IOS L2 “Access Ports” in the desired VLANs (each Cloud represents a NIC in GNS3 and a VLAN Port Group in VMware ESXi)