I’m Richard and I’ve been playing around with servers for about 6 years. I work with Linux web servers for a living and I previously used MacOS so I’m a bit new to Windows. When my MacBook finally died last year, I went out and got myself a ThinkPad running Windows 10 and have been using this machine to familiarize myself with Windows since then. I think that this says a lot about who I am. I’m a learner and a tinkerer who is always curious to dive further into things.

I’m creating this blog to document my home lab that I started building a few months ago. This isn’t completely new to me. I did create a modest home automation system with several Raspberry Pis in my living room a few years ago. This is the first time that I’m trying to build something more practical, though. The goal of my home lab is to get some hands-on experience securing systems which can be found within an organization’s IT infrastructure.

I’d like to transition into a Security Analyst role after graduating with my M.S. in Information Security so the projects that I will be documenting will be specific to Information and Cyber Security. I’m Security+ certified by CompTIA and I’m currently studying for the CySA+ (Cyber Security Analyst) exam so I’m being introduced to many security technologies that I’d like to implement into my home lab.

The devices that I’ve collected so far are:

• • • Dell PowerEdge T40 Server
    • Synology DS218+ NAS
    • Cisco WS-C2960G Switch
    • Cisco IP Phone 8800
    • CyberPower 1500AVR UPS
    • Raspberry Pi 4

I welcome discussion to please feel free to chime in with additional information or correct me if I’m wrong in future blog posts. Thanks for joining!