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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Homelab
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News flash: entry-level cyber roles don't exist unless you want to be a SOC Analyst staring at logs 24/7. The secret is to get comfortable with systems administration, then once you can prove you understand those technologies inside and out, get some certs, and pivot into a higher-paying security engineering role. I wouldn't want to hire someone to be responsible for the security of my company if they didn't take the initiative to first gain prior experience managing the same technologies making up my infrastructure. Or, you could start in IT helpdesk, which is below sysadmin.
Do you know Linux already? If not, find any old laptop you have laying around and throw Ubuntu on it. Get comfortable with the command line. Come up with an objective, say, hosting a Minecraft server in docker for your friends--you'll have fun, and as a result, you'll learn a lot about docker, networking, firewalls, potentially DNS, etc. along the way.
For the technologies you listed, go find some old used Dell or HP tower PC from the last 5-6 years and add more RAM to it. You'll need to do some research on CPUs, but generally 4th gen i7s and upwards should be good. Install Proxmox on it and fire up Windows Server, CrowdSec, pfsense, etc. virtual machines to learn AD, SIEMs, networking, log management, and Linux, since Proxmox is debian-based. Look into Cisco Packet Tracer or EVE-NG for networking practice. Learn ansible, terraform, etc. Cyber is actually a big part of systems administration.
If you have the budget, go find a used Dell R630 or R730 for around $300 (or anything from the Rx30-series, avoid 20 and 10 as they're too old). Do some research on the v3 and v4 Xeons that go in these so you know what's "good" (compare performance on cpubenchmark.net). Throw 128gb of RAM in it with a couple TB of used enterprise SSDs in a raidz1 ZFS group, and you'll have space to run so many VMs. You'll learn about iDRAC this way too and gain street cred for having a real enterprise server in your house. Create a blog and write all about what you've done and what you're learning. Create step-by-step tutorials so others can copy what you've done.
Good job on taking the initiative to make a homelab and set yourself apart. You'll do great!