Hey, everyone. I've been perusing this subreddit for the last hour or two, and I've decided to post due to the overwhelming positivity and knowledge that I am seeing being passed around here. I'm about a month from graduating with an Associate's degree in Cybersecurity, and I went to a few conventions and networking groups where I was told that making a Homelab will put me ahead of most of my competition.

I have roughly $1000 I can spend. I can spend more if there's a good case to be made.

There are so many options and videos I have seen on the subject. I'm neurodivergent, so in this context, I simply have too many options, but no direction to go. Preferably, whatever build I go with will have utilities that will allow me to

1. Support VLAN and trunking
2. Support segmentation
3. Create multiple VM's
4. Allow me to set up a SOC environment and a red team environment
5. No preference for Windows or Linux servers
6. Really would prefer something that didn't take up too much space

I'm open to whatever. NAS, SAN, enterprise technology, whatever.

I saw a Firewalla device that looked pretty neat. Firewalla Gold Plus: 2.5G Cyber Security Firewall & Router Protecting | Firewalla , looks like it combines a router, VPN, IPS, and SIEM environment.

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I'll Venmo $50 to whoever is willing to walk and talk with me and maybe offer some guidance. Also, I'll send you a connect on LinkedIn and write you a glowing recommendation to sweeten the deal if it's something you're open to.