Setting up a Hack-Lab

[Mossad09]

Does anyone know how to set up a "hack-lab." I want to learn and practice network security on my own home network. I've got 2 computers.

[mShred]

You could install a vulnerable OS on one of them. Say, Damn Vulnerable Linux. And just use the other computer as your pentester.

[jgreen45]

There is always Metasploitable, to test out some common exploits and see how they work. It's not as fun as DVL but it also isn't so bulky.

[edone automaton]

I just started doing this and i've got to say, its well worth the effort. You can probably learn more in a couple of hours messing around than you can from a week of reading.
I don't know how things work where you live but what I did was go to my local tip (dump) and asked the guy if I could take some of the old computers/parts. I had to give him a tenner to look the other way but for that £10 I have 5 working pcs in my shed on which to experiment
So I get to do some pen testing, some networking plus I can mess around with the hardware and it does not matter if I fuck something up. Win.

[Kirtack]

Two words: Virtual Machines.

-Download Virtual PC or VirtualBox (they are both free).
-You can dl pre-made images (pwnOS,Metasploitable,etc) or do your own: download a server OS and install the applications you wish to attack on it.
-Set the Virtual machines' network cards to "Internal network" and you should be good to go.

The big advantages of VMs is that if you fuck up, you can just delete it and start again. Since the VMs only exist in your machines' ram and harddrive,it's not like it was difficult to clone or remake them.