First Network Setup Suggestions

[mitt3ns]

Hello All!

Decided that I probably (obviously) would get the best understanding of networking in setting up my own home network! So I took a couple old boxes I had lying around and set them up to my NAT.

I have a total of 3 boxes:
1. My main home PC (Dual-Core AMD 6400, 3g ram - Dual-Boot Win. XP/Mint Linux)
2. Old Pentium III with 512mg ram, running Windows 2000 at the moment.
3. Pentium I running Windows 95.

(Then I have my laptop running Mint and 4g ram.)

My plan thus far is to lay them all up to run through the NAT (wired/wireless), run a small linux distro on box #2 and get openssh, mysql, apache, and samba running... and that's my only plan so far.

Any ideas on more setup options or ideas to do with the equipment?

As I bought the "Networking Bible" book I'm still flipping around through that, and starting to learn about Wireshark/Aircrack/Hping3 with testing it all on my own network... though a bit hard to get 'em going when I'm the only active user on my network. (Any way to setup a dummy user that would be "browsing: through pages so I could have some packets to toy with?)

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

-Mitt

[Goatboy]

I'd dedicate one box to be a Linux server hosting web pages, like you had mentioned. That way you can practice programming, web app security, etc. Another cool thing you could start experimenting with is network-based attacks. MitM yourself, try to DoS one of the boxes, etc.

[mitt3ns]

I'd dedicate one box to be a Linux server hosting web pages, like you had mentioned. That way you can practice programming, web app security, etc. Another cool thing you could start experimenting with is network-based attacks. MitM yourself, try to DoS one of the boxes, etc.

That's what I think I'm going to do then!

I'm just wondering though... is there a way to put a "fake active user" on a pc? No point in running my packet programs if there's no packets to capture, ya know? And I would rather not jump pc-to-pc knowing exactly where I'm going to be browsing.

Like you mentioned in another post of mine, I am starting with the networking route with setting up and maintaining a network and hopefully some daemons so I can start to understand what is going on around a network first... think I'm going to leave programming till next semester classes at school (otherwise I keep jumping around to everything I want to know without actually fully understanding one concept).

Thanks for the reply Goatboy!

[Assassian360]

I'm just wondering though... is there a way to put a "fake active user" on a pc? No point in running my packet programs if there's no packets to capture, ya know? And I would rather not jump pc-to-pc knowing exactly where I'm going to be browsing.

One sample way is to have a program running on another computer that periodically sends web or other types of requests. You could learn to write a small program yourself or probably find a tool on the web that could do this for you. By periodic you can have the requests sent every 30 seconds for example on a timer. That way you would get regular network traffic without being overwhelmed with the thousands of requests of having a shorter time. This would emulate the activity of a user sufficiently for testing out what it looks like when someone is really using a computer.

[insomaniacal]

I'm not sure if there's a program out there that can mimick regular behavior (Dont quote me on that, I've just never heard of one), but you could code a bot to browse random pages. And you get the added bonus of learning some programming.

[mitt3ns]

I think I will look into making that bot then!

Definitely would also help with learning Aircrack/Kismet since I was testing it last night after changing my encryption to WEP (WPA2 -is- that much of a bitch to crack huh?), but I still was only grabbing about 50 packets every 6 minutes... and didn't even get down to see if the ones I was grabbing were even IV.

> Would it be a good idea to just get used to the setup and monitoring of my server/network before diving into the deep end with TCP/IP? Seems like I keep trying to get into the nitty-gritty without even understanding the simple concepts first... though maybe it's a good thing?

[cruisegirl713]

mitt3ns, I am planning to do the same with a friend in my apartment, however it seems we only have two computers, one that we'll install linux off of, do you think that's enough? I haven't started picking up books yet but I've been reading up on google and going to find a guideline book. My intentions were to attack my own network as suggested earlier.

Post your results here And when we get our network set up I will do the same.

---

Btw, do you recommend Mint Linux or which versions should be considered? I tried Ubuntu once,

[mitt3ns]

mitt3ns, I am planning to do the same with a friend in my apartment, however it seems we only have two computers, one that we'll install linux off of, do you think that's enough? I haven't started picking up books yet but I've been reading up on google and going to find a guideline book. My intentions were to attack my own network as suggested earlier.

Post your results here And when we get our network set up I will do the same.

---

Btw, do you recommend Mint Linux or which versions should be considered? I tried Ubuntu once,

Heya Cruisegirl!

Right now since the computer is very, very old that I'm using the server for, I'm only running a Knoppix HD install and running mySQL, Samba, SSH, FTP, and an Apache daemon(s). Not what I woulda hoped to do, but it's good enough to use as my first test box! Working well enough so far for my own learning purposes I suppose, mainly right now just learning how to tunnel into my computer when I'm away from home.

Google is the best just to search through since free information is always the best! But I myself picked up "The Networking Bible" to read through since it delves pretty deep into some networking ($50 from my local Barnes&Noble).

I would highly recommend Mint Linux over Ubuntu! Much nice looking interface 'from the box' compared to Ubuntu, as well as many more repositories and whatnot... has treated me well enough to have me run it on all my computers!

Let me know how your networking is going as well!

- Mitt

[Coltragon]

After you've attacked your own network, you can also try to protect it from your attacks and stuff. Block their attacks. To get some packages you can try to run a server for a game/webpage that is used a lot. People will request and send data to your server.

[Soulzityr]

hey mitt3ns, this is the person you're responding to.

We have Ubuntu Linux (my roomate picked) on his old computer and I'm reading up on how to proceed from there. I see no mention of mySQL and Apache stuff though, those are types of servers, right? Having trouble setting up that test box, haha, especially with the semester bearing in.