Home Lab network

[NetwM]

Hello!

 

I am trying to setup a Home Lab network. I have Virgin Hub 3. I have a Hyper-V Host computer running Server 2016. I have two nics, one for Host and one for VM’s.

 

DC VM is the domain controller with active directory, DNS and DHCP. I want my DC to assign IP address to my VM’s. ( , 10.0.0.0/24 )

I don’t want my router assign DHCP address to Hyper V host or VM’s.

 

How do I setup my router and Hyper V host?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to help me

[Jcx500]

I don’t think you can change the ip range on the superhub from its default one , what I did was buy a decent router and turn modem mode so it’s just passing the connection to my router, then I disabled dhcp on the router and set it up on my two domain controllers with failover, I guess u could spin up a virtual pfsense box and put your vms behind that network

[Ausy]

For a Lab why not just set up a server to do the routing on your Hyper-V Host.

 

Here is a simple video.

[BroganOs]

I bought a cheap ex Datacenter server for €70 put an ssd and hdd into it installed server 2016 on it. ( but you’re probably get away with Linux and VMware) using hyper v. I downloaded pfsense and installed it on a vm as a virtual router with two vnic’s one internal for the virtual network LAN and one external for the WAN then created a virtual network with 2016 server GUI version as the dc, win 10 vm and two server core vms to complete the network I needed at the time.

 

I downloaded the vms from the Microsoft trial site checkpointed them to get past the 60 days limit. It only cost me the price of the server.

 

I hope that helps or makes sense.

[BroganOs]

If you have a second windows 10 pc or laptop you could install hyperv server 2016 on the host machine and mange it from the windows 10 machine too. Hyperv sever is free

[Chaniel]

I'd separate your homelab network from your main network in Hyper-V using a virtual switch set as Internal/Private Network, you could then create a firewall VM (pfSense for free) and have that bridge between your private homelab network and your LAN for internet access.

 

When you then create a new VM in your homelab network, you assign it the network adapter on your "homelab" network and it will do a DHCP request and broadcast only on that network and get a response from your DC.

[NetwM]

Hi

 

i am new this and i want to use this time learn new things. Would it be possible you to let me know the router you bought and how did you configure failover? What is your spec for the hyper v server?

 

Thanks

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I don’t think you can change the ip range on the superhub from its default one , what I did was buy a decent router and turn modem mode so it’s just passing the connection to my router, then I disabled dhcp on the router and set it up on my two domain controllers with failover, I guess u could spin up a virtual pfsense box and put your vms behind that network

Hi

 

i am new this and i want to use this time learn new things. Would it be possible you to let me know the router you bought and how did you configure failover? What is your spec for the hyper v server?

 

Thanks

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

For a Lab why not just set up a server to do the routing on your Hyper-V Host.

 

Here is a simple video.

 

Thanks

[NetwM]

I'd separate your homelab network from your main network in Hyper-V using a virtual switch set as Internal/Private Network, you could then create a firewall VM (pfSense for free) and have that bridge between your private homelab network and your LAN for internet access.

 

When you then create a new VM in your homelab network, you assign it the network adapter on your "homelab" network and it will do a DHCP request and broadcast only on that network and get a response from your DC.

 

Do you have any guide how to install and configure pfsense?

 

Thanks

[Davit2005]

This one is a bit old but should do the trick.

 

[Jcx500]

Ive got a linksys, believe its one of the wrt models.

 

for dhcp failover you have to have two dhcp servers most people install them on there domain controllers,and then in the mmc console you would set up a dhcp failover relationship for your scopes

 

my home hyper-v server runs windows server 2019 datacenter (Gui) with the hyper-v role installed, I have around 9 virtual machines on it, the hardware is a Hp proliant dl360e gen8 with 24gb of ram and a single xeonn e5-2450L and two 1tb hard drive in a raid1 config

[BroganOs]

Do you have any guide how to install and configure pfsense?

 

Thanks

 

Here is a link that should help:

 

 

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/virtualization/virtualizing-pfsense-with-hyper-v.html

Edited April 20, 2020 by BroganOs

[NetwM]

Ive got a linksys, believe its one of the wrt models.

 

for dhcp failover you have to have two dhcp servers most people install them on there domain controllers,and then in the mmc console you would set up a dhcp failover relationship for your scopes

 

my home hyper-v server runs windows server 2019 datacenter (Gui) with the hyper-v role installed, I have around 9 virtual machines on it, the hardware is a Hp proliant dl360e gen8 with 24gb of ram and a single xeonn e5-2450L and two 1tb hard drive in a raid1 config

 

nice setup

[Sephiroth]

My setup is something similar to Jcx500, except mine is production, so everything is on the LAN, with only my modem/router on the WAN (WiFi disabled, I have a seperate AP on the LAN).

 

I have a ProLiant DL360p Gen8 with 48GB RAM and an E5-2690 8 Core CPU. Storage is on a seperate server (Dell PowerEdge R520 with 16GB RAM and 6 x 2TB disks in Raid5). This is hosting 11 VMs running my network, including a fileserver.

 

There are 4 NICs setup on the box;

1 x WAN (connects direct to the ISP Router)

1 x LAN (All devices on this network with 4 VLANs)

2 x iSCSI (agregated link to my storage server)

 

The routing is all handled by a PFSense VM on the host with a NIC each for LAN and WAN.

[NetwM]

My setup is something similar to Jcx500, except mine is production, so everything is on the LAN, with only my modem/router on the WAN (WiFi disabled, I have a seperate AP on the LAN).

 

I have a ProLiant DL360p Gen8 with 48GB RAM and an E5-2690 8 Core CPU. Storage is on a seperate server (Dell PowerEdge R520 with 16GB RAM and 6 x 2TB disks in Raid5). This is hosting 11 VMs running my network, including a fileserver.

 

There are 4 NICs setup on the box;

1 x WAN (connects direct to the ISP Router)

1 x LAN (All devices on this network with 4 VLANs)

2 x iSCSI (agregated link to my storage server)

 

The routing is all handled by a PFSense VM on the host with a NIC each for LAN and WAN.

 

Hi Sephiroth

 

Do you have any diagram of your network?

 

Thanks

[Davit2005]

My setup is something similar to Jcx500, except mine is production, so everything is on the LAN, with only my modem/router on the WAN (WiFi disabled, I have a seperate AP on the LAN).

 

I have a ProLiant DL360p Gen8 with 48GB RAM and an E5-2690 8 Core CPU. Storage is on a seperate server (Dell PowerEdge R520 with 16GB RAM and 6 x 2TB disks in Raid5). This is hosting 11 VMs running my network, including a fileserver.

 

There are 4 NICs setup on the box;

1 x WAN (connects direct to the ISP Router)

1 x LAN (All devices on this network with 4 VLANs)

2 x iSCSI (agregated link to my storage server)

 

The routing is all handled by a PFSense VM on the host with a NIC each for LAN and WAN.

 

I like running the home network as a production, more life like :-). Can be frustrating when I have problems after being at work but I don't get many, well normally anyway, lol.

[NetwM]

Dear all

 

I have setup the home lab on a laptop. Hyper V 2019, I have installed and configured domain controller and exchange as well. I have managed get a decent PC ( i5, 16 GB ram). I have installed the Server 2019 and installed Hyper-V roll on it.

 

How do I move all my VM one host to another?

 

Many thanks

[Jcx500]

If Its not clustered , Just export the VM and move it over by USB or network share then re-import the vm on your new host

[Davit2005]

Dear all

 

I have setup the home lab on a laptop. Hyper V 2019, I have installed and configured domain controller and exchange as well. I have managed get a decent PC ( i5, 16 GB ram). I have installed the Server 2019 and installed Hyper-V roll on it.

 

How do I move all my VM one host to another?

 

Many thanks

 

There used to be a way to do this without exporting but last time I used Hyper-V was over 10 years ago though and it was a bit convoluted to setup. VMWare ESXi/vCenter make this quite easy but you pay for the privilege but in the right scenario you can migrate VMs without turning them off and without having shared storage using vMotion or EVC if using same CPU manufacturer but slightly different chipsets. I have a number of servers at home which I use as production, with around 25VMs doing various stuff.

 

pFsense can be virtualised, you may need to do some extra work like enabling promicous mode on the network settings of the virtual switch. There should be a few guides for it online. I've been running Virtual firewalls for last 4-5 years but migrating to pfsense on physical boxes now so I can reduce number of servers that I need 24/7.

 

 

Veeam could be another way and there is a free edition of Veeam called Community edition which supports 10 workloads.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Davit2005

[msi_school]

You can do a live migration without a cluster https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/manage/use-live-migration-without-failover-clustering-to-move-a-virtual-machine

[NetwM]

Good morning all

Finally, I have setup my home lab with your help. This is my setup

Internet > Virgin media Hub 3 (192.168.0.1 /24) > Meraki MX 64 (192.168.128.0/24) > Meraki Switch> Hyper V host 192.168.128.113 > DC (server 2019) 192.168.128.156 and exchange 2019 192.168.128.157.

 

Everything is working internally fine but I want update A record and MX record on the domain host. Please advise how to do this.

[NetwM]

Good morning all

Finally, I have setup my home lab with your help. This is my setup

Internet > Virgin media Hub 3 (192.168.0.1 /24) > Meraki MX 64 (192.168.128.0/24) > Meraki Switch> Hyper V host 192.168.128.113 > DC (server 2019) 192.168.128.156 and exchange 2019 192.168.128.157.

 

Everything is working internally fine but I want update A record and MX record on the domain host. Please advise how to do this.

 

Meraki MX 64 Configuration

 

GeneralPublic IP 85.x.x.x

 

Wan

Type IPV4

 

Configuration as - Dynamic

Status - Active

IP - 192.168.0.21

Gateway - 192.168.0.1

DNS - 194.168.x.x

194.168.x.x

Edited February 24, 2021 by NetwM

[Davit2005]

Good morning all

Finally, I have setup my home lab with your help. This is my setup

Internet > Virgin media Hub 3 (192.168.0.1 /24) > Meraki MX 64 (192.168.128.0/24) > Meraki Switch> Hyper V host 192.168.128.113 > DC (server 2019) 192.168.128.156 and exchange 2019 192.168.128.157.

 

Everything is working internally fine but I want update A record and MX record on the domain host. Please advise how to do this.

 

Domain Host??

 

Typically this would be external if you are hoping to route mail from external sources to your internal mail server.

[NetwM]

Domain Host??

 

Typically this would be external if you are hoping to route mail from external sources to your internal mail server.

 

I have registered my domain name and want to send/receive email from external sources.

[Jcx500]

Add mx records to your dns hosting provider, or internal dns,

 

For Your internal dns if you are running ad, log onto your dc and navigate to dns manager select the zone and add a new record

[NetwM]

Add mx records to your dns hosting provider, or internal dns,

 

For Your internal dns if you are running ad, log onto your dc and navigate to dns manager select the zone and add a new record[ATTACH=CONFIG]60948[/ATTACH]

 

 

Shall add this to my dns hosting provider

 

In order to set up your domain MX and A records for use with an Exchange server you need to create two new DNS records like this:

Record 1:

 

• Domain = "yourdomain.com"
  
• Type = A
  
• Data = "Your exchange server's external IP address" in my case my public IP 85.x.x.x
  
• TTL = 5 minutes
  

Record 2:

 

• Domain = "yourdomain.com"
  
• Type = MX
  
• Data = "yourdomain.com"
  
• TTL = 5 minutes
  

After about 5 minutes your DNS record changes should be reflected on the domain. At this point, try sending a test email. If you recieve it through your Exchange server the DNS records have been updated. At this point you should change the TTL of BOTH DNS records to a longer period, e.g. 24 hours. This will make queries to the DNS server respond faster.