Ensure you leave gaps between equipment for cable management where needed. Get this one right first, changing it later will be a pain. I recommend mounting that first and ensure you have enough room for power cables and power adapters. I knew I wanted my shelf on top, and decided to place the power strip at the very bottom (well, one hole up from the very bottom). You should think about the order you want to mount your gear. Once the rack is totally assembled, fully hand tighten the screws. It's pretty simple, although I waited to fully tighten the screws to try and get the frame as square as possible.
The base rack is the first to be put together. For each screw into the rack I had this order: 1) Rack 2) Washer 3) Device bracket 4) Screw. The due to the angle of the rack, the weight of the device is counterbalanced against the top of the bracket, so thus far a single screw at the bottom of the bracket has worked for me. For most devices, I used the bottom hole of the bracket (or ear) of the device. I had to mount the power supply one hole up from the very bottom as the rack is angled and I wanted to ensure that I had room to add and remove power cords easily. Once the weight of the gear is in the rack, all the corners will be flush with the surface and stable. The rack doesn't need to be perfectly straight (I had one corner that wouldn't stay on the table). Also, the KVM cables were super bulky and way too long, so I bought shorter and thinner HDMI and USB cables.Īnd finally to hold all the pieces, parts, cables, adapters, and a few tools, I purchased a storage box: 
I currently use it to switch the video, but I have to move the wireless keyboard/mouse dongle manually. Note:I bought an IOGear KVM, but it sucks with the Pi, so caveat emptor. Four 18-inch super think HDMI cables ( link).Four 18-inch USB A to B cables ( link).Four Micro SD Cards (8Gb is the minimum, I usually use 16Gb for no good reason) ( link).My purchases for the compute side of the lab were this: I decided to use Raspberry Pi 2's as they are a capable, relatively inexpensive platform.
#SETTING UP PRACTICE NETWORK KIT WINDOWS 10#
I have my existing windows 10 PC that I'm using for console access, but I also wanted to have some hosts on the network to test pings, sniff traffic, etc.
One 7-foot Flat CAT6 Ethernet Cable ( link) - this one connects to the house network switch. Six 24-inch Flat CAT5e Ethernet Cables ( link). Eight 18-inch Flat CAT6 Ethernet Cables ( link). Ten 12-inch Flat CAT6 Ethernet Cables ( link). Ten 6-inch Flat CAT6 Ethernet Cables ( link). For this gear, CAT5e is perfectly fine (and even overkill) since that is cheaper and easier to find. I also purchased a number of flat network cables, I like the flat cables for shorter runs, I also bought mostly CAT6 cable so I can used them for other uses around the house. One Cisco 4-port Ethernet card ( link) I may order more of these, as I got a lot of congestion on the T1 links (1.5Mbps). Five cross-over adapters (I like to just use straight through cables everywhere and use the cross over adapter when a cross over is needed) ( link). One switchable power strip, rack mounted ( link). 
I also added the following (all optional but I tend to go a little overboard):
12U Desktop Rack, with screws and washers. 1 DVD (no idea what's on it, never looked at it). There is a lot of variability in the descriptions, and many conflicting descriptions, so use care when picking your kit. Mine was similar to this one: Cisco Premium CCENT CCNA CCNP R&S SECURITY Home Lab KIT BONUS 12U Rack & DVD Just search "CCNA Lab" on eBay and you can find many options. 
My base was a kit from eBay, for around $300 it contained 3 routers, 2 switches, rack, and cables.
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