Documenting my Physical Home lab in Packet Tracer

Repo link: github.com/ShobanChiddarth/physical-homelab-in-packet-tracer

Introduction

I recently finished my 3rd year end sem exams and I am in my summer holidays. I am preparing for the CCNA certification so I decided to recreate my physical home lab in Cisco Packet Tracer.

To download the packet tracer lab file you can visit the GitHub repo linked in the top of this post and look at the README.

Technical Details

Setup

I used a WRT300N router to simulate the Tenda AC6 router, and a 1941 (non wireless) router to simulate the Jio Fiber router. I did not need to connect any wireless devices to the Jio router in this packet tracer lab and also in Packet tracer connecting the WAN port (Internet port) of a wireless router to the LAN port of another wireless router wouldn't work like in real life, it refuses to form a connection. So I went with static IPs for the Jio Router's LAN port and Tenda Router's WAN port.

Devices inside Tenda router's LAN

As shown in the previous entries of this series, there is a ThinkCenter M81 (represented by Server PT) connected through ethernet to the Tenda router, in which HTTP and DNS services have been enabled (Pi-hole). And my laptop and my smartphone are connected over Wi-Fi to the Tenda router.

Devices outside Tenda router's LAN (inside Jio router's LAN)

We will not be worrying about this part as I do not control the Jio router and guests and other family members will be using it. There are mobile phones and a TV connected to it. There was a smart vaccum cleaner connected to it long ago like in the same Jio LAN without any isolation and it stopped working but if I was in charge of managing the network I would have set up proper isolation for IOT devices like this one by putting them on a separate VLAN, setting up guest network and blocking them from communicating with other devices using ACLs.

Internet Access

Real internet is not possible inside Cisco Packet tracer so assume the cloud up above is the real internet.

IP Configuration

IP configuration is the exact same as my lab in real life

• Jio LAN = 192.168.29.1/24
• Tenda WAN = DHCP
• Tenda LAN = 192.168.1.1/24
• ThinkCenter M81 (Pi-hole) = 192.168.1.2
• My Laptop = DHCP
• My Phone = DHCP

Screenshots

Full Lab

Pi-hole DNS records

Pinging ThinkCenter M81 from My Laptop

Accessing Pi-hole dashboard from My Laptop

I edited the default index.html in HTTP server a little bit, this is not an actual computer so installing Pi-hole is not possible. The DNS resolution works that is what is important.

Accessing Pi-hole dashboard from My Phone

Conclusion

Therefore I successfully created a simulation of my real home lab inside Packet Tracer. I am currently preparing for CCNA certification and this packet tracer lab has helped me map a network whose behaviour I already know onto Packet Tracer's environment. When you build a network from scratch in a simulator, you have no reference point, but when you recreate something you physically own, you immediately notice where the simulator behaves differently from reality and understand its limitations, and that gap is where the actual learning happens.