Build a Home Lab for FREE — pfSense Setup (Part 1)
Ever wanted your own home lab to practice networking, firewalls, and IT skills — without risking your actual home network? In this video, I walk through building a home lab from scratch using VirtualBox and pfSense, completely free, running on hardware you probably already own.
This is Part 1 of a series — we'll install VirtualBox, create our pfSense virtual machine, configure networking (WAN/LAN), install pfSense itself, fix a common post-install networking quirk, and verify everything's actually working with real connectivity tests.
🔹 What I cover:
Why build a home lab (hands-on learning, cost savings, real job skills)
Installing Oracle VirtualBox
Creating a pfSense VM (RAM, CPU, storage settings)
Configuring WAN (External) and LAN (Internal) network adapters
Installing pfSense step by step
Setting a private IP range (RFC 1918) to avoid conflicts with your home network
Enabling DHCP for future lab VMs
Fixing the LAN IP reverting after install
Verifying connectivity with ping and nslookup
🛠️ Tools & links:
Oracle VirtualBox — https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downl...
pfSense — https://www.pfsense.org/download/
RFC 1918 explained (Network Chuck) — • we’re out of IP Addresses….but this saved ...
📌 Part 2 is coming next — logging into the pfSense web interface for the first time and expanding the lab further. Subscribe so you don't miss it.
💬 Building your own home lab? Let me know in the comments what you're planning to run in it.
#pfSense #HomeLab #VirtualBox #Networking #Firewall #SelfHosted #ITSkills #Cybersecurity