Suggested lab materials/systems/setup?

["Erin Carroll" <amoeba () amoebazone com>]

All,

I'm in the process of setting up a pen-test lab environment of several
servers running various OS flavors (both Windows & BSD/*nix) along with a
netscreen-10 firewall and cisco 3825 to use as the lab router. What do other
list members use for their lab environments and what suggestions/issues have
you encountered? I'm just using equipment I have laying around but would be
interested in hearing about other lab setups to get some ideas (or excuses
to go shopping) on what else I can utilize for pen-testing practice.

I'm definitely going to set up an imaging server (jumpstart & Altiris) to
make changing things around less painful but I've also considered Vmware on
the hosts. Basically I'm curious as to what you all use to practice
pen-testing to keep the skills sharp when not "on the job".

Thanks!
--
Erin Carroll
"Do Not Taunt Happy-Fun Ball"