Module 4: Virtual networking

At the end of Module 3 your practice VM had an IP address you never typed, a route to the internet you never configured, and a working DNS lookup you never set up. That was deliberate. This module explains where all of it came from, and then has you build the network your lab will live on for the next thirteen modules.

Networking is where most self-taught labs quietly go wrong. People get machines running, wire them however the wizard suggested, and then spend months confused about why the domain controller can't be reached or why the firewall rule they wrote does nothing. Getting this right once, on purpose, saves all of that.

What's in it:

• 4.1 the four questions every machine has to answer
• 4.2 the hypervisor's network modes, and which one to use when
• 4.3 design your lab network, then build it
• 4.4 import KALI01 and go exploring
• 4.5 build a real firewall (Tier 2)
• 4.6 segmentation: prove what can reach what (Tier 2)
• 4.7 watch the traffic: your first packet capture
• 4.8 journal entry
• 4.9 checkpoint

Tier 1 does 4.1 through 4.4, then jumps to the packet capture in 4.7, and finishes with a working lab network. Tier 2 continues into 4.5 and 4.6 and puts a real firewall in the middle of it before doing 4.7 as well. Tier 1 students should still read the firewall lessons; understanding what a boundary does matters even in a lab that doesn't have one yet, and the addresses are identical either way so nothing later in the course depends on which path you took.

Lesson 4.7 is for everyone. It needs nothing but your own machine and KALI01, and it's where the vocabulary from 4.1 stops being vocabulary.

Budget an evening for the concepts and the network build, and a second one for the firewall if you're on Tier 2.