Hello to all! It's been a while since I've been on but I've been reading the forums on and off and decided this would be a good place to seek some inspiration.

I've recently passed my N+ and am looking at getting some more hands on experience with some servers / networking / admin and also to learn Linux to a good standard. I work for a computer recycling company so I can get hold of stuff pretty cheap, for example a like new 42U server cabinet (inc side panels and doors) and $150. I can get hold of servers, cisco gear, networking gear all for dirt cheap....I have great access to everything but am lacking the inspiration as to what I could do with it all besides going through the motions of learning different things.

Beyond using this stuff to get some hands on experience and learn, hopefully to help with future certs, I want to have an ultimate goal as to what I will use this gear for - in the beginning it will most likely be a small server cabinet and a couple of servers etc. My internet bandwith is limited at my current location (1.5mb down, 600kbps up) so hosting game servers etc are out of the question (recent games anyway).

Does anyone have any idea as to what I could do with this gear that would not only be good experience for me but would be a nice project to work on? If not then I will simply play with this stuff at work and build a linux box instead and tinker with that.

Cheers!
FoL

I would suggest having a look at creating a load balancing set of gatways for routing practive. Maybe hav some vlans for different thing and play with routing. Give pfsense a look for this.

Also a mail server might b useful after setting up mine hav never looked back love it. Have a look at zimbra for that.

If you want to play with web hosting dns etc then give virtualmin a look for that.

If your feeling brave virtualise the whole lot with vmware server 2 or esxi both are free.

Also are u allowed to sell on kit if i was after some stuff?

Thanks for the input muppet. I can sell on some gear but it would be shipped from Toronto, Canada, which is where I am living these days but still maybe some gear would come in useful for you.

What type of gear are you after? Shoot me a list and I'll hunt around. We get pretty much everything in at some point or another so I"m happy to keep an eye open for any good deals for you.