CCNA/CIsco

I want to study for ccna. What would be beneficial for me to have in my home network? Such as a cisco router and a cisco switch. Would anything else be beneficial?

Cybrary has a good course on networking for CCNA and Networking+ packet tracer is a good software for learning if you don't have the money for the hardware https://www.netacad.com/about-networking-academy/packet-tracer/

>>130 You can use GNS3 to virtualize Cisco IOS, you can find the Cisco IOS images via torrent. Also, I've seen Cisco CSR1000V (Virtual Router) floating around on the internet (They're limited in throughput though).

>>130 you would want to use gns3 most of the time if your computer can handle 3 to 5 routers at once , since packet tracer does not have all the cisco commands built-in,but it is still good enough just to pass the certification exam but if you want to go extreme you can use the unified networking labs vms they are the best in the cisco ios virtualization

>>130 In my opinion, Cisco hardware aren't the best choice for a home network. Sure, they are awesome for networking, and support a lot of various protocols (Trunk, Link aggregation, VPN, SNMP, fuarrrking everything), but the price is too high. Even an old 1841 model cost around 900 bucks on amazon, when using a Linux distro as a router is just free. I mean, you'll still need some hardware of course, and the performance won't be similar, but if it's for a home server, why bother ? Also, by experience I can tell Cisco hardware are making a soykaf ton of noise (mostly routers), and you might find it hard to deal with this issue. But anyway, I would still approve what >>132 said. Packet Tracer is a great tool to train yourself to networking, but also a simple way to schematize networks. Also, it run perfectly well on linux with Wine.

>>354 Thanks, I ended up going with GNS3 and setting up a network through that. I'm also going to be renting a VPS so I can load different soykaf onto it and practice.

GNS3 it's very cool if you are using IOSv, but is a little time demanding to configuring the GNS3 VM and the other things. Never tried UNetLab/EVE so don't ask me about that. Packet Tracer should the best and easiest way to learn just CCNA's themes. btw anyone here knows about UNetLab/EVE? Do I need to download the images of the devices or it's just ready-to-use-when-install-this-soykaf?