Hello all, I'd like to set up a home testing environment to practice penetration testing on using Kali. My main home router right now is an Apple Airport Extreme 1st generation (model A1143).

Is there a specific router or type that I should buy for this purpose or will any router do? Also, should I be looking at "power-user" or "Enterprise level" routers, since most likely that is what my clients will be using in their real world environments?

Thanks for the help. Please let me know if you need any additional information or specifications.

That's pretty open ended...and unless you have a good bit of disposable cash laying around, you probably won't be able to get your hands on what someone in a corporate environment would use.

Since you're getting into security, start to think about what you're doing from a bit further away: if you REALLY want to break into an unknown network, you will not know what's there in advance. That is the 'penetration testing' part of things. Approach it as an unknown. Such network typically have three classes:

1. SOHO - Typically unsecured internally, basic firewalls to Internet. Your airport router or pretty much any home sized device falls into this category. While you *CAN* set up some rules/filtering, most don't.
2. Mid-sized office - Talking about multiple VLAN's now, probably with some form of proxy server/filter and anti-virus servers. More difficult to sniff and get away with things
3. Corporate - MANY VLAN's, tight security, active and passive sniffers, rigid rules in place about network traffic. Have worked at several, and they could tell if someone plugged in a USB thumb drive into their PC, from anywhere on their network, and would know AFTER the fact if it was a laptop and it was done while it was off the corporate LAN/VPN. Good luck sniffing there without getting caught.

Enterprise-class routers have lots of things to help enterprise security...you won't know which are enabled, where they talk to, what they report, or when. Learn the basics of security first, then start moving up.

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