Headley Lab

Custom PC Build and Configuration

Planned, assembled, and configured a custom Windows 11 Pro desktop using an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, Gigabyte B650 EAGLE AX motherboard, 32 GB of DDR5 memory, NVMe storage, and an AMD Radeon XFX graphics card.

Installed the operating system, drivers, security tools, and Hyper-V, then verified storage, memory, networking, temperatures, and system stability.

Monitoring, Logging, and Task Automation

Created Windows Task Scheduler jobs and PowerShell scripts to collect logs, monitor performance, record system configuration, and support routine maintenance and troubleshooting.

Virtualization

Built a Hyper-V lab with Windows 11, Windows Server, and Ubuntu virtual machines using checkpoints and isolated testing.

Active Directory and DNS

Built the batcave.local domain, configured DNS, joined Windows clients, created user accounts, and troubleshot domain connectivity.

Windows Administration

Practiced account management, permissions, Microsoft Defender, Windows Firewall, Task Scheduler, recovery tools, PowerShell, and system troubleshooting.

Linux Administration

Used Ubuntu for command-line administration, SSH, services, package management, networking, permissions, and Bash scripting.

ARM Linux Home Server

Deployed and administered a Raspberry Pi 5 Linux server providing network-wide DNS filtering, shared storage, automated backups, remote administration, and service monitoring.

Configured SSH public-key authentication from Windows, created a local SSH host shortcut, verified storage mounts and system services, reviewed kernel and system logs, and validated power and thermal health.

Investigated a firmware warning, confirmed that the system had no undervoltage or thermal throttling, updated the Raspberry Pi EEPROM bootloader, rebooted the server, and verified the completed update.

Managed Home Network

Built a centrally managed residential network using a dedicated gateway, hardware controller, multi-gigabit managed switching, Power over Ethernet, and two wired Wi-Fi 7 access points.

Configured DHCP reservations, network-wide DNS filtering, separate wireless networks, wired access-point backhaul, and centralized device adoption, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Applied switching and segmentation concepts including VLAN planning, tagged uplinks, access ports, spanning tree, PoE budgeting, and separate trusted, guest, smart-device, and camera networks.

Wireless AP Placement and Wired Backhaul

Used a Wi-Fi analyzer to evaluate signal conditions and select access-point placement.

Terminated and installed an Ethernet cable with RJ45 connectors to establish a wired backhaul connection.

Cybersecurity

Practiced malware-response procedures, account security, least privilege, Microsoft Defender scans, recovery planning, and technical documentation.