Teaching Local Area Networking in a Secure Virtual Enviroment

Space, cost, and security are major concerns associated with the local area network teaching/learning process. Teaching even the most basic networking techniques requires a minimum of two computers per student with additional systems for more involved experiments. The overhead and space requirements become quite staggering for large class sizes. The students, just learning and unaware, can furthermore be susceptible to outside intrusion or cause accidental adverse affects upon the network to which they attach. Teaching local area networking in a virtual environment can reduce space, cost, and security concerns. This article addresses the setup of a virtual environment, managing multiple student environments, properly securing virtual machines, and laboratory experiments in virtual environment