A free trial of winlab: a portable, isolated Windows Server and network lab for your PC. Real Windows machines from Microsoft's free evaluation media, routers and switches you configure at their consoles, a firewall you install yourself, and lessons that grade the work you do inside them.
The trial has three labs:
- ad-ds-basics: dc01 (AD DS, DNS, DHCP), fs01 (file server) and pc01 (Windows 11), with the lab's switch and router on the workbench;
- firewall-by-hand: install OPNsense (or pfSense CE) on a two-port PC, set it up from a Windows PC's browser, write the first rules;
- router-protocols: the lab router at its console: OSPF, eBGP to an ISP, a guest network in a VRF, VRRP.
42 lessons with Check my work (see CURRICULUM.md), the Troubleshooting drills with a three-step hint ladder, Progress, Notes, the Command reference, Settings and Help, in English, Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic (Settings > Time & language). No product key is needed.
The trial is its own program, not the full winlab with parts switched off: the other labs, their lessons and the code behind them are not in this repository or in the installer. In the installed app the trial's lessons are encrypted, and the program is compiled to native code.
Every lab runs in total isolation: no path from the lab to your PC or the internet.
The full winlab has every lab (Windows 11 deployment, ConfigMgr, PKI, clusters, Hyper-V, mail, web farms, SAN, security operations and more), the whole hardware workbench, the osTicket helpdesk queue, scenarios, exam prep and updates: https://smartcartapp.net/pricing
The desktop the first time it opens, with the trial notice and the guided setup:
The network workbench: the lab's machines, switch and router, cabled. Double-click the router or the switch for its front panel and its console.
The lessons, in order; each one is checked inside the machines:
The network map: every device, its addresses, routes and DHCP:
Run winlab-core-<version>-setup.exe from the Releases page (or unzip
winlab-core-<version>-win64.zip into a folder you own) and choose
Set up winlab on the welcome screen.
Requirements: 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, virtualization turned on, 4+ cores, 16 GB RAM for the whole lab (8 GB runs one lesson's machines with the Low-memory profile), about 40 GB free disk, and internet once for setup.
Python 3.11+, standard library only:
python -m winlab setup
python -m winlab gui ad-ds-basics
Tests: python tests/test_winlab.py.
On Windows with Inno Setup 6.3+:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File packaging\build-exe.ps1 -Edition core
It writes dist\winlab-core-<version>-setup.exe and -win64.zip. The build
encrypts the staged lessons into content\packs\trial.wlpack with a fresh key
(packaging\trialpack.py) and compiles the whole winlab package to native
code with Cython (packaging\protect.py), so it needs a C compiler (the
Visual Studio Build Tools; GitHub's Windows runners have them).
Releases: publish a release on GitHub's Releases page (tag it with the
version, e.g. v0.2.0) and .github/workflows/release.yml builds the
installer and the zip on Windows and attaches them to that release in about
30 minutes. Pushing a tag core-v<version> does the same and creates the
release itself; running the workflow by hand keeps the files as the run's
artifact, and attaches them to a release when you type its tag (to rebuild
a release from the latest main).
QEMU, the DSC resource modules, the virtio drivers, the console viewer, OPNsense, Ubuntu and Windows itself are fetched onto your PC at setup, never bundled. See LICENSING.md.