Network Security Labs... Suggestions?

[wild16976]

I haven't used BackTrack and only played around with Auditor a little bit. It's really a preference thing. My choice was to have students build their own systems and then provide them with internet access or have a local mount CD/disk with the necessary files.

Since these students will be relatively new to security I want to keep things as simple and basic for them as possible. I haven't used STD but I know Auditor is pretty "newbie" friendly. Would you consider STD to be relatively easy for someone with little experience already?

I know BackTrack is more for someone with a little more knowledge than these students are going to have to begin with. I'll introduce them to that later in the course. I don't want to overwhelm them too quickly. :-D

One of the finals for the course is a "server wars" project where the class is divided in half. Each side sets up a proxy server and a network with specific machines and services running on it. Then we let them have at each other to see who can do what.

Since that's part of the final I want to avoid them actually 'breaking into' anything this early in the course. I want more information gathering type labs for them.

Thanks for the advice. Any additional suggests would be greatly appreciated.