[shock_protec_nutri]

I want to study wireless security in controlled way, only in my own environment. For those who built a WiFi lab at home, what hardware and setup do you recommend? Access point, spare router, old laptop, USB adapter, isolated network, maybe a Raspberry Pi? Interested in safe practice, packet capture, auth flows, and understanding WiFi better without touching anything outside my lab.

[Wake]

I would start with taking a look at things like Wireshark and Hashcat there are some basic tutorials online you will be able to follow. Start with Wireshark you will be able to packet capture etc both of these can run on Windows and Linux i'm sure so an old laptop should be fine to get you started and learning.

[bl1ndm0nk]

If you have never done anything related I suggest you start by connecting to VMs separated from your own network (use Internal Network on VMWare or VirtualBox, maybe). Try around some stuff, like setting up a FW and trying to send requests from the other. If you have some knowledge you can probably install an OS in something like an old laptop or a raspberry pi, and with a mini switch (5 ports or less ~20$) you can install an open source SIEM like Wazuh (agent on a laptop or VM and server in the raspberry or old laptop).

[noeticbsd]

so I have a cheap Wifi router that i got on amazon(GL-MT300N-V2, you can also turn it into a poormans wifi pine apple they are like 30 bucks onamazon.) and i just started playing with aircrack-ng(this is the basic cornerstone of wifi hacking for the most part) i wrote bash shell scripts and python script to learn how to do deauth attacking, handshake hash grabbing and WPS hacking from that device alone. it's a cheap and easy way to break into wifi hacking.