avayaitup,
I am so glad that Lerdalt listed the link to Wendell Odom's blog on setting up a home CCNA lab
READ IT !!!!! It has all the information you need and will want to know as you enter into this area.
I love Packet Tracer and GNS3 but unless you
REALLY understand end to end networking, it helps to get your hands dirty and play with REAL EQUIPMENT !!!!
We just had a lab here at school where we gave the students laptops and told them to connect to the Cisco pods and use TFTP to download the IOS and config files ........ most of these students are
"in the industry" well, they had the worst time just getting the laptops on the same network with the routers, most are so used to networks where DHCP takes care of the IP, subnet mask, gateway etc.
I once setup a network with the school lab routers that spanned 6 different rooms and crossed from one side of the building to the other and involved 25 different routers, 10 different switches and 8 different PCs - looking at the routing table with a "show IP route" was very interesting and being able to telnet to every router and switch from end to end was a great learning experience for the students
Understanding how each different PC in a different network could get on and communicate throughout the network, and to be able to walk from room to room and touch the equipment and understand the role it was playing ....... You don't need 25 routers, but doing the same with 2 PCs, 3 routers and 2 switches helps you understand a lot - then you go and break it and figure out how to confiure it again
LEARN, PRACTICE and UNDERSTAND end to end networking!!!
As far as labs - as you read your books that you are using to study for the CCNA, if they talk about a command - try it - look at the output, UNDERSTAND IT !!!! Learning by doing, the more you do it yourself, the more you will pick it up.
If you want more labs then just Google "Cisco Network Academy lab book" - I found links to used copies at Amazon for $0.79 - these will give you plenty of practice !!
PRACTICE, PRACTICE and then PRACTICE some MORE !!!!!!
Good luck!!!
E.A. Broda
CCNA, CCDA, CCAI, Network +