What is Reddit's opinion of
RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide, Seventh Edition (Exams EX200 & EX300)?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
By popularity on Reddit, this product is:
18 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
The only way to know is to try the test, or practice tests/questions. This book has some of each for RHCE and RHCSA: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962
Exam is administered largely one of two ways:
- Scheduled classroom style events that take place at a testing facility with a group of computers and someone in person running the exam, looking over it, etc.
- Kiosks that you schedule a time and go and there is a single computer Kiosk. You are shown to it by a employee of whatever business runs that Kiosk, then you put your ID in a scanner and show your face to the cameras and get to work. The Kiosk I have taken the RHCE at is at a local drug testing company.
You only get a single try. If you fail, you have to pay $400 again.
Rather than do the training for RHCSA, you could get this book and teach yourself.
http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962
The consensus view is using the Jang book, that's the author of that book, is enough to get you through the exams with flying colours. The exams are way less expensive than training and more convenient, not to mention that you can also work towards the RHCE after as well.
The exams are around to $500 mark in most cases, so you'll save money by buying the book and doing exams.
IMO; The fastest IT career to get into is in Linux Administration. I don't know how your job scene is over there in the UK, but from my experience in the US it's pretty happening.
You can get started in under 3 months with under a grand and get a job making 50-60k starting.
Here's how:
- Pick up this book;
Do all of the exercises, labs, etc...
Go through each portion of each test on https://www.certdepot.net/
Make a drill setup for each major area. Perform each drill at least 5x a day till you have the commands in your muscle memory. Now, turn over your drill list and attempt the task from scratch. Repeat until you can confidently execute each task from memory. Read 5 man pages per day, minimum.
Go get your RHCSA. Cost to take the test is ~400 USD, dunno what the exchange info is like. After you pass your RHCSA, then take RHCSE.
Go get a job at a webhosting company or a data center.
Keep learning. Learn to write scripts in Bash. After Bash pick up Python. Decide if you want to pivot into the security field, or if you wanna go deeper into Sysadmin. If you want to do security look into Cybrary for general learning security stuff.
Once you have a grip grab your nuts and get your OSCP cert. This is big boy level shit. This is spending 16+ hours on a live lab pen test certification. This is one of the most respected certs in the industry. You get that bad boy and you are going to be getting 100k+ hiring offers off twitter and linkedin regularly.
https://www.offensive-security.com/
If you wanna stay an admin go down the architect route with Redhat.
Knock knock Neo.
I know you want to be distro neutral but honestly most sysadmin activities translate to any environment. Red Hat is what you mostly run into commercially so it makes sense to start there.
For free:
Work through all the topics in a VM and you'll be well positioned for what you're work is looking for.
If you want something more in depth and really prepare you for an admin position:
https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/
Seriously, that book has taken a bunch of people I know from zero to hero. Takes time but well worth it.
You can't do it this way. Linux is too big to learn everything sequentially in small steps. And it's not very practical. If you want to learn in a way that is practical and sequential, check out this book for Red Hat certification: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=red+hat+certification&qid=1594663391&sr=8-3
I would suggest the following:
1) Know how to install your favorite Linux distro. Do it several times so you are very familiar with it.
2) Learn how to boot into Linux manually with Grub.
3) Set up a firewall using firewalld, iptables, or nftables. Script it.
4) Learn how to start, stop, enable, and disable system services with systemd.
5) Add users and groups. Add user to wheel group.
6) Gain system access with su or sudo.
7) Learn the command line. It is your friend.
8) Learn the basics of Vi since it's on every Linux system.
9) Find your distro's documentation and get an idea of what's there. Pick out something that interests you and do it.
10) Figure out something you want and will use a lot. Do it in Linux.
I had excellent experiences with an earlier edition of this book, by the same author: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Seventh/dp/0071841962
version 8 isn't out yet, but it's available for pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Enterprise-Linux-Certification-Study/dp/1260462072/
Also just discovered this one, which I haven't worked with, but which looks good: https://www.amazon.com/_/dp/0596009526
O'Reilly books like this one are the go-to technical manuals for a good reason, but you'll find them strong on how-to info, but less concerned with the whys than the how's.
Basically, being a sysadmin is a combination of three things:
knowing what these systems can do (what programs are available, what tools exist to support them, and how to keep these running in the face of their likely threats (disk failure, power outage, malicious attack, software glitches, etc)
knowing why users might need them, and how they will help users accomplish their goals
knowing the technical methods of deploying #1 in order to accomplish #2.
Example: I know there are multiple webserver apps, and installable modules to extend how they function, adding PHP or MySQL support. I also know that I'll need backups and I'll need to google phrases like "apache security configuration" -- and that will tell me that there are IP firewalls, application firewalls, log-monitoring routines that watch for suspicious error messages and actively ban the IP's who originated requests like "GET ../../etc/passwd" etc.
I also know that the only reason we run a webserver is that the users need to publicize their work, promote their business, or share files with each other. I think about what they might need, and offer new services (Nextcloud, Seafile, etc), asking if this would make their workday easier or provide new value.
And last, but not least, I need the terminal skills and basic understanding of the system to get that all done.
What they don't usually tell you is that #3 is the easiest part. The majority of good sysadmin skills comes from sitting down for five minutes, thinking about why people use your systems, anticipating their needs, and then asking yourself, "in what ways could this go horribly wrong? And what will I have wanted past-me to have done, before that shit had hit the fan?"
These days, everyone does it the other way. They pick a product, usually some Microsoft garbage, and then dictates the users' needs to them, based on whatever the software claims to do. It's important to distinguish what kind of "systems administration" they're really talking about, before getting sucked in to a time-waster. You want the good (Linux) kind, not the second kind.
Training for the second kind is just a revolving door where people pay for certs, then the product is "discontinued," and then you have to pay for some other cert. If it's all marketing jargon, trademarked product names or nonsense proper nouns, you're in Marketing Hell, not an administration training session ("To set up Azure Cloud Dingleberry Plus Professional with Sprinkles, you'll first need access to the Dingleberry Configuration Console Suite (DCCS), which is included in the Dingleberry Online Office Cloud Professional Silver Online Subscription Package, at tier A3 or above.")
Good sysadmin training materials will explain HOW and WHY things work, not just what they're being called this week and what boxes to tick. A dead giveaway is that corporate products treat "run this software" as the primary goal, while great Linux sysadmin books will treat "run this software" as something you do for a damn good user-facing, human-affirming reason.
Can't get into specifics: These are the published objectives for the EX300 concerning what you are asking:
NFS
- Provide network shares to specific clients
- Provide network shares suitable for group collaboration
- Use Kerberos to control access to NFS network shares
Looks like the first object speaks directly to what you are trying to do. As it is an objective, it can be on the exam.
I can also say that as an instructor for taught the RH254 class (the EX300 material), the files you are trying to manipulate (idmapd.conf and /sys/module/nfsd/parameters/nfs4_disable_idmapping) were not in the course content.
Neither were some of the options you are trying to use in your exports file.
Pick up Michael Jang's book (seventh edition). As the EX300 is on its way out, you can get it for under $20:
What Michael Jang book are you guys referring to? Is it this one?
Here you go young padawan;
and:
https://www.nostarch.com/pentesting
After you make your way through your RHCSA/RHCE certs and complete the pentesting book go for OSCP cert from; https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security-certifications/oscp-offensive-security-certified-professional/
Trying to address all your questions.
1) There are many different ways to learn, it kind of depends on how deep you wanna go. If you're just wanting to get your feet wet, put Ubuntu or CentOS on a VM (something like virtualbox) and fuck around with it. Try to follow guides on setting up a Wordpress or deploying some other software.
For more in-depth, study like you're planning on taking the RHCSA/RHCE exam. The objectives (RHCSA/RHCE) do a good job of covering the fundamentals. The book by Michael Jang is an excellent resource for this.
If you want a "fuck you, eat linux" type approach, I'd recommend doing a Gentoo or Arch install. This won't teach you everything, but you will learn about some of the lower level parts of the OS that make it tick. I'd still recommend this (especially the Gentoo install) after you get the fundamentals down.
2) Windows and Linux tend to have their roles, but I find Linux tends to be more flexible. Linux does have equivalents to some of the things you list off, for example I have a domain setup in my house using FreeIPA, but in the enterprise world the Microsoft equivalents are still king. Linux is just a tool, so it really depends on what you're trying to do.
3) Generally by the time you get to a senior level you'll have specialized into some niche or another, at least in my experience. The fleet that I help to manage at work has some Windows components, but I only work on the Linux parts. It really depends.
There are definitely some distros that are more "enterprise" than others. Generally I see mostly these deployed for enterprise use:
- RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux)/CentOS
- Ubuntu (LTS versions)
- Debian
- SUSE (much rarer than the previously mentioned)
Other distros like Mint, Fedora, Gentoo, Arch, etc. are only really used for desktops unless you really hate yourself or your admins. I have seen some Gentoo or Arch servers out in the wild before that customers have deployed.. but it's rare. Generally the big three (RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian) are what are in demand skill-wise. There are some specialized distros used in enterprise that aren't as common (Scientific Linux, CoreOS, etc).
CentOS is essentially RHEL with all the proprietary bits ripped out (some other small differences). I was able to study for my RHCE with CentOS without issue, they're that similar. You will run into trouble if you start going for some of the more specialized RHEL certs using CentOS.
4) Networking is a good skill to know. When I was first starting off I got my RHCE and CCNA since I didn't know which direction I wanted to specialize in. I ended up focusing on Linux, but my slightly-more-than-basic knowledge of networking has been a huge help. Hardware (other than the basics of switch vs managed switch vs router) isn't as important as networking concepts (how subnetting works, DNS fundamentals, VLANs and what they're used for, etc).
I hope this helps!
buy this book, practice everything on centos, and you should be fine
It covers 'way' more then the RHCSA. Good reference manual.
Michael Jang's book was a really popular way of training for the RHCSA in the RHEL 6 days. Looks like plenty of people are heaping praise on his RHEL 7 edition book too.
I believe they removed the Linus System Administration Essentials course. The Linux Foundation Edx page only show these two courses.
I think the industry standard is still RHCSA/RHCSE which might be cheaper than the Linux Foundation Course. Going for RHCSA is $400 USD for the exam, and you can probably attain the training material for about 60-70 USD.
I think going for RHCSA would better suit anyone who might want to pursue a career in Linux Admin work because the name would get picked up by HR filters or listings. Whereas the LS cert is still new and not really recognized by many companies.
This book, and the practice companion is about $30 USD each.
Or has there been a shift where Linux Foundation certs aremore valued over RedHat certs?
I got my RHCE certs pretty easily with Michael Jang's excellent book.
Guessing its Michael Jang's.. as hes the one to get:
http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Seventh-Edition/dp/0071841962
Here ya go. Are you maybe looking at the version with the vm's included?
Popular alternatives to RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Ce...
CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exams 220-901 & 220-902)
CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Tenth Edition (Exams 220-1001 & 220-1002)
