RHCSA Timeline

ramrunner800

For someone who uses Linux on a daily basis as a user, what is a reasonable timeframe for self-studying for the RCHSA exam?

gkca

About a week would be reasonable.

brownwrap

gkca wrote: »

About a week would be reasonable.

I have used Red Hat since Red Hat 7, I don't mean RHEL 7, I meand Red Hat 7, and would never take that test after a week of prep.

ramrunner800

brownwrap wrote: »

I have used Red Hat since Red Hat 7, I don't mean RHEL 7, I meand Red Hat 7, and would never take that test after a week of prep.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like a reasonable time frame at all. I can't imagine why someone would give such an unprovoked nonconstructive answer. I've seen some folks on here who have done it in about 2 months, but they have experience administering Linux at work. I spend pretty much all day every day on the Linux command line reviewing logs at work, but not in an admin role. I have grad school starting in a few months, and I'm trying to figure out if RHCSA would be a reasonable goal to achieve before then.

gkca

You said you're using it on a daily basis, so a week is actually reasonable. I know from personal experience as I took it a year ago.

ramrunner800

I guess it would be if I was using it as an administrator. There are large portions of the objectives that are easy, but others I've never looked at at all.

gkca

Well, depending on how much time you can devote to study, I'd say a couple of weeks should be more than sufficient - just review the Jang's book, it covers ALL the topics and since the test is hands on, ou can always use the man pages if you forget some parameter or something like that. Anyways, review the topics, practise on the vm and take that test. And good luck

asummers

gkca wrote: »

About a week would be reasonable.

Doesn't sound very reasonable at all. If you know 90% of the concepts then a week (assuming you are doing it part-time with other commitments) should be possible - but still pretty silly.

If you know less than 90% of the material already - I would suggest 1-2 months is about average - dependent on how quickly you pick up new concepts and also to become confident.

Not sure where the week comes from - maybe he is just trying to show how clever he is.

gkca

asummers wrote: »

Not sure where the week comes from - maybe he is just trying to show how clever he is.

It comes from the OP stating that he uses Linux on a daily basis. I would think that there are a couple of topics that might be not very familiar for someone who uses linux on a daily basis, but that's about it. And don't forget that this is a practical hands on test meaning you get a live system that has man pages, so you don't have to remember every obscure command or parameter.
I've taken about a dozen MS and 3 Vmware tests before the RHCSA and EX200 was by far the easiest.

Xavor

Without knowing your daily usage skills, I'd say 2-3 months. I know users (developers) who have used Linux for years but only do ls, grep, cp, mv, and edit files.

Take a look at the blueprint, if you can comfortably do 70% of the material then you could do it faster. There's a lot of subtle stuff you need to know how to work with "why isn't my web page there" when SELinux is running. How to work with run levels, etc.

The exams aren't difficult if you're prepared for them. I tell my guys they can start from zero experience to exam-ready in around 3-6 months if they sat down and studied on a virtual machine.

varelg

ramrunner800 wrote: »

For someone who uses Linux on a daily basis as a user, what is a reasonable timeframe for self-studying for the RCHSA exam?

The real question is are you going to prepare your own syllabus or are you going to follow someone else's. Since you already decided you are going for RHCSA.
Define "daily basis as a user". It most often means "consuming media on a Linux machine on a daily basis". This doesn't belittle your experience with Linux, even as a user Linux will require involvement on a sysadmin level.
Volumes are written on some of the subjects of RHCSA. But I have an impression that thinking in references is what helps pass the exam. Have in mind that you will be facing a live system, which makes man pages available to you at all times. Grok them and it would feel like an open- book exam. Again, just my impression.
Timeframe? Huh... I'd say the most is 6 months WITHOUT distractions. But as we all know, life happens at all times so count on being distracted...

ramrunner800

Thanks for the reply varelg! I do a bit more than media consumption, I'm an intrusion analyst and spend my days using the command line to analyze logs and malware, but I dont have admin experience running services for remote hosts, so I'm hoping this exam can push my boundaries a bit. I also think that learning more Linux administration will also improve my performance analyzing the security of Linux boxes.

gkca

ramrunner800 wrote: »

I do a bit more than media consumption, I'm an intrusion analyst and spend my days using the command line to analyze logs and malware, but I dont have admin experience running services for remote hosts

They don't really ask you to provide any services for the remote hosts on EX200, that's RHCE part, EX300 and the EX200 tasks are really basic and fully covered in the first 10 chapters of Jang's book.
I can't go into details of the test without breaking the NDA, but I can tell that the only challenge is the time management - I saw one guy who couldn't figure out how to tackle the task number one for about an hour, but then he figured it out and went through the rest, but the other guy managed to nuke his vm 10 minutes before the end of the test, obviously not enough time to do everything from scratch, but other than that it's basically an open book test and imho shouldn't pose any significant challenge for someone who actually uses Linux on a daily basis.

Xavor

gkca wrote: »

...but the other guy managed to nuke his vm 10 minutes before the end of the test, obviously not enough time to do everything from scratch...

I didn't do one question for that very fear. I had to drive 2 1/2 hours to take the thing in the first place.

kly630

I keep track of this stuff for just this purpose. Whenever I study, I write down the time spent towards it and try to get a feel for how big an effort is required. I used to do this in college to track the effort I put into preparing for midterms and adjust up on the final as needed.

I had been an admin on the infrastructure team at my company for about a year before I took the exam. I set up new rhel6 instances, used lvm constantly to configure disks, ran updates, etc. I studied a total of 50 hours. I originally went through all the jang book in just under 30 hours, put it down, and picked it back up again months later, doing another 20.

Your mileage may vary. If you have a lot more experience then you probably will only need around the 30 hours. I wouldn't really study much less than that though. It takes time to read the book, run through the labs, and absorb the material. Everyone new to linux administration might want to consider my approach though of coming back to the exam a few months later. The more you see a concept, the more likely you are to remember it.

ramrunner800

You guys are awesome, and this is some great information. I really appreciate it. kly630, I appreciate the very specific info regarding number of hours studied. I think I'll try and keep track of this. I think 50 hours seems pretty reasonable for the time I have before school starts. gkca, I definitely feel alot better about the exam with your info. I've been just working my way through the books so far, not going for any specific exam requirements, but it's nice to have an idea of how far i'm going to need to go with this. It seems a bit less daunting now.

kly630

Yeah, if you study an hour or so a day, it'll take under two months on that time frame. I think it's the consistency that's the key though with anything like this. If you're going to study, don't skip portions of the chapters/objectives in the jang book. Do them all.

I kind of wish more people in tech tracked their time. It would be nice to have some comparisons to make. I've yet to run into a 100 hour exam in tech, but I sometimes wonder if things like the OSCP require that much.

ChickenNuggetz

kly630 wrote: »

Yeah, if you study an hour or so a day, it'll take under two months on that time frame. I think it's the consistency that's the key though with anything like this. If you're going to study, don't skip portions of the chapters/objectives in the jang book. Do them all.

I kind of wish more people in tech tracked their time. It would be nice to have some comparisons to make. I've yet to run into a 100 hour exam in tech, but I sometimes wonder if things like the OSCP require that much.

I tracked my time when I was studying for my Cisco certs. I clocked about 100 hours total between reading/studying and labs for both ICND1 and ICND2. I agree tracking time really puts things in perspective.