Network engineer with/without Linux

zimskiz

Hello,

Based on your experience, do i need to learn Linux for a network engineer position ? Learning is equal with passing at least Lpic-1 exam. In my day by day duties i use very few commands .. top, grep, fdisk, chmod,mkdir, some basic add/remove in iptables.

apr911

I doubt you'll need to be able to partition disks or use top as a necessity to your job function. So learning linux may not be a requirement but it certainly wouldn't hurt. At bare minimum, I would say you should be comfortable working on a Linux or linux-like (think Mac OSx) machine. While a Network Engineer position can successfully be performed from a windows machine, you'll find the linux environment to be much easier to function in.

Its toolset (ping, traceroute, etc) tend to be more powerful than their windows counterparts. Linux also tends to have more built in tools (ssh, tcpdump, etc) than windows. Grep

MacGuffin

I've seen Linux used in large organizations, where they can afford to support it. Small businesses and non-profits will use Linux too, where they can't afford to support anything. Medium sized businesses seem to all be Microsoft. If you find yourself in one of those businesses that are Microsoft only it might be that if you try to put a Linux computer on the network someone might see that as some sort of threat. They'll claim it's a security threat, they'll claim it's a violation of their license agreements with Microsoft or something, but what some uptight individual might see it as a threat to their authority over the computers. What happens then is that you are a network person, not a computer person, so you have to use the computers they let you use.

With that in mind the probability of even seeing Linux on the network you support is something you'll have to compute. If you are even allowed to have Linux on the network I'd believe it highly unlikely you'd have to have a Linux certification to get the job. I'm not even sure it'd help much either. I don't see how it'd hurt though. I suppose it's possible that some IT manager might see some network engineer with a Linux certification as a threat or something, if that's the case would you want to work there anyway?

I believe that you'd be expected to know enough Linux to know how to diagnose a network problem if it happens on one of those systems. Sounds like you already know how to do that. The interviewer might ask a few questions on your Linux knowledge if it shows on your resumé. They'd do that anyway if you have the certification, I'd think, just to make sure it's legitimate.

But then what do I know? I'm not a network engineer, I want to be one but I'm not one yet. I have experience as a user on networks large enough where the corporation would have a need for a network engineer. I did IT support of some level on all of those networks. Just saying my view was from the outside looking in, I wasn't one of them. The structure of the IT department and the office politics will play a big part in if having a Linux certification will help.

Reibe

This will vary greatly based on the duties of the "network engineer". Some network engineers may be heavy on routers, switches, etc; while other network engineers have to regularly deal with servers for different network services (DNS, DHCP, Radius, etc). You should definitely know your way around a linux CLI so you can at least deal with application/service functionality and diagnostics. Anything on top of that would just give you that much more of an edge.

Hatch1921

I can't speak from experience... but... my Cisco instructor recommended taking Linux classes to be familiar with it. (I did)

In his department... his Cisco guys work with the Linux guys and it's beneficial to know the basics. Just passing on the info.

mochaaddict

I asked myself this question years ago. You can accomplish most duties using just windows and can be successful without linux skills. However, when looking for new employment it helps to be comfortable using linux and maybe even a little perl or python scripting.

Trifidw

I'm the only one in my team who is familiar with Linux and it certainly helps, even though my knowledge is very basic.

zimskiz

Based on this answers, I only need to study some basic stuff about linux and not going to deep. I've just finished the fourth chapter from this book ( Lpic 1 by Roderick ) and is so hard to learn all the commands for the exam thinking that I will never use them again. My final decision will be to read the whole book, learn some basic ideas and that will be all. Any further ideas ?

Thank you all !

Bryzey

Get hands on in some virtual machines. If you don't put into practice what you are reading you won't remember much.

Try watching some lpic-1 videos on YouTube. The urban penguin has a whole series.

zimskiz

My main os is from yestarday Linux Mint, so i can practice a lot; but the main ideea was that i cannot be able to pass the exam without doing "linux" in a day by day job.

Trifidw

You might be better off with Fedora/Cent OS as the free, easily accessible versions of RHEL and just familiarise yourself with the CLI.