RHCE Prep tips

senghor

This comes from personal thoughts and If you've been through the RHCE exam, please add any tips you found useful!

Start with the RHCE Exam Prep Guide from Red Hat. Seek to ensure that you are comfortable with every topic there.

Use the Red Hat Online Documentation as additional study resources.

Create a practice environment with at least 2 networked machines (four would be better) and begin practicing. Virtual Machines in VMware will suffice for this if you have access to a VMware server. Create one or more of these systems to be an untrusted "cracker" system. Configure each service mentioned in the Exam Prep Guide. Test it. Secure it so that it cannot be accessed by the untrusted system.

AFTER you are comfortable with the topics in the prep guide, if possible, enroll in the RH300 course from RedHat. DO NOT rely on the course alone -- prepare heavily before attending the training. It will fill in many gaps, but moves VERY quickly and will swamp you if you don't already understand the basics.

Get comfortable with working at the command line and with vi as your text editor. You'll need to be able to function quickly and without hesitation in situations where you might not be able to launch a graphical interface.

Learn how to start system configuration before an installation even completes (and practice this). As soon as the installer begins installing packages, you can use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get a virtual terminal. If you then chroot /mnt/sysimage you can start creating users and groups while the install is still going on.

Partner with others who are also preparing for the exam. Form a study group. Divide up the topics you need to work on and teach the others the topics you've studied (you learn a LOT from preparing to teach others).

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LinuxG33k

senghor wrote: »

Learn how to start system configuration before an installation even completes (and practice this). As soon as the installer begins installing packages, you can use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get a virtual terminal. If you then chroot /mnt/sysimage you can start creating users and groups while the install is still going on.

Not a bad game plan senghor. I am studying for the LPIC-2 and plan on studying for the RHCE thereafter. I wouldn't worry too much about the install process since it's been removed from the new RHCE. The new consolidated 3.5hr format removed the installation step. It was reportedly passed by everyone and thus didn't add value to the test.

I recently found an up-to-date summary of one persons experience with the new format. Worth checking out:

My RHCE Exam Experience Michael Conigliaro

Keep us updated as to your progress. Maybe later on we can all exchange virtual machine logins and "break" each others machine to practice the troubleshooting portion.

MentholMoose

LinuxG33k wrote: »

I recently found an up-to-date summary of one persons experience with the new format. Worth checking out:

My RHCE Exam Experience Michael Conigliaro

Nice link, some good info there!

dynamik

LinuxG33k wrote: »

My RHCE Exam Experience Michael Conigliaro

Excellent. That's one I hadn't seen (most are significantly older i.e. 2003).

I haven't decided if I'm going to go for the cert itself, but I'm definitely looking at delving much deeper into Linux. I appreciate the link.

kkndka

I'll be attempting the RHCE exam tomorrow. I've been tracking the exam for the past two years and have spoken to candidates who have taken the old and new format of the exam.
According to them, the exam has become significantly easier with the removal of the installation and troubleshooting section.
I've taken the RHCE RH300 prep course, after self studying Jang and Asghar Ghori's book as it was priced quite reasonably in my country and entitles me to a discount on the RHCE exam.
Vmware works great to simulate a test environment, I was able to configure a rogue domain to test the security of each service.
I'm hoping for the best tomorrow.

senghor

kkndka wrote: »

I'll be attempting the RHCE exam tomorrow. I've been tracking the exam for the past two years and have spoken to candidates who have taken the old and new format of the exam.
According to them, the exam has become significantly easier with the removal of the installation and troubleshooting section.
I've taken the RHCE RH300 prep course, after self studying Jang and Asghar Ghori's book as it was priced quite reasonably in my country and entitles me to a discount on the RHCE exam.
Vmware works great to simulate a test environment, I was able to configure a rogue domain to test the security of each service.
I'm hoping for the best tomorrow.

Best of luck mate!. and let us know how it goes

NightShade03

Good game plan Senghor. I'm working towards taking this exam soon. I can't sit through the training class because of work projects but they are paying for me to take the "virtual learning" online which gives me all of Redhats study material and remote access to their labs for 3 months (did I mention it's half the price of classroom training!). I'll you know how the training and exam turn out, hoping to sit for it by end of June.

I'll also throw out there that the Asghar Ghori book was a great resource for studying but def requires you to fill in blanks in different topics. I don't think any one book can cover it all because there is just so much material.

senghor

NightShade03 wrote: »

Good game plan Senghor. I'm working towards taking this exam soon. I can't sit through the training class because of work projects but they are paying for me to take the "virtual learning" online which gives me all of Redhats study material and remote access to their labs for 3 months (did I mention it's half the price of classroom training!). I'll you know how the training and exam turn out, hoping to sit for it by end of June.

I'll also throw out there that the Asghar Ghori book was a great resource for studying but def requires you to fill in blanks in different topics. I don't think any one book can cover it all because there is just so much material.

Great Stuff mate!.
add these to your resources:
RHCE Prep Guide
Red Hat Deployment Guide
Man Pages
How-To
Jang's....careful, there are some typos and incorrect info.
cross reference everything you work on.